Let’s talk a bit about communities as they relate to talent acquisition and sourcing. I’m a believer that well-managed and highly engaged communities can have a significant difference in how quickly recruiters fill jobs – and that those differences can be directly related to requisition fill times, quality of candidate, employee retention and return on investment.
There are critical things that should be remembered when thinking about communities – and in this post, I’ll cover the first of 3 that I’m (re)discovering are vital…
1. Real communities need intentionality.
The idea here is that successful communities aren’t successful just because they exist. Creating a LinkedIn group around your recruiting needs or business interest just isn’t enough – and frankly, the “if you build it they will come” approach was only good for a few innings of baseball. Kevin Costner never had sustainability or future recruiting plans in mind, I assure you. What we did see Mr. Costner’s character do that applies to recruiting communities was hard work – and lots of it.
When communities are formed for recruiting, they’re usually found in one of a few buckets. The first of which is your standard “Talent Network.” Job seekers of varied interests are typically allowed to enroll for updates or alerts related to their preferences and are welcomed via an automated message that is more often than not, the only type of interaction that they’ll receive from this channel. In summary, it’s a mailing list.
The second bucket consists of a collection of job seekers that join something like a Facebook page or general LinkedIn group with other job seekers. The idea being that they can connect directly with recruiters or receive updates to questions posted directly to the collective. It’s ideally interactive and benefits all parties involved in that there is a level of engagement not found in a mailing list or through simple alerts.
Our third bucket has networks that are created around interest groups but not necessarily jobs within those disciplines. These are collectives where both active and passive job seekers come together to discuss what’s going on within the areas of global nutrition, innovative technology, mobile marketing and anything else of interest. While jobs can be shared within these networks, they’re not the focal point and participants aren’t hit hard by recruiters as much as they are by opportunities to share their thoughts and ask questions with peers.
For the record, none of these is the ‘wrong’ approach. There is value in offering each, if not all, of these to job seekers and your sourcing teams alike. And while some of the reasons are more obvious than others, one thing remains vital for any of them to be successful: Intentionality
The idea of any of these groups is activity. The goal of the moderators, managers, and marketers is to create a sense of urgency to take part. I believe that long-term urgency is created and sustained by frequency.
The success of these groups and communities is not their existence, but rather how they thrive.
Think of this in terms of a meeting held with your colleagues and peers. How successful the outcome is doesn’t depend solely on having the meeting, but instead is related directly to what is accomplished in that meeting. What is distributed, what is collected, what is shared, what is planned.
A critical cause of success will be related to the participants. In my mind’s eye I see talent communities being a significant part of a Recruiter and Sourcer’s existence – not as community managers, but as relationship builders. Stronger communities will partner with participants outside of the traditional talent acquisition space. Hiring managers answering questions, departmental leads sharing updates and everyone engaging talent. But everything done with a purpose.
Throwing up a community online and leaving it to grow on it’s own might work for a few – but will ultimately result in no more than a mailing list.
Building a community with the intent of frequently and pointedly engaging talented people around the world, whether for jobs available today or anticipated tomorrow, will flourish.
