And the Social Recruiting Survey Award Goes to…

We had a great time in Las Vegas last week meeting and talking with the ever-lively HR professionals at the HR in Hospitality Conference.
Since the conference did not end with an awards ceremony, as some shows do, we’ve put together an unofficial list of winners from an informal survey we took on the expo floor.
So, without further adieu, the winners are…

Most Used Social Platform for Recruiting after LinkedIn:

Facebook just edged out Twitter to take first position. This is actually close to the SHRM data collected last year (Slide 14) which found recruiting use of Twitter to trail that of Facebook by about 15%.
However, what we found more revealing than the difference in adoption of these platforms was, rather, the similarity in what the respondents wanted us to note, namely:

• Their Marketing Department officially owned these social channels.
• These channels naturally aimed to drive branding and engagement first.
• Their main challenge was how to balance brand engagement with recruitment activity on these feeds.

We assured them that they can balance that brand engagement with recruitment activity via social media. In fact, keeping Twitter job channels and Facebook careers tabs separate from a brand’s main engagement channel is actually a best practice we apply and preach at TweetMyJobs.

Most Common Reason Someone Came Directly To Our Booth:

Bandwidth. Our most engaged conversations were with professionals who were already managing, at some level, a social recruiting tactic. Usually this management was manual—copying and pasting job listing URLs from their career site and posting onto various social platforms.
But those who had the best question, the most defined problems, came to our booth ready to share their challenges because they had arrived at a tipping point. They were outgrowing the current method and needed to graduate to a robust solution that could grow alongside their business.

 Above is an excerpt of our New TweetMyJobs Product One Sheet that we debuted at the show. To request a copy, please contact us and note it in your message. We’ll send you one right away.

Most Candid Answer to Our Most Asked Question:

“So how are you using Social Media for recruiting today?”
The individual replied with confidence, “Well I’m glad you asked.” Then after a pause, “We are using it very poorly.”

Although I cannot disclose to whom I can credit this candid, and comically delivered, quote; I will say that the conversation that followed was one of our most engaging talks at the conference.
We discovered that this HR Pro was handling a good amount of requisitions a month and was already utilizing social media to reach qualified candidates—but was doing so by posting jobs one-by-one on Twitter manually, fastidiously, heroically.
Again, at a certain volume, the biggest problem becomes bandwidth, and the biggest demand—intelligent, automated job distribution.

Most Given Reason for Not Having Yet Adopted Social Recruiting:

“I want to, but my Boss/Colleague/Company is a little behind the Social Recruiting curve.” 
We even received a more aggressive response, and possibly borderline threat:

“Our HR Director doesn’t ‘get’ Social Recruiting. So our Social Recruiting strategy is to get a new Director,” they laughed.

I laughed, nervously.
We’ve heard this before: Company culture and the dearth of social recruiting education were the most often cited barriers. But in the year 2014, can the lack of social recruiting education really be blamed anymore?
Consider our observation that the main question surrounding Social Recruiting has greatly shifted in just the past few years from “What is Social Recruiting?” to “How can we implement Social Recruiting better?”
Since most HR pros know what Social Recruiting is today, the barrier may truly be more cultural than educational.

Most Engaging Topic During the HR Tips & Trends Panel:

Millennials and Baby Boomers. Perhaps the most memorable fact I left with from the conference was that, for the first time ever, the Hospitality Industry boasts an employee demographic spanning across five generations—at times Baby Boomers and Millennials working “smack right up against each other,” as Debbie Brown, VP of HR at Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts phrased during the panel session.
Brown expounds on what millennials are looking for in their work:

“For Millennials, a job is not just a job; they expect an experience,” and then added for comedic kick, “…whatever that means.”

However, fellow panelist Alan Momeyer, VP of HR at Loews Corporation, finds a point of similarity, “It’s a search for meaning for the Millennials—not much different from the Baby Boomers.” He adds, “People don’t retire unless they feel like they are going to something.”
Momeyer weighs in a little more on the Baby Boomer Exodus, warning, “Baby Boomers will leave at some point, and they will leave a leadership vacuum you may not be prepared for.”
Momeyer may be urging his colleagues to prepare for the coming Boomer Exodus, but according to a recent survey, 63% of CFOs remain nonchalant about the big exit.
The talk was a great reminder of how unique the Human Capital space is and how it demands from its top leaders a deep understanding of age, cultural, and generational issues which are in a constant state of flux and usually at the center of debate.
Attend any HR conferences recently? Have you observed similar shifts in conversation surrounding Social Recruiting in the past few years? Share your comments below. We’d love to hear from you.