How to use Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn in recruitment

Top tips from HR chiefs on where to start with social media recruitment...

If you have vacancies that you're struggling to fill, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn could be the missing ingredient in your recruitment strategy. But how should you go about implementing a social media recruitment campaign? Bethan Jones finds out.

As recruitment freezes begin to thaw and the economy starts to pull itself out of recession, HR managers are looking for new avenues to reach the candidates they need.

The use of social media as a recruitment tool has taken off in recent years with a number of high-profile companies turning to social sites when they're hiring. Among the multinationals using various social media to hunt for new recruits are Burger King, consumer goods company Reckitt Benckiser, and brewing and bottling firm SABMiller.

Consultancy Accenture has also been experimenting with social sites. According to Suzy Style, Accenture's UK recruitment director, the professional services company turned to social media including Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to adopt a more aggressive recruitment strategy to find talent.

"There is a global war for talent and we believe that to [gain an advantage companies need to] develop long-term relationships with candidates. Social networking sites are one of the key enablers in achieving this," Style says.

But it's not just the big names using social sites to access a new talent pool. According to LinkedIn, smaller companies are using the professional networking site's tools to recruit new talent, along with more than 25 per cent of the FTSE 100 in the UK and 50 per cent of the Fortune 100 in the US.

"In terms of company size, we have everything from companies with £100bn valuations to agencies and clients that have two or three people," says Ariel Eckstein, LinkedIn's MD of hiring solutions Europe.

Vic Okezie, founder of social media recruiting consultancy Social Recruiter, says it's often easier for smaller, younger companies to test the social media waters as they have fewer company HR policies in place to battle with. "Obviously in small companies it's very easy to make decisions, especially for the founders of these start-ups who are the early adopters of technology, who use a lot of these applications, who are the iPod generation - they get into it very quickly," he says.

Just for attracting the sheep throwers?
With social media typically most popular among younger workers, using such sites can offer companies a shortcut to getting in touch with graduates on the hunt for their first job.

According to Accenture's Style, the popularity of social networks among graduates is one of the reasons the company started to test social media in the recruitment process. "It has become part of...