Chika Uwazie’s TalentBase: The Importance of Social HR to Nigerian Businesses

When companies started to get into the social space to recruit people, not many people felt it was a good place for them to be. While some people still feel this way, many others have moved on and quickly accepted this as a norm, because the only thing that is constant they say is change.

2014 could be pointed to as the year companies discovered they could use social media for more than just communicating with consumers. This revelation has changed recruitment forever. But why exactly is this more important than how recruitment has been previously done? Let’s share some reasons with you.

Saves More Resources
Budgets for recruitment used to be charts high, just because it took a lot to give a notice of a job vacancy at an organisation – both in time, and money. On a platform like LinkedIn with 10 million active job postings, a single job posts gains about 3 times the view it would on Twitter. To reach that same number over radio or TV will take a whole lot more, and sometimes small businesses don’t have such amounts to spend on recruitment.

Employers Meet Potential Hires In Their Relaxed State
Job interviews are one of the most prepared for events in the life of millennials and other job seekers. Before applying for a job, Google sees loads of searches about perfect resumes, body language and more. With social HR, employers meet the real you and start their evaluation from there. This is a plus for them because they begin to make a mental picture of what kind of employee you might be just from your online profile. In some cases, they make a decision right away not to hire you because they don’t like the ‘social you’, which oftentimes is the real you.

Large Talent Pool
Taking Twitter as a sample pool, people are everyday displaying genius that doesn’t come to fore often. It is often like these creators are pitching themselves to be hired as against companies seeking them out. This makes the process way easier for recruiters as they can spot talent they want miles away even before an official meet.

Increased Social Presence
Hiring an active user of social media often translates to having strong social ambassadors for your brand. Millennials who make up the most of social media demographics like to talk about work when it fun, projects they are working and other cool stuff aside their love life and travels. This can be a plus for companies looking to rank high and gain more social presence. In Nigeria, employees at tech startups do this so well that they make joining their respective startups a dream. This explains why 69% of job seekers will turn down companies they believe to have bad reputation.

It’s the millennials world today and the earlier businesses understand this, the better they perform. The three things every business must aim to do on social media is display a culture that resonates with millennials, engage with potential job seekers as they would with consumers; and of course, seek out talent from time to time. Do these, and you get a win at this social HR game.