How to use Twitter for Recruitment (Recruit with Twitter)

How to use Twitter for Recruitment

Rise of social networking sites have changed the technology space completely. The latest blockbuster in this space is Twitter- a micro blogging site which enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets. It has grown up very differently from its initial purpose- updating what you are doing currently. Now people follow each other, share information and important links, have healthy discussions here. It allows you to stay connected in real-time. It is estimated that currently twitter has a user base of more then 7 Million. 

From initial days networking has been an important part of recruitment.  So now it is time to use social and professional networking tools like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook to help us in recruitment process.

How social networking sites can be used for recruitment:

• Increase your network.
• Publish your jobs.
• Dig out good candidates.
• Share good info about your company and build brand.

Here I will discuss how we can use Twitter for recruitment.

  1) Make an official twitter account (It’s free!!)- be it an individual, company or consulting.

  2) Follow potential candidates.

  3) Engage in useful conversation.

  4) Share information about latest happenings about your company. It will help in brand building.
  

  5) Post open jobs from your twitter account.

 a)    You can’t post the whole JD in Twitter (Remember 140 character limitation). So I suggest posting the whole JD in your website and adding its link on your twitter job post. Candidates will go to the website and post their resume there. Then you can call them and get more information.

b)    Please remember- make a specific protocol for your job postings like: Java Dev, 3-5 Yrs, Bangalore(………link………..). 

c)    Use # tags along with important keywords, which will help candidates search it in twitter search easily like: #ITJOB Java Dev, 3-5 Yrs, Bangalore(………link………..).

d)    Reply to all the responses and queries and interact with the responders.

Ideal job posting in Twitter

  6) One of the best features of twitter is retweet. Candidates can retweet any job if they like and it will be circulated among their followers. So a good attractive job posting can attract very good responses.

  7) You either use same account for corporate information and job posting purpose or you can have a separate account for job postings.

Job Search result in Twitter

There has been many discussions regarding the effectiveness of recruitment related efforts in twitter. Some feel these mediums are over hyped and don’t give much result. While, there is a league of recruiters who believe in social media tools for recruitment.

I believe every new source to find good candidate is helpful for recruitment process. Again the rapidly growing user base of twitter is its strong point. You just can't ignore it anymore. Only you need to learn how to use it suitably to help your recruitment needs.

Now-a-days there are many twitter-related job sites  like Twitmyjobs,Tweetajob,Twitjobsearch etc  who tweet jobs on behalf of you and give many customized services to job seekers and recruiters. You can try them out too.

So, enjoy recruiting through Twitter and please give me your feedback.

#Some more useful resources on same topic:[1], [2], [3],[4],[5]

@fundoorecruiter

Don’t look for best talent in the market!

The title is a little surprising.. Right!

Well let me explain.

Talent is a very over-hyped and misinterpreted word in recruitment industry.

What is the measurement of best talent?

Is hiring only about finding the most skillful candidate for the job?

Finding the best available candidate for specific skill set and sending for interview is not end of a recruiter’s job. Chances are also high that he will clear all the rounds. But what are the chances that he will join the organization?

If he is the best talent available in the market, then probably he should have offers from other organization also- after all good professionals are always in demand. What is the budget of your client? Best candidate will obviously not come cheap. He might bargain for money after being offered. Can your client pay best salary in the market to retain him for long time? Even he will be lured by competitors time and again. Will your client afford losing him in between the project? How crucial his role will be in the project?

Well, there are many more factors than skill and money that will decide if the candidate will join or not!

A recruitment consultant’s job is expectation management- expectation of many parties.

• A candidate wants good working environment, best salary in the market and scope to learn.
• Technical manager wants best talent in the market with relevant work experience and quick learning ability.
• Hiring manager wants cost of resource as low as possible and want the candidate to join before the project starts.
• HR people check his personality ,his background, previous working history. They will also evaluate if he will be a cultural fit into the company.

All of them have their priorities and a candidate can join an organization only if all of them are reasonably satisfied.To be a successful consultant one has to look at the bigger picture. Each candidate you send should match with the broader hiring strategy etched out by client, at the same time your client should be matching to his idea of an ideal employer.

Checks for the recruiter:

• Never send a candidate whose expectation is more than what client can offer. Even if his profile is processed and he clears the interview, chances are very high that he will not join due to salary issues.
• Get as much information about your client, its culture, working environment as possible. When talking to a candidate try to juxtapose it with the candidate’s current working environments. Try to access whether the candidate will find comfortable working environment in your client.One small example to make the point  clearer : Working environment is starts ups and in bigger established companies is totally different. Work process in start ups is more casual and spontaneous, where as bigger and established companies follow a lot of process. A candidate from start up background may find the changes suffocating.
• Try to check how flexible the candidate is.
• Try to find out what the candidate thinks of your client, what is his motivation to join your client.
  

Always remember - sending an unsuitable candidate to a client and finally his not joining is wastage of time for client, candidate and recruiter. So respect their time and you will get respect and success in return.

The whole point of this post is: don’t look for the most talented candidate in the market- rather search for the most suitable one who will join your client happily, stay there for good amount of time and do his job  properly.That will generate revenue and admiration for you.

The sooner we understand the difference between the two the better for us.

How to write a good Job description(JD)

How to write a good Job description(JD)

or

Characteristics of a good JD

Whenever there is an open position or a requirement is identified in a company, 1st thing technical people have to do is to understand the requirement properly and make a  job description(JD). Job description becomes all the more important because it is used by recruiters as a reference point while sourcing. Again JD is sent to candidates , so that they can understand the requirement properly. a good JD can play a crucial role in closing a position quickly.

So, What should be the components of an ideal JD?

1) Designation: Designation he is going to get eg: Software Engineer/ Marketing executive/ Business analyst etc.

2)  Experience range: How many years of total experience and how many years of relevant experience the job requires? eg: 3-6 yrs

3)  Educational qualification: BE,MBA(according to the requirement)

4)  Reporting to : Position of the person whom the candidate is going to report after joining.

5)  Required Skills: Mandatory and desired : Every requirement needs some mandatory skills. Other than this there are some good-to-have skills which if possessed give a candidate edge over other candidates but that is not mandatory. So in JD mandatory and desired skills should be mentioned separately.

          

6)  Roles and responsibilities: Here we have to mention the kind of role he is expected to perform in the current job.

7)  Working environment: Some requirements demand shift work. In such cases it should be made explicitly clear in the JD so that it doesn't create any confusion in future.

So these are the basic components of a good JD.

Many times technical people are not in sync with the talent availability in the market. Suppose they are looking for combination of some specific skills, but there are extremely few profiles with such skills in market. In such cases in stead of searching for something unrealistic, I suggest you to  go back to the technical panel and inform them about the market trends and availabilities. Most of the times after getting understanding of the market availability technical panel give a more feasible list of skill sets. But before approaching panel , please have a detailed look at the market.

I hope the information is helpful to you.

Happy recruiting!

Recruitment Process Explained

Recruitment process explained(from a third party consultant point of view):

1. Requirement gathering
2. Receive the JD
3. Sourcing and sending the resume
4. HR screening
5. Technical screening
6. 1st and 2nd level interview
7. HR round
8. Offer
9. Joining

1. Requirement gathering:

In this phase managers talk to the client hiring managers and gather requirement, i.e, no of open position, basic skill sets , target date of closure etc.

2. Receive the JD:

Here recruiter gets Job Description(here after JD) from the client. The JD explains roles and responsibilities, required skill sets, experience range etc. Before sourcing thorough understanding of the JD is required. If recruiter has any doubt he should contact the client and get clarity.

3. Sourcing:

Sourcing here means finding suitable resume from different sources and talk to the candidates and open them for the requirement.For a recruiter sourcing is a very integral part of their job. Sources of resume can be job portals, database, own network, reference from other candidates, social and professional networking sites etc. Then recruiter has to talk to the candidate, explain them about the requirement properly and tell them why they think his profile can be fitting for the position. If they are looking out, they are interested for the position and their salary expectation is matching to the client benchmark recruiters share there profile with the client.

4.HR screening:

Generally in most of the companies before going to the technical panel the resume goes through the HR coordinators. They screen the resume as per the filters given to them. Whichever resume they find suitable, they send them to technical panel for further screening.

5.Technical screening:

After passing through the HR , resume comes to the technical panel. They also screen the resume to verify if the resume is fitting as per skills required.

6. 1st and 2nd level interview:

All the technical screening shortlisted resume are scheduled for technical interview. It can be telephonic or Face-to-Face according to convenience of both parties. Generally there are two technical interviews. Here technical panel talks to the candidate and try to gaze out the knowledge level of the candidate on required skill sets and if he can fit into scheme of things in the project.

7. HR round:

Once the candidate clears the technical round he faces HR round. Here candidate and HR have salary negotiations, discuss about the notice period and joining date. Again HR checks the candidate on personality front and try to find out if the candidate can be a cultural fit to the organisation.

8. Offer:

If every thing falls into place, candidate is offered by the client. The send a proposed offer letter containing new CTC(cost to company). If candidate accepts the offer then he is officially offered.

Then HR collects different required documents like previous company offer letter, educational certificate copies etc from the candidate. They also do the background verification of the candidate.

9. Joining:

In the mean while the candidate resigns from his company and after serving the notice period joins the new company.

Note:

# Although the above explanation talks about technical requirements , process is more or less same in other types also.

# It was a brief explanation about different aspects of recruitment process and in further posts I will discuss about them in detail.

Fundoo Recruiter