The rise of the internet and social media has brought a whole new set of challenges for employers looking to recruit the brightest and best talent. Thankfully it has also provided some powerful solutions. Traditional methods of recruitment are no longer enough in a web-based world where change happens at lightning speed and talented people are able to choose from a global pool of opportunities. To compete for the best, recruiters need to think creatively, and to go where the talent is. These days that means the social media.
Google Plus
One of the newer entrants in this field is Google Plus, which has attracted 170 million sign-ups since its launch in June last year. Although analysts estimate that the actual number of active users is closer to 90 million, the network has still shown phenomenal growth and some predict it will have 400 million users by the end of this year. That, plus the unique set of recruitment-friendly features it offers, makes Google Plus a very useful tool for those looking to find and recruit talented staff.
Circles and Video
What makes Google+ interesting for recruiters are features such as circles, which allows users to organise contacts into specific groups which they can communicate and interact with, and hangouts, a video conferencing facility in which up to ten people can participate. It also has a search facility that enables users to search for people by profession, and there are third-party sites such as findpeopleonplus.com which allow the search to be refined to include parameters such as location.
Once identified, candidates can be added to a circle to receive details of the job and the company. They can be directed to the company page to learn more about what it does and why they would want to work for it. And once the employer has found the talent they need, interviews or requests for more information can be carried out via the hangout feature. These are powerful tools for recruiters and will become more so as the Google+ user base grows. This is one social phenomenon that no recruiter can afford to ignore.
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About Matthew Ogston
Matthew is one of the co-founders of JobPage. He's been searching for a job he loved for the last 13 years... and when he couldn't find it, he started JobPage. He blogs here along with Naz, Louise and Claire. Connect with Matthew on JobPage, email, Twitter, LinkedIn or Google Plus
