To celebrate the formal launch of the CIPD Ireland Programme 2013/14, Ryan Shanks, Managing Director & Head of Accenture’s Talent & Organisation Practice in Ireland, and Susanne Jeffery, Chartered FCIPD, Accenture Ireland HR Director, invited us to join them for what was an interesting and informative discussion with some of the top HR Leaders in Ireland on:

It really was a very informative and great event altogether. Well done CIPD and Accenture for the organisation! The networking that followed was as it usually is a great extension on top of the discussions where I actually learned a lot. The social media in recruitment was discussed at great length, and it built on the questions asked during the Q&A session. One of those questions have been:

The Answers from the panelists were:

and

That made me thinking about what’s up with the HR and the social media – why does social do nothing for the HR?

The social media doesn’t fit well with the HR in general. That is the fact.

Through social media, employers can reach candidates faster and at a lower cost because, as opposed to agencies, job boards or referrals, recruiting with social media is totally free.

There are several problems the HR has with all those benefits.

Budget management – the HR owns the budget for advertising. The larger the budget, the more responsibility and hence the more senior HR role. What the introduction of the social media means is a wipe-out of all that budget and the feeling of personal importance with it. This is a purely psychological issue. And the one that can’t be avoided. OOPS!

Social media is absolutely free. Yes there is no financial investment in it but the investment is in time. In fact, in the tremendous amount of man hours. A traditional HR department would have to double or triple the staff numbers to be able to totally replace all the other recruitment channels. Very few will understand that switch and grow the HR department. Some do. Oracle is one of the best examples I know.

Long learning curve – Understanding the social media, and later on finding the ways how to effectively recruit candidates from it is a long process. More often than not your classic HR professional does not have the skills to recruit via the social media. Or worse, not any interest in doing that at all. Social media is about marketing communication – that is not really on top of the list of the average HR person.

Social media is about real time engagement and it allows companies to develop deeper connections with clients in ways that were previously not possible.

Knowing that the vast majority of applicants will never get a job with a company, does the HR have time to build a relationship with them? Does the HR have time to build relationship with candidates that they chose not to hire? In real time? Of course not. HR has more than enough on their plate but chatting online with the failed candidates.

The average HR person is far more concerned with the companies social media policy document (and the non existence of it) and its implementation, than with strategically planning to utilise the social media in the recruitment process.

To successfully recruit from the social media the HR needs to strategically plan this new activity. Most likely the HR should hire the online community managers, bloggers, data analysts, sourcers and fill whatever else knowledge gaps. And guess what – that all sounds like marketing far more than HR, doesn’t it? Does that conclude that to seriously plan implementing the recruitment via the social media, the HR should really start with making the marketing team their best friends and seeing where the synergies are?