While incorporating social media into the recruitment marketing mix is a fairly common practice now, companies are still fine-tuning their approach and KPIs to further demonstrate ROI. One company that has been successful in this area is Member Emory University.
Through careful planning and focus, Emory University has incorporated social media to further extend their budget while also reducing the perception that department managers need to use outside placement firms to fill key positions outside the enterprise.
Objectives
One of the first steps in creating a successful social media strategy is identifying your objectives. For Emory University, their key goals were as follows:
- To reduce the cost per hire by moving away from traditional expensive job boards and moving towards social venues that are low cost or free.
- To increase the quality of hires especially in the technology arena which even in the height of the recession, unemployment held steady at 3-5%.
- To seek out passive candidates that have highly desirable skill sets and are still actively engaged in their professional communities.
Strategy
Based on targeting experienced candidates with specific skill sets, Emory University allotted the majority of their advertising dollars with LinkedIn Recruiter. Doing so enabled Emory to find untapped talent pools not accessible through tradition LinkedIn search capabilities.
They built an Emory University specific landing page on LinkedIn to provide in-depth info about their enterprise with a specific link to career opportunities. This tactic was unique within the higher education community and led to the page reaching over 16,000 followers and averaging 2,000 page views per month.
Results
In addition to the large number of followers, Emory University has hired at least 16 staff members and established pipelines that will continue to contribute to the speed and quality of hires. Despite a declining budget for recruitment advertising, this use of social media has allowed Emory to leverage each dollar to the fullest, be more cost effective and efficient, and put their name in the place where the high quality they seek lives and learns on the internet.
Kudos to Member Emory University! Are you a Member company with a success story to share? Enter the DirectEmployers Member Awards Competition! The deadline for submissions is November 7, 2014. Learn more and submit today at http://app.ly/memberawards.
