Preventing the Social "Time Suck"

Comments Posted on Oct 12, 2009 Last Updated Jan 31, 2010 Posted by Chris Hoyt (aka: TheRecruiterGuy)

Social Recruiting Tasks In August I posted an article that told Recruiters not to be scared of social that was a follow up to another article related to the evolution of recruiting. So in the spirit of keeping at least some of the content on RecruiterGuy.net relative - and in addressing a few open points in each article, I post today about avoiding the perceived "time suck" associated with social x.

So let's assume you've decided what networks you're willing to devote some time to or that you feel have the potential to show you the most return for your effort. While you know that you're going to need to be flexible in your selection so as to avoid any heartache - you're now on the road to addressing the second point laid out in the previous "Evolution of Recruiting" article.

Where to start (what network?)
How to prevent a Time Suck (recruiters "wasting" time!)
Measuring the Return (hires or applications?)
Maintenance (okay, what now?)

So let's get to it...

For recruiting purposes, just popping in to a social network when you remember to look or if you get a message could not only show a lack of involvement to the audience/candidates but could also easily result in your thinking that the network is a bust. Even worse could be your sudden need to play an insane amount of "catch up" to dozens and dozens of messages or inquiries.

Whether you're recruiting solo or have a small team helping you, setting a schedule of days/time that you (or team members) should be checking the networks for updates is ideal. Team members that know these channels are covered don't feel the need to continually go back and surf or search and aren't worried that they'll miss something or someone while caring for day to day responsibilities.

Here's putting my money where my mouth is with an actual screenshot of this week's task list.
Outlook Screenshot

Along the same lines of setting schedules, it's important to be regimine in the time spent looking for, and contributing, relevent content to/from your networks. While many people enjoy the use of Google Alerts to stay current I'm much more a fan of RSS to keep me updated. Setting some solid keyword notifcations up in an RSS reader can save hours weekly.

Ensuring that your social recruiting efforts stay social means that you've got to be active. And while I'm fortunate enough to require very little sleep and have an insane passion for my field - some of us may need more sleep or have slightly less motivated teams or different priorities. (You know, the ones that want a real life and demand personal time... The nerve, right?)

It's a smart idea for some to create content that can be set to publish at a later date. Many blogs let writers create content and set it to publish at a future date - allowing them to write multiple articles in a single setting and schedule each to "go live" on various days of the week. While this not only gives someones blog the appearance that content is written each day, it keeps the channel alive with material and encourages readers to return.

Many social networking platforms have this type of delayed publishing built right in and that is easy to take advantage of. In fact, even the infamous Twitter has services like Tweetlater that allows people to create content that can be pushed out to the Twittersphere at future dates.

Ping.fm One of the most frequent questions I hear is not related to keeping up with so many different social networking sites so much as it is contributing content or comments to so many. While there are a few tools that allow your content to be aggregated to many different platforms, the most popular is probably Ping.fm - where posting a single update can be sent to almost 50 different platforms with a single click.

Combining tools like Ping.fm with RSS and basic time management practices can greatly reduce the struggle that most recruiters feel when attempting to employ "Social Recruiting" efforts. After all, this new channel of recruiting was an addition to the workload of all but a microscopic number of us. (I know no one where I work said, "Hey, just dump your workload and figure out social, m'kay?" and I'm betting you didn't hear this either.)

This isn't the Holy Grail of social time management - but these are some strong basics that help and that keep me pretty darned productive. If you're wrestling with this topic, I'd recommend that you find a rythym that works for your schedule and the networks you're recruiting from - and stay engaged.

In summary:

Establish a Calendar and task list like you would any other project
Utilize Alerts - RSS/Google
Scheduled Publication
Teamwork

So in answer to what I anticipate will be a question that follows:
30 minutes a day.

I spend no more than 30 minutes a day during a workday contributing, commenting or pushing content towards tactical social recruiting efforts.
And yes, I think it's plenty. And yes, I think it's more than worth it.