Social Media in Recruitment

Executive Summary
Truly world-class leaders empower key employees to become evangelists for the firm on social
media platforms, helping customers, building the brand, attracting talent, and giving a personal
face to the company. In addition to the external advantages, these key social media leaders
become even more engaged and personally bonded to the company, its mission, and goals if done
correctly. These employees can come from anywhere in the organization, from interns, to line
personnel, to managers, to product leaders, to executives – but it must be done correctly and be
given the support and attention necessary to prevent the foray from falling flat.
Collaboration: Constant, transparent, and effective collaboration with employees, candidates,
customers, and suppliers.
Talent management: Top performance delivered through robust and real-time training,
development, and support
Administration: Employee-centric Human Resources (HR) operations, regardless of where
employees are in the world or organization hierarchy
Employee engagement: Single, unified culture with engaged employees driving business
success.

Definition and purpose of the project
With 1.5 billion active users on Facebook, 500+ million active users on Twitter, 238 million
active users on LinkedIn and 60 hours of new videos every minute on YouTube, social media is
hot and popular. Due to this enormous popularity and growth in the last years, it is for
organizations interest that they are required to participate in social media and get engaged with
their potential candidates and current employees. Evidence indicates that companies that actively
use the social media for HR purposes outperform than those that do not use them. Social media is
becoming a tool for Human Resource managers.
The purpose of this study is to understand how the HR function in corporate have recognized the
importance and impact for using social media to attract and engage talents.

Objective
·

To get a clear view of how social media for HR is being leveraged in Corporate

·

To find the strategies of HR function to use Social Media as a tool

·

To understand the usability of Social Media in HR

·

To get a clear view of how impact is measured for use of social media in HR.

Introduction
What is Social Media?
Wikipedia defines social media as "a term used to describe the type of media that is
based on conversation and interaction between people online. Where media means
digital words, sounds & pictures which are typically shared via the internet and the value
can be cultural, societal or even financial.” This is actually a great definition but when
you first hear it, its not exactly friendly on the ears. Let’s take a look at short video and
then we’ll revisit this.
"A term used to describe the type of media that is based on conversation and interaction
between people online. Where media means digital words, sounds & pictures which are
typically shared via the internet and the value can be cultural, societal or even financial."
The best way to define social media is to break it down. Media is an instrument on
communication, like a newspaper or a radio, so social media would be a social
instrument of communication.

Why social media:
Most

social media-savvy organizations in India use the medium to build communities

95.7% of the surveyed social media-savvy organizations in India use the medium to build
communities and advocate usage while 76.1% use social media as a platform to highlight brand
news. Around 16% of organizations, which use social media for both the above reasons, also use
it for customer service, lead generation, and research indicating high social maturity and moving
toward getting business meanings out of engagements.
Which social media platform:

Facebook

most important platform for marketers in India for engaging customers, followed by

Twitter, YouTube and blogging
Almost half of the social media-savvy organizations are already using emerging platforms such
as Pinterest, Google Plus, and Foursquare. More than half of the social media-savvy
organizations surveyed regularly engage with bloggers or online influencers who have authority
and strong following.

How does social media fit in with other marketing/communications campaigns?
Social

media-savvy organizations in India have conducted campaigns where social media is the

leading component
Social media-savvy organizations in India speed up processes or show special favor for
online fans
Among the respondents 87.5% said they have conducted campaigns where social media was the
leading component. More than half of the surveyed organizations have speeded up processes or
have shown a special favour for their online fans and followers that they wouldn’t normally do
for their offline customers.
How do organizations engage with their social communities?
Popular
oType

practices

of content: A majority of social media savvy organizations prefer to post generic updates

instead of brand updates.
oFrequency

day.

of updates and responses: Social media-savvy organizations post multiple updates a

Majority of social media-savvy organizations respond to fan queries within 30 to 60 minutes on
Twitter and within 30 minutes to a few hours on Facebook.
Contests/promotions:

Picture contests are the most popular contests among social media-savvy

organizations in India — most contests are organized monthly.
Policies:

Majority of social media-savvy organizations in India surveyed have social media

guidelines for better governance and online monitoring programs to listen to conversations;
however, less than half have crisis manuals.
Tools

used: Many social media-savvy organizations in India use tools for online monitoring,

response management, or managing social media platforms.
Social

media for research: Almost half of the social media-savvy organizations in India have

conducted research using social media tools to get customer feedback and understand more about
customer behaviour.
Mobile:

Half of the social media-savvy organizations in India have created mobile phone apps

and one-fourth plans to create one.
How do organizations use social media ads:
Majority

of social media-savvy organizations use social media ads to promote online campaigns

and brand awareness, and find them beneficial
83% of the social media-savvy organizations surveyed said that they have used social media ads,
with majority of the ads being used to promote a contest/promotion or for brand awareness.
88.6% said they find social media ads to be beneficial in achieving those objectives.
How do you measure social media success?
Majority

of social media-savvy organizations in India measure social media efforts through

platform-specific parameters

81% of the social media-savvy organizations surveyed said that they measure their social media
efforts through platform-specific parameters such as likes, people talking about this, etc. 46.7%
of the organizations surveyed said they have not measured revenue from their social media
efforts. On the positive side, some organizations are already measuring social media efforts
through leads, sentiment, brand visibility and have seen increase in revenue from social media
efforts.
Social media budget:
Almost

half of social media-savvy organizations spend 1%–5% of their marketing budget on

social media, most social media budgets are below INR10 million
41.5% of social media-savvy organizations said that around 1%–5% of their marketing budget in
spent on social media. Three-fourths of the organizations surveyed have their social media
budget below INR10 million, while a little above a quarter of the organizations surveyed have
social media budgets exceeding INR20 million.
Which department manages social media:
Majority of

social media efforts in India are managed by marketing teams

76.7% of social media-savvy organizations said they have their marketing department handling
social media with the rest being handled by a cross functional team/across functions or by the
PR/communications team. Other than marketing, 34.6% said they use social media for thought
leadership and 26.9% said they use social media for CSR. A majority (70.2%) said they have an
in house social media expert in middle management.
Agency structure:
Majority

of social media-savvy organizations in India use standalone digital agencies as

compared to PR or ad agencies
73.8% of surveyed social media-savvy organizations have chosen standalone digital agencies as
compared to PR, ad agencies, or freelancers. 59.1% of the organizations surveyed also said that
they are happy with their current agencies while 40.9% responded with either a ”maybe” or a
”no.”

Future

of social media:

Social media-savvy organizations in India are very optimistic about the future
Social media-savvy organizations are very optimistic about the role of social media in their
organizations. Though measures such as sales and leads are not very evident for all
organizations, they have realized that it plays an important role in generating insights and
engaging with customers on a continued basis. Social media has helped organizations to create
their own communities of fans, customers or prospects. In the future, organizations hope to focus
more on social media and are looking forward greater adoption within their organizations.

23 Interesting Social Media Statistics and Facts About India

1.

India has 125 million Internet users

2.

On an average, Indian web users spend 26 minutes online each day

3.

87.1 million users experience Internet on their smart phones and this number is

expected to grow to 165 million by 2015
4.

Top social media networking sites are Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Orkut,

BharatStudent.com, Zedge.net, Ibibo.com, and hi5.com, Shtyle.fm, Indyarocks,
Fropper.com and Myspace.com.
5.

Facebook has 45 million, twitter has 15 million and LinkedIn has 45 million users in

India
6.

India is predicted to be the top Facebook user by 2015

7.

The top 5 Facebook pages on Facebook are Dove, Tata Docomo, MTV Roadies,

Kingfisher and Fastrack
8.

The top 5 twitter brands in India are MTV India, NDTV, Times of India, IPL, CNN-

IBN
9.

Top 5 YouTube channel in India are Rajshri.com, Eros Now, YRF (Yash Raj Films),

Sasvn and IPL
10. Indians spent whopping 807,200,000 minutes on the ESPN during 2011 ICC world
cup which adds up to 150 years

11. Mumbai has the highest FB user database with over 3.7 million users
12. There are 73% male FB users and 27% users are female
13. India ranked to be the second largest country with 142,339 users in Google+
14. Pinterest gets 4.8% traffic from India who gives 3.9% of page views
15. 60% of social networking traffic comes from non-metro cities in India. However the
highest traffic comes from the metros i.e. Mumbai
16. The male to female ratio in terms of social media usage is 60:40 indicating that
males are the top users
17. Social media is available for only 60% of the entire Indian audience
18. Age group of 15-24 are the highest number of social media users
19. On an average Facebook is visited at least thrice a day
20. Major chunk of the time spent by Indian audience is on Facebook games, apps
and viewing photos
21. Facebook is the only social media network that has seen tremendous growth which
two times in the last six months
22. In the next six months, twitter will have 25000 Indians joining every day
23. Salman Khan, Indian Bollywood actor, is declared the King of social media with 7
million fans on Facebook and 3million followers on twitter.

Growing trend of usage of Social media
If you’re managing social media for your business, it might be useful to know about some of the
most surprising social media statistics this year. Here are 10 that might make you rethink the way
you’re approaching social media.
10 Surprising Social Media Statistics That Will Make You Rethink Your Social Strategy
1. THE FASTEST GROWING DEMOGRAPHIC ON TWITTER IS THE 55–64 YEAR
AGE BRACKET.
This

demographic has grown 79% since 2012.

The

45–54 year age bracket is the fastest growing demographic on both Facebook and

Google+.
For

Facebook, this group has jumped 46%.

For

Google+, 56%

Those are impressive numbers against the prevailing idea that social media is "just for
teenagers." It certainly points to the importance of having a solid social media strategy if
these age brackets fit into your target demographic.
Rethink it: Keep older users in mind when using social media, particularly on these
three platforms. Our age makes a difference to our taste and interests, so if you’re
focusing on younger users with the content you post, you could be missing an important
demographic.

2. 189 MILLION OF FACEBOOK’S USERS ARE "MOBILE ONLY"
Not only does Facebook have millions of users who don’t access it from a desktop or
laptop, but mobile use generates 30% of Facebook’s ad revenue as well. This is a 7%
increase from the end of 2012 already.

Rethink it: There are probably more users accessing Facebook from mobile devices
than you thought. It’s worth considering how your content displays on mobile
devices and smaller screens before posting it, particularly if your target market is full of
mobile users. Of course, make sure to make sharing to social media from mobile more
straightforward.

3. YOUTUBE REACHES MORE U.S. ADULTS AGED 18–34 THAN ANY CABLE
NETWORK
Did you think TV was the best way to reach the masses? Well if you’re after 18–34 year
olds in the U.S., you’ll have more luck reaching them through YouTube. Of course, one
video won’t necessarily reach more viewers than a cable network could, but utilizing a
platform with such a wide user base makes a lot of sense.
Rethink it: If you’ve been putting off adding video to your strategy, now’s the time to
give it a go. You could start small with simple five-minute videos explaining what your
company does or introducing your team.

4. EVERY SECOND TWO NEW MEMBERS JOIN LINKEDIN
LinkedIn, the social network for professionals, continues to grow every second. From
groups to blogs to job listings, this platform is a rich source of information and
conversation for professionals who want to connect to others in their industry.
Rethink it: LinkedIn is definitely worth paying attention to. In particular, this is a place
where you may want to focus more on new users. Making your group or community a
great source of information and a newbie-friendly space can help you to make the most
out of the growing user base.

5. SOCIAL MEDIA HAS OVERTAKEN PORN AS THE NO. 1 ACTIVITY ON THE WEB
We all knew social media was popular, but this popular? Apparently it’s the most
common thing we do online. So next time you find yourself watching Kitten vs.
Watermelon videos on Facebook, you can at least console yourself with the fact that the
majority of people online right now are doing something similar.
Social media carries more weight than ever. It’s clearly not a fad, or a phase. It
continues to grow as a habit, and new platforms continue to appear and develop.
Rethink it: Putting time and effort into your social media strategy clearly makes sense in
light of these stats. If you weren’t already serious about social media, you might want to
give it a bit more of your time now.

6. LINKEDIN HAS A LOWER PERCENTAGE OF ACTIVE USERS THAN PINTEREST,
GOOGLE+, TWITTER AND FACEBOOK
Although LinkedIn is gathering new users at a fast rate, the number of active users is
lower than most of the biggest social networks around. So more people are signing up,
but they’re not participating. This means you’re probably not going to have as good a

response with participatory content on LinkedIn, like contests or polls, as you might on
Facebook or Twitter.
Rethink it: If you’re hoping to get people involved, think about which platforms are best
for that. Looking at the latest Twitter statistics and Facebook statistics, these platforms
might be a better place for your contest or survey, while passive content like blog posts
or slide decks might be just right for your LinkedIn audience.

7. 93% OF MARKETERS USE SOCIAL MEDIA FOR BUSINESS
Only 7% of marketers say they don’t use social media for their business. That means
there are lots of people out there getting involved and managing a social media
strategy. It’s becoming more common to include social media as part of an overall
marketing budget or strategy, as opposed to when it was the outlier that no one wanted
to spend time or money on.
Rethink it: If you’re struggling to make your strategy work, or you just want some
advice, you don’t have to go it alone. If 93% of marketers are using social media for
business, you can probably find someone to give you a hand. Plus, there are lots of
blogs, videos and slide decks around to help you out. Be sure to find the right social
media management tool for you to stay on top of everything.

8. 25% OF SMARTPHONE OWNERS AGES 18–44 SAY THEY CAN’T RECALL THE
LAST TIME THEIR SMARTPHONE WASN’T NEXT TO THEM

It’s pretty clear that mobile is a growing space that we need to pay attention to. And
we’ve all heard the cliché of Smartphone owners who don’t want to let go of their
phones, even for five minutes. Well, apparently that’s not too far from the truth. If 25% of
people aged 18–44 can’t remember not having their phone with them, there are
probably very few times when they’re not connected to the web in some way.
Rethink it: While you can reach people almost anytime, since they have their
smartphones with them almost always, this also means you can interrupt pretty much
any part of their lives. Don’t forget that having a phone in your pocket all the time isn’t
the same as being available all the time.

9. EVEN THOUGH 62% OF MARKETERS BLOG OR PLAN TO BLOG IN 2013, ONLY
9% OF US MARKETING COMPANIES EMPLOY A FULL-TIME BLOGGER
Blogging is clearly a big focus for marketers who want to take advantage of social
media and content marketing. This is great, because blogging for your business has lots
of advantages: you can control your company blog, you can set the tone and use it to
market your product, share company news or provide interesting information for your

customers. With only 9% of marketing companies hiring bloggers full-time, however,
the pressure to produce high-quality content consistently will be a lot higher.
What a lot of people struggle here is how to write the best headlines for your articles,
when the best time is to publish posts and lots of other blogging questions that arise
when people are starting out.
(Of course, not all marketers work at marketing companies, but the stats are still
interesting--how many companies in any industry can afford to hire--or already have--a
full-time blogger?)
Rethink it: If you don’t have (or can’t afford) a full-time blogger for your business, be
aware that having a content strategy that requires consistently posting on your blog will
mean a lot of work for your marketing team and/or other team members in your
company to keep up that volume. This can work, it’s just important to realize how big a
task it is to run with a full-time content strategy without a full-time content creator.

10. 25% OF FACEBOOK USERS DON’T BOTHER WITH PRIVACY SETTINGS
We’ve seen a lot of news about social media companies and privacy. Facebook itself
has been in the news several times over privacy issues, Instagram users recently got in
a kerfuffle over changing their terms of service, and the recent NSA news has seen
people become more conscious of their privacy online.
But despite these high-profile cases of security-conscious users pushing back against
social networks and web services, Velocity Digital reports that 25% of Facebook users
don’t even look at their privacy settings.

Rethink it: Assuming that all of your customers are thinking along the same lines could
be a big mistake. Especially if you’re basing that on what you’ve heard or read in the
tech news. Remember that your customers might have very different priorities than what
you expect.
Your social media strategy really comes down to what your goals are, and who your
target customers are, but it doesn’t hurt to pay attention to the trends happening across
the web. Hopefully these stats will help you to identify trends that will affect your
strategy and adjust accordingly.

MOST INNOVATIVE COMPANIES 2014

THE WORLD'S TOP 10 MOST INNOVATIVE COMPANIES IN SOCIAL
MEDIA
From proving the power of brevity to providing a secret place in an age of unprecedented public
exposure, here are fast company's top 10 most innovative companies in social media.

1. TWITTER
For proving the power of brevity--this time with video. Video sharing and social media were two
separate things before Vine showed up on Twitter. Forty million users later, Vine has become a
culture in and of itself. Marketers are studying Vine for insights into what their consumers care
about and how to reach them, and it is still growing in spite of Instagram big-footing its way into
the marketplace. The six-second videos are often ingenious, beautiful, or both, and thanks to a
new feature called "revining," added last summer, it is giving rise to a new breed of viral
celebrities.

2. WHATSAPP
For catching the under-25ers falling out of love with Facebook. Texting and Facebooking is so
passé--at least for WhatsApp's audience. As more parents (and grandparents) text and post status
updates, their broods are looking for something cooler, and WhatsApp has easily elbowed to the
front of a line of alternative messaging services. With 430 million monthly active users--up from
400 million in December--the company sends 50 billion messages per day. It's accomplished this
scale by charging only a nominal fee (free for the first year, 99¢ per year after) and never
supporting ads. Features have evolved over the app's four-year existence to include group
chatting, location sharing, and voice messaging, ensuring that as SMS continues to decline,
WhatsApp will reign as king for quite a while in its category.

3. TENCENT

For taking chillingly aggressive steps to defend its social media perch. At 400 million
registered users, Tencent's WeChat is the giant among Chinese social messaging platforms, and
in the last year, it's taken an almost admirable aggressive stance to fend off attacks from
challengers. In an attempt to further develop its own product ecosystem (à la Amazon), the
company partnered with device maker Xiaomi to launch a phone aimed specifically at
WeChatters, and in a clear warning to international competitors, offered 10 terabytes of free
cloud storage to new foreign users. These are moves that its rivals, such as the declining Sina
Weibo, can only dream of keeping up with.

4. SNAPCHAT
For cultivating controversy into a cultural phenomenon. Like Vine, Snapchat has developed its
own culture: It has transcended teen sexting and is now a medium unto itself. What began as a
way to transgress risk-free has become a valuable tool for people to manage the overabundance
of media in their lives--namely by getting rid of it. By the end of 2013, the service was fielding
400 million uploads per day--more than Facebook--up from 200 million in June.

5. NASA
For taking giant (social media) leaps for mankind. Perhaps scandal-prone brands could learn
something from NASA when it comes to social media. The agency, which describes its followers
as "customers," manages its 480 different social media accounts so that mission updates and
developments are communicated directly to users--not through news media. NASA's Google+
Hangouts from the International Space Station, stunning Vine clips of erupting solar flares, and
clever tweets from the Mars Curiosity rover have resulted in a social media presence that is
nimble, beloved, informative, and full of personality. It boasts nearly 6 million Twitter followers
and 2.5 million Facebook fans, and in the five months since it joined Instagram (home to
astronaut Mike Hopkins's famous space selfie), it has racked up 600,000 followers. Consultants
and interns, take note.

6. TINDER

For changing the dating game with a simple swipe. Tinder tapped into a vein of discontent with
traditional online dating and has single-handedly upended the concept of virtual courtship.
Innovation No. 1? Building the app on top of users' existing social media presence, which
streamlines the sign-up process and adds a measure of credibility to a potential sweetheart's
identity. Innovation No. 2? Leveraging touch screens with its dead-simple "swipe left, swipe
right" functionality for those without much time to waste on plenty of fish. The app was getting
400 million swipes per day as of late November, and despite competition from upstarts like
copycat Hinge, its popularity is holding firm.

7. PLAIN VANILLA GAMES
For playing upon the love of trivia to build communities--and one of the year's hottest games. On
QuizUp, players can challenge best friends or total strangers in niche interests--from ancient
Greece to Breaking Bad to Beyoncé. The result? An addictive, real-time trivia game that also
establishes microcommunities of users who can chat, compare rankings, or discuss ideas on the
more than 300 quiz topics available on the app. Within three weeks of its November launch,
QuizUp had attracted more than 3 million users, becoming the fastest-growing iPhone game
ever. Determined not to lets its hit become a fad like other mobile games, Plain Vanilla raised
$22 million just after Christmas, and by the end of the year, QuizUp had been downloaded 5
million times. Call it a nod to the power of community.

8. REBELMOUSE
For building a sounding board for showy social media users. Unlike (many) other social media
aggregation tools, RebelMouse funnels posts into a Pinterest-like interface that lets users show
off--instead of sift through--the content in their feeds. The tool is also easily embedded, which
means RebelMouse can function almost as a personal home page, letting megabrands like Burger
King and Pepsi display thousands of tweets and photos from happy customers. (Funded in part
by superinvestor Ken Lerer, it's also powering his daughter Izzie's animal-rights site, the Dodo.)
As of August, more than 300,000 sites had been built using RebelMouse, and unique visitors
were up 900% compared with a year ago.

9. WHISPER
For providing a secret place in an age of unprecedented public exposure. The two-year-old
secret-sharing app doesn't disclose user numbers, but its monthly page views more than doubled
over the course of 2013, from 1.5 billion in May to 3 billion by year's end. The service is based
on simplicity and anonymity: Write a few lines, choose an accompanying photo, and release your
secret into the world. Fellow users can "heart" the images, and a staff of guardian editors keeps
the tone positive. Toward the end of last year, founder Michael Heyward hired virality whisperer
Neetzan Zimmerman (formerly of Gawker) to expand Whisper's reach outside the confines of the
app, setting up 2014 growth to be just as big--if not bigger--than what we've already seen.

10. FOURSQUARE
For finally finding its way. After years of stagnant revenue growth, the location-based social
network is showing signs of life, raising $35 million in Series D funding and adding 10 million
new users in the second half of the year. A December redesign of the iOS app boosted usage by
60%, and in an aggressive move, it no longer allows private check-ins, making the app much
more appealing to advertisers--which Foursquare began accepting in October. CEO Dennis
Crowley and company are also experimenting with passive check-ins, in hopes of removing what
many view as the service’s pain point. And it unveiled smart notifications that can serve up
friends’ venue suggestions based on a user’s location.

Social Media in HR
The area where social media is used as a tool in HR are :
Recruitment and selection
Training and development
Employee engagement
Employer branding , Alumni network, etc

Social media Recruitment
Social

recruiting

is the

use

of

social

media

for

recruiting

including

sites

like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. It is a rapidly-growing sourcing technique,
especially with middle-aged people. On Google+, the fastest-growing age group is 4554. On Twitter, the expanding generation is people from ages 55-64. Mobile social
recruiting is rapidly expanding. CareerBuilder ran a recent survey of the Fortune
500 companies and discovered that 39% of people in the United States uses tablet
computers. Another recent survey done by Glassdoor.com revealed that 43% of
candidates research company policy, culture, and history all within the fifteen minute
time period before an interview begins. However, 80% of Fortune 500 companies fail to
use mobile-optimized career sites.
According to media reports, Indian organizations use social media much more than the
global average and their counterparts in emerging economies. Our study of social
media marketing practices among various social media-savvy organisations in India has
thrown up some good insights. The study answers key questions that many marketers
have in India such as what is the business objective for using social media, what are
some of the best tactics, what is the average social media budget, how do you measure
social media, and what is the future of social media.

How Social Media Changes HR
Social media is the biggest shift in thinking and communication since the Industrial Revolution.
It’s bigger than the fax machine 1,000 times over. Companies and brands can engage their
customers and friends can connect with friends online. It’s a place where everyone and anyone
can have a voice and participate in the conversation happening online and in real time.

Like most things in life that involve change, there are those that embrace the change and there
are those that do not. In the corporate world, departments like information technology and
marketing adapt well to the change. IT because they’re job is to protect information and the

online infrastructure, and so walls are built around knowledge, websites are blocked, and data is
protected. For marketing, change is easy as the department looks for the newest, fastest, and
most cost effective way to market a product, drive sales, and fatten the bottom line.
When it comes to the corporate world, HR is often one of the last to adapt to change. Mostly
because they are the keepers of policy, procedure, order, and the employee. They were the keeper
of the employee until social media changed the game.
Social media changes HR in 3 fundamental areas:
Employee

Communication. Before social media, employers communicated to their

employee using in person meetings, email, memos, and interoffice mail. Changes in policy or
corporate restructures were communicated the same way. There was control, predictability,
and a flow to the communications as well as change. Enter social media. Employers must
now communicate changes to their organization making the assumption that by telling one,
you are telling all. Gone are the individual meetings where HR travels to one location at a
time, announcing terminations and restructures. A single tweet or Facebook update serves as
public notice to any type of corporate change throwing a wrinkle in the corporate
communicate process.
The

Voice of the Employee. Before social media, companies could rely on break room

suggestion boxes, employee hotlines, and closed room meetings as a way for employees to
raise and express concerns. A company’s biggest fear was a EEO Charge or a letter to the
editor. Enter social media. Through social media, blogs, and online forums employees can
now share their experiences and suggestions good as well as bad. Like consumers companies
have little control except to monitor, address the change, and continue to communicate.

Employer

Branding. Even during a recession, employees have choices. In the past,

employers communicate their job openings using one-way conversation tools like the
newspaper, job boards, or career fairs. HR and Recruiting teams are now seen as an extension
of their PR and Marketing departments except their target audience using social media is
candidates not consumers. Of course in many cases, these are one in the same. HR and

Recruiting teams are forever changed as they use social media to talk directly to the
candidate if they are active, passive, or indifferent.

Social Media HR Statistics
80 percent of companies use social media for recruitment... And 95 percent of them use
LinkedIn - searchenginejournal.com, February 2012
84 percent of the Fortune Global 100 use at least one social media platform- BursonMarsteller, February 15, 2011
Virgin Atlantic sacks 13 crew members over Facebook posts - The Guardian, November
1, 2008
Cisco retracts job offer on Twitter - The Telegraph, January 21, 2010
76 percent of U.S. companies used LinkedIn’s 100 million registered users for
recruiting.
84 percent of job seekers have a Facebook profile, and 48 percent of them have done at
least one job-hunting activity on Facebook in the past year.

61 percent of millennials don’t go to the traditional company support groups first; they
prefer to turn to the Web and other external resources.
Corporate e-mail is growing 20-25 percent per year, with data storage costs soaring.
41 percent of 2011 university graduates used social media in their job search.
40 percent of companies admit to having no training or governance of social media
40 percent of companies admit to having no training or governance of social media.

China is the most socially engaged market in the world, with 84 percent of Internet
users contributing at least once a month to either social networking, blogging, video
uploading, photo sharing, micro blogging, or forums – they are followed by Russia,
Brazil, and India
36 percent of social media users post brand-related content.
60 percent of employees would like help from employers to share relevant content.
We all know recruiters and HR departments are using social media to recruit future talent and, as
you can probably guess, LinkedIn is the most used one to recruit new employees, followed by
Facebook and Twitter. Numbers are worth a watch though and you’ll probably be surprised. If
you think of it, with these numbers it means the strategy works doesn’t it? According to this
infographic by Staff 73% of companies successfully hired a candidate with social media, 42
percent say candidate quality has improved and 31 percent saw an increase in employee referrals.
But be careful too, 1 out of 3 employers rejected candidates based on something they found on
social profiles.
Here are our top 3 stats from the infographic:
•

92% of companies use social media for recruiting

•

3 of 4 recruiters check candidates’ social profiles

•

29% of job seekers use social media as the primary tool for job searching.

Supercharging talent acquisition and talent management
Talent acquisition is one of the first areas within many companies to embrace the social media
opportunity. At its best, this can include accelerating the entire recruiting process from posting
openings to sourcing candidates, reviewing resumes, making an offer, and on boarding.
Advances in talent acquisition can present a challenge to your company’s internal
communication and HR practices. Newly hired employees who had a great online experience
may be surprised to find that the internal systems and culture are not as advanced or
sophisticated … they may not even have access to those same recruiting sites while at work.
Once employees are on board, social media can be leveraged for connecting employees to
interest groups (e.g. volunteerism, mentoring, diversity). More sophisticated companies are using
technology and social media tools to create deep expert directories that are populated by
employees with information about themselves and others.
Progressive organizations are dispensing with the annual performance cycle and moving to more
real-time feedback and coaching. Social media tools make true 360-degree feedback a reality.
Imagine the power of gaining immediate insight into your team’s performance from their internal
and external customers. Social media is making this process a reality. As your organization looks
to retain and increase its talent pool, staying connected with passive job seekers becomes more
critical.
Progressive organizations are dispensing with the annual performance cycle and moving to more
real-time feedback and coaching. Social media tools make true 360-degree feedback a reality.
Imagine the power of gaining immediate insight into your team’s performance from their internal
and external customers. Social media is making this process a reality. As your organization looks
to retain and increase its talent pool, staying connected with passive job seekers becomes more
critical

Why corporate HR has done a U-turn on social media
When Marriott International announced it was opening a new Courtyard by Marriott
property in Bilaspur, it got over 300 CVs through its Facebook page. The page was
launched just a month ago and already has 1.1 million likes.
A few months ago, Godrej Consumer Products started using Yammer, an enterprise
social networking site, not unlike Facebook. What surprised Sumit Mitra, head - group
HR and corporate services, the most is the rapidity with which employees caught on to
it, irrespective of age, location and hierarchy. It is rapidly emerging as a platform to
share best practices across the business, and has now been rolled out across the
Godrej Group.
Cisco Systems has brought down its usage of placement agents from 50% to less than
5% of the total people hired over the last four years bringing down recruitment expenses
by over Rs 30 crore a year, while L'Oreal India saved on 93% of its recruitment costs
last year by using social media.
Look closer and you realize that these aren't stray examples. From a time when Indian
companies instructed their IT departments to put in firewalls to block access to all kinds
of social media, they are now exploring how these sites can be leveraged. "We are past
that stage where we debate the impact social media will have on productivity; you have
to learn to channelise it creatively," says Prasenjit Bhattacharya, CEO, Great Places To
Work, India.
Godrej first started experimenting with social media as an HR tool in July 2012 for
Godrej Loud, its campus recruitment program. "After the initial campus visit, all
communication for this initiative was done through Facebook and Twitter. The benefits in
terms of reach, cost effectiveness and productivity are significant," says Mitra. Apart
from the tangible cost incurred in flying people across the country multiple times, there
was a high hidden cost in terms of management time and productivity. The company
has now moved its entire summer internship (and campus recruitment) process to
Facebook.

Platform Play
At L'Oreal India, the use of social media stretches up to mid-management positions as
well. Mohit James, director-HR, says that the company has its own company page on
LinkedIn and has hired for over 20 senior level positions in functions like IT, marketing
innovations & development through social media platforms: "The hiring process
becomes a lot more open, cost effective and has a faster turnaround time. Using social
media allows you to reach out to far more people than you could have earlier, and it also
gives them a chance to see what the brand is all about before they even apply."
While a number of companies have signed up with Microsoft's Yammer or are simply
using Facebook for their online communities, for those with the tech expertise and
inclination, building your own platform is always an option. At HCL Technologies, MEME
was the result of a group of enthusiasts who went ahead and created an internal social
networking platform despite feasibility concerns from the IT department. With over
80,000 active employees, this is now an integral part of the communication process at
HCL. Prithvi Shergill, chief human resource officer, HCL Technologies, says, "The
Company is present in 31 locations and this is a convenient way to reach out to
everyone." There are special interest pages and the human resources department even
uses it to get people's opinions on policy changes before actually rolling them out.
One big reason why social media is gaining acceptance as an effective communication
tool for companies is the entry of the digital natives into the workforce. Over 60% of the
employees at Cisco are under 30. The company uses Webex Social, its own social
networking platform for all internal communication, including buying and selling things.
Subash Rao, senior director - human resources, Cisco Systems says, "It is essential to
reach out to employees in a manner that they are most comfortable with. So with most
people spending more time on their phones, we've ensured that Webex Social and
Cisco Jabber, an instant messaging service, are both accessible on the mobile." The
company is now in the process of shifting static intranet pages like blogs to this platform
which will make the exchange far more interactive. – Economic Times. Nov 15, 2013

KMPG – One of the Big 4 using it as a tool for employer branding and other HR
functions

ICICI Bank –Product promotions , policies, recruitment drives all over India are
mentioned on the Facebook page of ICICI bank.

Letsintern.com – One of the popular site for internship for graduates and undergraduates in India.
Using social media as a tool for recruting and getting connected to various campus all across
India.

And many more….

Update your Recruitment and Selection Process with Social Media

The use of the big three social media networks, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, are
gaining traction in the recruitment and selection process, with LinkedIn taking the lead.
Studies show that almost half of recruiters using social media for the recruitment and
selection process use LinkedIn exclusively, but Twitter followers are almost 3 times
more likely to apply for a job through social media than a LinkedIn connection, and
recruiters have the smallest Twitter networks of the three. While recruiters have been
building their LinkedIn networks, candidates using social media for job search are
exploring and participating on Twitter and other new social media platforms.
The recruitment and selection process has traditionally been about finding and talking to
candidates with the skills and education needed to do the job. It has evolved into a more
complex process of attracting top candidates and engaging them through employer
branding, company culture, and development opportunities. Social media has evolved
much faster than the mainstream, traditional recruitment and selection process, and
recruiters and employers are finding new ways to use social media to connect with
candidates. More than a way to announce job openings, social media has become a
strategic tool in the recruitment and selection process to reach candidates who might
not normally apply, candidates with specific niche skill sets, and candidates in specific
areas.
Beware of Legal Issues
The Society for Human Resource Management’s survey “Social Networking Websites and
Recruiting/Selection” published in April 2013 found that more than half of employers don’t
have any policy on screening candidates through social networking sites. That means they
are not providing any guidance for recruiters or hiring managers about how to comply with
employment laws and regulations when using social media in the recruitment and selection
process. The survey also found that employers that do have policies about screening

candidates through social media are evenly split about the practice, either allowing or
prohibiting it.
Legal experts recommend caution when using social media in the recruitment and selection
process to avoid legal issues.
Here’s why:
• If you review an applicant’s online profile, courts will assume you are aware of any protected
characteristics such as gender, race, religion, age, sexual orientation, and disability.
• Using social media to source and screen candidates without a standardized process
applied uniformly to all candidates leaves room for the appearance of special treatment or
discrimination.
• You may come across information in social media that wouldn’t normally be available during
a traditional recruitment and selection process and that doesn’t apply to the candidate’s ability
to do the job. Using this information in a hiring decision may appear to be or actually be
discriminatory.
Some legal experts recommend not reviewing a candidate’s social media presence before
selecting the candidate to interview, and instead suggest providing a release form in the
application giving consent to view internet and social media sites.
Social Media Recruiting Strategy
There are several important things to include in a social media recruiting strategy if you plan to
use social media for your recruitment and selection process. To use social media in your
recruitment and selection process, you’ll need:
• Employment Brand - Plan to tell your company’s employment story in social media to let
candidates know your company’s values, mission, and goals, work environment, benefits, onboarding process, and any other information you feel will attract candidates. Include a brief

company history for the recruitment and selection process, as well as a word from company
principals and top performing employees, and a description of customers.
• Social Content Development and Management – You’ll need content to participate on
social media and attract and engage the kinds of candidates you need. Provide regularly
scheduled, valuable content shared across social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Twitter,
Google+, and Facebook in a variety of formats including videos, presentations, infographics,
and polls.
• Candidate Marketing – Incorporate candidate marketing into your social media recruitment
and selection process by engaging candidates through a defined process. This could be
conducting weekly or monthly Google Hangouts and inviting targeted candidates to discuss
your opening, your company culture, their expertise in the areas of openings you are trying to
fill, or their job search experience. Profiling your existing employees on YouTube when
announcing open positions similar to what they are doing and pointing candidates to the video
is a great strategy to get a conversation going about the positions you have open.

Managing risk associated with social media
Many companies that use social media struggle to successfully integrate it into their daily business
routines. The challenge is frequently found within the creation, execution, and enforcement of social
media policies. Many companies do not establish policies to govern social media usage or can find their
policy difficult to enforce due to lack of employee engagement and training on the topic. Given these
challenges, it is not surprising that many executives prefer to avoid the topic by saying that they have no
need for social media or policies to manage it. However, as companies begin to realize the true value to
be gained by social media adoption, consideration of workforce risk is essential for avoidance of loss of
employee goodwill, information breaches, and reputational damage.
Many companies’ social media policies are negatively oriented directing what not to do. Consider the
impact to your organization of a positive social media policy with a positive orientation. Many clients
have successfully delivered real value through formally engaging their workforce with enhanced social
media policies and engagement models. When these are defined and communicated to employees, a
new set of evangelists are created. They can aid the organization in carrying positive messages to the
marketplace regarding the quality of their products and services as well as the nature of the workplace
itself being a collaborative environment where creativity and expression of new ideas is both welcomed
and encouraged.
Organizations are progressing to the next level of adoption but are still struggling with the question,
“How do we best manage our social media programs?” These same organizations are challenged with
fully adopting social media and capitalizing on all of its benefits. The rapid evolution of social media
and diversity of related applications creates a highly challenging legal environment that will need to be
continually monitored. Your organization must consider workers’ rights in each unique geography as
you customize your social media policies. Your ultimate goal should be to provide guidance that does
not contravene legal frameworks. Our firms’ professionals have found that the leaders who are charged
with creating social media policies are often not a typical social media user. Policy-making executives
should start with learning more about social media tools and how both the organization and its
employees are using them. This knowledge gap can be a considerable challenge to overcome, but in
many cases, is addressable through third-party courses or the use of management consulting services.
Once leaders are better informed on the nature of social media utilization in their organization, they can
prepare a strategy to leverage social media as a tool that aligns with the overall vision, mission, and
strategy of the organization. Managers responsible for the performance of others should also now

consider how tools such as LinkedIn and Facebook are being employed by their employees to build
professional networks and how performance in these areas can be quantified and used for performance
evaluations. Organizations now have the ability to utilize knowledge from external audiences around the
globe that they could never reach before. It is changing the way we do business today. Additional
benefits include the ability to enhance your public image, improve interactions with customers, and
promote employee engagement. But it is not without internal and external risk.

2014: The Year Social HR Matters
In 2013, organizations finally began in earnest to integrate social technologies into recruitment,
development and engagement practices. In 2014, this social integration will become the status quo. The
digital immigrants have now caught up to the digital natives – we are now all digital citizens. The fastest
growing demographic on Google+ is 45-54 and on Twitter it is 55-64! And it’s a good thing that baby
boomers and other older generations have embraced these tools, because using social media inside
companies will be increasingly important in 2014 and beyond. For one thing, this year we’ll see more
forward-thinking HR leaders making the connection between having a solid social media strategy and
finding top talent. After all, 47 percent of Millennials now say a prospective employer’s online
reputation matters as much as the job it offers, according to a survey by Spherion Staffing.
The year will also see a new phase of what I call “the consumerization of HR,” wherein employees not
only demand to bring their own devices to work, but also want to use these mobile devices to change the
way they work with peers, communicate with their manager and even interact with the HR department
Employees are requesting to view new job postings on their tablets, learn and collaborate with peers on
their smartphones, and provide feedback on a team member’s performance with the click of a button.
According to a Microsoft survey of 9,000 workers across 32 countries, 31 percent would be willing to
spend their own money on a new social tool if it made them more efficient at work. This last finding is
quite interesting as it shows the extent to which Millennial employees, who will make up 50% of the
2020 workplace, see the business value of using technology on the job.
2014 is the year HR departments must start creating “social media playbooks” to determine their game
plans. Looking at the big picture helps to determine those priorities. Here are seven social media trends
to watch in the coming year as organizations leverage all forms of social collaboration to re-imagine
how they source, develop and engage employees
1. Big Data Lets New Jobs Find You Before You Even Know You’re Looking
Amid our nation’s legendary dearth of skilled workers, talent acquisition has risen to the top of the CEO
agenda. According to PwC’s global CEO Study, 66 percent of CEOs say that the absence of necessary

skills is their biggest talent challenge. Eighty-three percent say they’re working to change their recruiting
strategies to address that fact.
Meanwhile, a host of big data recruiting firms is set to benefit from the newly emphasized value being
placed on recruiting. These firms tout that they can find new talent before the prospective employees
even know they are in the job market. Companies such as Entelo, Gild, TalentBin and the U.K.’s the
social CV analyze not just a job candidate’s LinkedIn profile, Twitter feed and Facebook postings, but
also their activity on specialty sites specific to their professions, such as the open-source community
forums Stack Overflow and GitHub (for coders) Proformative (for accountants), and Dribbble (for
designers.) This approach to recruitment is creating a new technical world order where job applicants are
found and evaluated by their merits and contributions, rather than by how well they sell themselves in an
interview. These companies, at the intersection of Big Data and Recruiting, have made a science out of
locating “hard to find” talent. Gild does it by scouring the Internet for clues: Is his or her code well
regarded by other programmers? Does it get reused? How does the programmer communicate ideas?
How does he or she relate on social media sites? How big are their networks and who is in them? Entelo
and TalentBin take a different approach: Their search tools consider the experience and history
mentioned in users’ profiles, but also their use of social networks. These companies can pinpoint users
who have updated their bios lately or often, to determine which candidates are getting ready to enter the
job market. Getting this head start on head hunting is crucial as corporations’ search for top candidates
becomes ever more competitive. The goal: finding talent invisible on widely popular social platforms
before your competitor does.
2. Mobile Apps Are the New Job-Search Frontier.
According to a study of Fortune 500 companies conducted by CareerBuilder, 39% of the US population
uses tablet devices. A recent survey conducted by Glassdoor.com even found that 43 percent of job
candidates’ research their prospective employer and read the job description on their mobile device just
15 minutes prior to their interviews. And yet, only 20 percent of Fortune 500 companies have a mobileoptimized career site. The rest of the 80% of companies are missing the fact that tablet and smartphone
users expect to see job listings and information in a visual way, one that reflects the visual approach they
bring to their personal lives on the Web. The food-services corporation Sodexo, the 20th-largest
employer in the U.S., got a head start in that process in early 2012, when it developed both a mobile-

optimized career site and a smartphone app to pull together all the information about the company’s
recruiting efforts into one easy-for-Millennials-to-access place. Prospective employees could visit the
mobile app to search and apply for jobs, join a talent community, receive job alerts, and get an insider’s
view about what it’s like to work for Sodexo. The results according to Arie Ball, VP Talent Acquisition
at Sodexo, 17 percent of job traffic from potential new hires now comes from the mobile app versus just
2 percent of mobile traffic in early 2012. In the first year, mobile app downloads totaled 15,000, leading
to over 2,000 new job candidates and 141 actual new hires, all while saving the company $300,000 in
job board postings. Organizations need to keep pace with the way prospective employees live their lives,
and being able to access a mobile app in the job search process will become standard in 2014.
3. Companies Use Gamification In The Workplace
Over 60 percent of the Western world’s population plays video games, and companies are taking note of
the huge numbers of future prospective employees who love to play Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja, Candy
Crush, and World of Warcraft. Gamification in the business context is taking the essence of games—
attributes like puzzles, play, transparency, design and competition—and applying them to a range of
real-world processes inside an organization, from new hire on-boarding, to learning & development, and
health & wellness. Video game-players are known for being singularly focused while at play. So
naturally, companies have begun to ask how they can harness that same level of engagement and apply it
to critical problem-solving, on-boarding new hires or developing new leaders? With technology research
firm Gartner predicting that 40 percent of global Fortune 1,000 companies will soon use gamification as
primary method to transform their business processes, 2013 saw a number of them leveraging game
mechanics as a tool to drive higher levels of business performance. NTT Data, which I profiled in my
previous Forbes column, Gamification in Leadership development, has been using gamification to
develop leaders, and it is already seeing results. The company’s “Ignite Leadership” Game, aligned with
its overall employee engagement framework, was created to develop five key skills for leaders:
negotiation, communication, time management, change management and problem solving. To date, a
total of 70 leaders have completed the gamified leadership program, and 50 employees ended up taking
on team leadership roles – that’s 50% higher than had done so through traditional training and coaching
methods. Plus, these “graduates” of the Ignite Leadership Game generated 220 new ideas in their roles
as leaders, which led to a 40 percent increase in employee satisfaction and helped lower attrition by 30
percent. Gamification in the workplace is not just about using badges, mission and leaderboards. Instead,

the strategy about truly understands who you are trying to engage, what motivates them, and how
gamification can change the way they work, communicate and innovate with peers and customers.

Primary Research
Primary research was conducted by a medium of a questionnaire to companies such as Nielsen India,
Mahindra Rise, Mahindra Partners, Essar group, Sports Works India and Axis Securities.

Questionnaire
Have they leveraged social media in HR ? Yes/ No
Which are the areas in HR where Social Media is used ?
What was the rationale behind using the Social Media as a platform for various HR functions?
What are the technicalities involved in implementing HR practices on social media platform ?
What are the benefits of social media in HR with respect to their organization?
How do they reputation management; which is a challenge for all companied going on Social Media
platform?
How is the impact of using Social Media in HR measured?
What are your learning’s from using Social Media?

Questionnaire Analysis
Which are the areas in HR where Social Media is used
Many of the companies feel that the major benefit of social media for the company is hiring and
employer branding only a few companies felt that social media helped them in employee
engaegment. It shows that there is a possibility of people will stop visting inactive job portals
like timesjob and turn to social media for a better job and profile.
Rationale behind using the Social Media for HR
Companies feel that there is a visibilty to a large number of people over social sites and getting
connected to these people is much more easier and faster. Cost effective and time saving too.
Technicalities involved in implementing HR practices on social media platform
All the companies felt that there should be a creative team or a proper corporate planning team to
work on social media for best HR practices in the organization so as to attract the best fit

Benefits of social media in HR with respect to their organization
Main benifit of social media is the reach and visibility to the masses and less costlty. Many
companies prefer social media like facebook, twitter, LinkedIn, etc.

Reputation management; which is a challenge for all companied going on Social Media
platform
Companies can bulid their reputation by good publicity of the comapny and its employees.
Social media helps the companies to build a good brand in the minds of the employees and
people in the corporate world.

Measuring Impact of using Social Media in HR measured
Impact of social media is measured by the hits on the website views and also the likes on post on
Facebook, LinkedIn,etc. Also when people follow blogs twiiter accounts of companies it helps to
measure the reach and impact of social media.
Learning’s from using Social Media
Its a cost effective tool for buliding the orgainsation brand and hiring the best fit for the
organisation. Companies also feel that they get sufficient information of candidates at time of
recruiting them.

Conclusion
It’s clear that social media tools are transforming the way we work … and will continue to do so
in ways we can only imagine. It is critical for Human Resource professionals to understand what
these tools are used for and assess the risks and opportunities they may present to an
organization. Social media is redefining how companies innovate by connecting people and ideas
in ways that have previously not been explored. Smart HR executives are adding social media to
their arsenal to showcase the company, attract and find the brightest talents, onboard and train
employees, connect them to each other, and help them achieve their goals