Last month I wrote a case study about Deloitte and their successful social media strategy to attract talent in Holland.
And what struck me was the human side that Deloitte is trying to put into the recruitment process.
Each recruiter has an individual profile with qualities/defaults and hobbies and some of these bios are quite funny and entertaining.
You can even have a chat with these recruiters if they are online at the time you are on the website (not sure if this feature works properly).
And at least, you can contact them directly as the website displays individual email addresses. Everything is tailored to give you a human touch and show the real face of the people involved in the recruitment process!
Are we heading towards a more humanized recruitment process?
Back in April, Matt Alder, during the conference "Social Media in Recruitment" talked about the whole move that recruitment is doing towards a more "human" recruitment. We can see the faces and names of recruiters on Linkedin or other social networks. We know them better and we can even gather data about who they are. That is one of the consequences of Social Media...at last, recruitment is not anymore a cold letter saying that you have not been selected from an undisclosed person...(if you are lucky enough to get a letter).
Some companies are trying hard to give a human touch
I was talking the other day to David Mason, talent acquisition manager for CH2M Hill (I wrote another case study about what they did) and he told me that one of the challenge he would like to embrace was to be able to respond individually to each application he was receiving.
And to be able to leverage Social Media would be precisely to send a reply to EACH application whatever happens and it is one of their future challenge. And the challenge is a technological one...as it depends on their CRM and ATS and the way they interact between each other.
But are social networks giving us the ability to be more human in the recruitment process?
I really think they do.
And for various reasons!
- Now you can check the recruiters profiles everywhere...the balance of power candidates/employers is shifting gradually towards candidates
- With social networks and the easiness to communicate their anger, companies are really aware of the power of nuisance of frustrated candidates (on their Facebook walls, on twitter...) and they try to reply to each comment on these platforms. Which means basically that if you are a candidate and you did not have any reply to your application, if you leave a message on a Facebook wall, you are more likely to get a reply than anywhere else.
- To attract and create a strong employer brand, giving a human touch is the ultimate step and another reason why talents or candidates fitting into your culture will be willing to join your company.
- Good buzz will spread easily with this human touch...people are more attracted to a human face of a recruiter than to a cold brand
Is giving a human touch a marketing move or a real move towards something different?
Obviously it depends on the companies and the initial culture...you can't build a company only on sand and marketing illusion...you need a strong basis. So I think the human touch needs to relate to your company culture (that is the reason why a lot of agencies, which are profils and KPIs driven can't really give a human touch to their recruitment process).
There are still some companies using other people's profiles to source and connect with on Linkedin instead of allowing their recruiters of using their own profile. They think to themselves..."what happens if this person leaves???".
Yes recruitment may take a more human side...but we are still a long way from this. Agencies don't have time to be more human, companies don't have resources, but there is some hope.
I really think that what Deloitte did, is a kind of example of using Social Media to create a real human feeling. That, when applying for a job, it is not "The company reply" but "John's reply"
It may sound unrealistic, but we maybe on the move towards something like that.
And you, do you know other examples of companies giving a human touch to their recruitment process?