52 ideas on using social media within HR

It has taken me a while to get this lists published, I originally had the idea six months ago! Below are 50 51 52 ideas on how you can use social media within your HR and Recruitment strategy.

Not all of the ideas are practical for all organisations, and I would never recommend you trying to implement all of them at once! Or for that matter without an overall strategy *insert ad for Inspecht social media consulting here*. The list is more designed to stimulate ideas and discussion on how all these new tools can be used in business today. You will notice most of the ideas require no financial outlay other than a bit of time, so most have a very solid demonstrable ROI.

1. Get out and personally engage with your peers, join groups such as Recruiting Blogs or HRM Today
2. Sign up for Twitter
3. Start an external blog on HR areas that interest you
4. Join groups on LinkedIn and contribute to the conversation
5. Get a feed reader and subscribe to blogs about HR & recruiting
6. Upgrade your internet usage policies so employees understand the “rules of engagement” with social media
7. Encourage your hiring managers to begin engaging with potential candidates before they are needed
8. Setup content watchlists and alerts to track suspects & prospects and your competitors key hires
9. Setup an internal tagging site to allow anyone in the company to “tag” external suspects who might be potential candidates
10. Use social bookmarking tools to collect links of sites and articles that are relevant to your hiring practices, share these amongst your peers
11. Teach managers how to use RSS, watchlists and alerts to find out when people are discussing your company and products, as they could be potential candidates
12. Publish exit interview results (remove incriminating personal content), encourage employees to comment and suggest ways to resolve the issues
13. Create a wiki for new policy or process development
14. Create an open 360 degree feedback tool that allows anyone in the company to rate and provide feedback on anyone else
15. Allow people to bid internal credits for additional project work, once complete the manager then rewards employees with additional credits to be used on other projects
16. Create an alumni social network to allow you to connect with ex-employees, retirees and long term leave employees, you might get some of them back
17. As part of outplacement activities provided online branding programs to manage their existing online reputation and to build a sustainable online presence.
18. Use these tools to focus on headcontent not headcount
19. Implement a microblogging tool, such as Yammer or Co-op, internally
20. Publish exit interview answers (personal details removed) on the internal intranet so everyone can see why people are leaving
21. Deploy a wiki on your careers web site and allow both successful and unsuccessful applicants to document your recruitment process
22. Implement a Live Chat feature on your careers page so if candidates have questions on jobs or your company they can contact recruiters, or the hiring manager directly
23. Instead of sending emails, write blog posts, tag them & refer employees to the key posts for information
24. Develop micro-training programs
25. Create a employee group on Facebook/MySpace to allow your employees to join together online
26. Get people blogging internally about their learning experiences, especially those expensive university courses, such as MBAs
27. Create a page on your intranet (maybe using Yahoo Pipes) to consolidate the WatchLists for key candidates and competitor hires, then share the link to your key hiring managers
28. Monitor sites like Glassdoor to see what people are saying about your HR practices
29. Have a blog setup for new employees before they arrive
30. Include training on blogs, wikis, and sharing tools as part of the induction program
31. Invite new employees to post welcome messages on intranet, wiki, forum or blog (technology of your choice)
32. Conduct background research on candidates using search engines
33. SMS Interview reminders to candidates so they don’t forget, or shift reminders if you are in retail or hospitality
34. Start a YouTube channel and allow anyone to post videos of their experience either working for, with or being recruited by your company
35. Create video’s of mock interviews and post on YouTube
36. Create a cool company recruitment video and post it on YouTube, then pass it around a few friends and see what happens. (Don’t know what a cool recruitment video is, then don’t try.)
37. Create videos job ads for some of your key positions, post them on YouTube and link tot hem in the job ads
38. Create a jobs podcast to support major recruitment drives, such as graduates
39. Create podcasts on your interview process with sample questions and even sample answers to that you get the best results from your interview process
40. Add your company to Jiibe so the right people come to work for your organisation
41. Add a share on Facebook, Digg, Stumbleupon link to your job ads
42. Look at advertising job on social network sites such as Facebook or MySpace, of course the right type of job
43. Implement the My Company’s Hiring Facebook application
44. Sponsor some blogs to help prospective candidates understand what it is like to work at your company, or what the recruitment process is like
45. Use social networks (Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, LinkMe, Twitter, World of Warcraft) to develop relationships with potential candidates
46. Use employee networks and your own social networks as referral networks for jobs
47. Run a Career Fair in SecondLife
48. Have your employees & managers run online career fairs, talk about life in the company, court potential talent using social media
49. Invite your new graduates to your company Facebook group before they join so they can begin engaging with people
50. Deliver induction/on boarding training via Facebook using the Udutu Teach Facebook application
51. Have multiple people involved in your campaign, in case someone leaves
52. Have fun!