Naukri.com's Facebook Page Review

In today's world where social media has become a part of our day to day life, many companies are putting efforts to attract business and customers from these tools. Out of all social media tools Facebook seems to be much ahead of others, so it becomes obvious for organizations to use it properly for corporate communications.

Facebook(FB) with huge user-base provides great scope for brand promotion. In india also facebook has surpassed Orkut as the most popular social network site.Many indian companies are using FB for branding activities.On this context I was checking Naukri.com's facebook page.

Here is a quick review-

Though I am not sure when they started this page, but their 1st post appeared on 24th sept, 2009. So that means it is up for more than 1 year.

Info page is decent where they have mentioned about their company and it contains their url id also.

For last one year the number of posts from Naukri.com is only 15, which is very less. So they seem to be neglecting this page.

However the plus part is they are not spamming followers time-line. All their posts are relevant.Mostly they have done postings when they have new updates, release of their jobspeak info,video of their TV ad etc.

Once they have put a contest also. Contests are good way to attract more followers. But  the sad part is they have not followed it up with another post announcing the winners.This should have been corrected.

Despite putting posts few and far between, they have managed to gather 1274 followers in last 1 year , which is quite decent number.

Naukri.com is no doubt the most popular Job Portal in India. if they give more focus to their fan page, they will be able to make a good follower base here. It can help them connect with their customers in a better way and they can communicate their messages  and gather feedbacks easily.

Indian IT Companies Yet To Use Twitter as a Recruitment Tool

Every now and then we read in media about how Indian companies are adopting social media for various purposes like  branding and PR, sales and service etc.
It intrigued me to check how they are using Twitter for a very important function: Recruitment.

I searched for Job/Career channels of Indian software companies in Twitter and here is what I found :


1) Copmany name:            TCS
    Official Twitter account: @followtcs
    Job/Career channel:       NA

2) Company Name:            WIPRO
    Official Twitter account: @Wipro 
    Job/Career Channel:      @WiproCareers  (381/1494)

    My observation:          Few walk ins are posted.Average 4-5 tweets per month.In  the current upswing in market I am sure  they have hundreds of open jobs.

3) Company Name:           Infosys
    Official Twitter Account:@Infosys
    Job/Career Channel:      NA

4)  Company Name:           Mahindra-Satyam  
     Official Twitter Account:@mahindra_satyam 
     Job/career Channel:      NA

5) Company Name:            HCL Infotech
    Official Twitter Account: @hcltech
    Job/Career Channel:       @HCLTechJobs (0/494)
    My observation:             Not much active recently. Last tweet on Jan 7th.

 6)Company Name:            Patni Computers
    Official Twitter Account: @Patni
    Job/career Channel:       NA

 7) Company Name:           Oracle Financial Services(Previously I-Flex):
     Official Twitter Account:@OracleFS 
     Job/Career channel:      NA

 8) Company Name:           Mphasis
     Official Twitter Account: Could not find one

 9) Company Name:            L&T Infotech
    Official Twitter Account: @LnT_Infotech 
    Job/Career Chanel:        @Infoknights (7/122) [added later]
    My observation:             Not much activity.



 10) Company Name:         Capgemini
      Official Twitter account:@Capgemini
      Job Channel:               @capgeminijobs  (14/194)

         My observation:            Few jobs have been posted but still not much activity.

As you can see, most of the big IT companies in India dont have a job channel in Twitter. Even if some have , they are not using it actively and effectively.Whoever is using it, they are not forming the job tweets properly - either location or some other keyword is missing or no hash tags(#) etc.

This pushes me to think:
Do Indian IT companies feel twitter has not grown in India sufficiently to be used as a recruitment tool effectively?
Or They are yet to feel the potential of Twitter fully?
Or Indian recruiters are not very Tech Savvy ??

Or Few companies which have Twitter job channel are not getting desired results?

I agree that traditional methods like job posting and resume sourcing from job boards, job posting on newspapers, taking help from recruitment agencies are still pretty effective. However looking at the phenomenal growth rate of new social media and the additional advantage they bring, I feel companies should start using these tools as an additional source to find candidates. I know many recruiters who use linked-in as a sourcing tool .But Twitter is yet to catch their fancy.

New Job Share Option For Recruiters in Naukri

Naukri has recently added a new feature for recruiters - when you are about to finish a job posting a window appears which allows you to share the job in different social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Brijj.I have earlier mentioned that Naukri has already started many twitter channels where they share job links for specific skill sets.

So,I feel this too is a timely and welcome step.

When there is a huge discussion going on whether social media will take over job portals as the major source of recruitment for organizations,job portals  have to find new ways to reach more audience.What they can do is, use social media to share their job links.This way they can spread the reach of their jobs significantly.Now social media will complement job portals instead of posing competition.Naukri has realized this and already working on this line.

This new feature by Naukri will encourage organizations to open their official accounts in different networking sites(if not done till now) and use them to share their jobs.This is the beginning of changing recruitment scene  in India and it will lead other job portals to follow the steps.

In fact I think Job Portals should give a "share" button with every job post(like we use in blog posts) , which can be used by both organizations and candidates to share jobs in their networking sites.[Update]Apparently both Naukri and Monster have share option in their job pages.My mistake.[Update]

Twitter, Recruitment and Future

Recruitment through twitter is still in experimental stage. Recruiters around the world are trying it in their own ways and results have been varying. Once in a while we come across nice insightful articles where recruiters explain their learning and also give their view on future of twitter-recruitment.

Recently I came across an interesting article by Matt Alder of Recruiting Futurology .

 First let me explain the basic plot of his article and then I will express my views on the matter.

Here he means to say that - with so many people posting their jobs in twitter , in future all the available jobs from different organizations will be open in twitter world. This will create a huge open access job database(he calls it :Job Cloud) as compared to close access databases of current job boards.The candidate will only have to search with keywords in twitter search or customized job search tools like Twitjobsearch  and find his choice job easily.He is envisioning that some websites will come up which will put the jobs available in twitter in a more systematic way and provide tools to candidates where they can filter and find their required jobs.

Well,Mostly I agree with his opinion.

We all talk about how organizations should start their job channel on Twitter,attract candidates to follow them, keep them engaged through interaction and keep posting jobs time to time.Free job posting.Why to pay job boards for each job posting when we can do it for free? Well, in this whole issue we are ignoring convenience of one very important party here-Candidates. Just imagine with every organization starting their own job channel in twitter, how many channels should a candidate follow to keep himself updated about new suitable jobs? Ain't we expecting too much from candidates? So is organizations posting their jobs in their twitter channel a bad idea? Will their job postings get desired exposure and response?Can they make big follower base?

What can be a suitable soultion for both parties involved - candidates and organisations?

Well ,One solution I can think of  is Twitter job sites like Tweetmyjobs, Tweetajob. These sites post job tweets for lots of clients and they have separate channels dedidated to different skillsets.So a candidate can follow his skillset based channel and get all suitable jobs in his stream.No doubt organisation has to pay to these sites per job tweet, but I believe the charges are pretty less and organisations can get large number of readymade followers for their jobs!

Second Point: Is organizations  posting jobs in their twitter channel still a good idea? 

My answer would be YES. Whenever you post a job in Twitter , it comes into open world for all to see and find out. In future candidates will use Twitter search more and more to find suitble jobs(as Matt Alder says and I agree) , and if you have given proper keywords while posting the job, you will find some customers.Any good response is useful, so no harm in posting. My only suggestion is not to depend entirely on your job channel.

Again, one more issue is regarding threat to job boards from Twitter and other social medias-In my opinion job boards will never die. They provide highly targetted customer-base(who are looking for job) and have got loads of feature that makes process easier for both the parties. And for the recruiters who hate boards because of too many irrelevant responses- what is the guarantee that you will get less or no irrelevant responses from twitter job post? In fact odds are same in both the cases. In my opinion in future job boards should integrate with twitter and start their own skill based channels. While posting a job in board, they should cross post it in twitter with the link. This way twitter can compliment job boards by driving more traffic and maximising the responses.

I would be eager to know your responses. Please share your opinion in comment section.

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

Google Buzz and the Buzz Around it!

 Google unveiled its new social networking feature Google Buzz recently and it has already taken the web by storm. Whole WWW is filled with 1st person experiences, reviews, apprehensions, admirations and predictions. Buzz is a social feature which is integrated with Gmail.So you will find a tab called Buzz below inbox in your Gmail account, where you can share photos,links, messages or any other update with all your followers or some selected people. One advantage that Google has here is the already established user base of Gmail. As buzz is integrated in Gmail, the Gmail-users will automatically use it. So it will also include the not techie types into the social wave who were not kicked enough to log into a separate Twitter and other social networking sites, but have a Gmail account.

Buzz is easy to use and not complex like Google’s earlier social offering Wave.

With passing time, people will discover Buzz more and more and with it they will find good uses of it.

Can anybody suggest how candidates can use it effectively during his job finding process?? 

I can think of one use as of now:

# Form a Gmail group with your friends who are looking for similar opportunities. Ask them to do so, too. When ever anyone of you finds any good job related link, share it here.Easy and targeted! It will remain shared with in the group and not to all. This way you can help each other. What say? 

I know we can do it through mail also. But buzz is new and in fashion my friend!

Here we have an advantage over Twitter: When you share any link in twitter it comes in stream of all your followers, right. In most of the cases the link may not be useful for everybody. So it is up to the user to click on the links he wants to follow. In Buzz you can chose people whom you want to share the info or update.

Explore the Buzz and please share the new and useful usages you find.

Fundoo Recruiter

Simply hired goes social with Linked In, Facebook and twitter integration.

Simply Hired, the largest job search engine network, recently announced some new social job search features through integration with Linked IN, Twitter and Facebook.

Lets have a look at them.

They have introduced two main features:
1)Linked in Mash-up
2) Share with Facebook, twitter and Linked-in contacts.

1)Linked In mash-up:  Suppose you come across a requirement for which you are interested. You just have to  click 'Who do I know' button and it will show people who are in your network in linked-in and they work in the same company who have the job requirement.In my opinion this is a great tool, because you can ask your contacts in the company to refer you for the post, which increases your chances.

2)Share:  Here you can share good requirements with your contacts in twitter or facebook or linkedin. I have only one problem with this feature. When you share the req in Facebook or twitter it will be seen by all your friends or followers, out of them it may not be useful for 95% of people.

Social media is buzz word now. So this new features will definitely give boost to popularity of Simply Hired.I think all job boards will also start these features very soon.

Fundoo Recruiter