Recruiting with Social Media

In this day and age things change faster than you can shake a stick at it and if you don’t keep up on the latest fads you can feel left in the dust. Unless you have been living in a cave for the last few years you know that social media is not only the latest fad, but looks as though it is here to stay as well. The same people who a few years ago said I will never use those platforms are now hooked on them daily. I don’t exclude myself from that group at all, in fact a few years ago I couldn’t see the point of a Facebook page, tweeting the latest dinner menu, hooking up with old colleagues on LinkedIn or posting my foolishness on YouTube. Three years later not only do I have multiple Facebook business pages, people from all over the world following my tweets on Twitter, have hundreds of connections on LinkedIn, and am all over YouTube, but I teach it to other businesses to help them improve their marketing presence. Go figure! What made me switch to accepting the platforms? It wasn’t the latest menu of what someone had for dinner last night, or that I thought I was missing the party by not being on it, it just made sense. By using social media you have access to the whole world and that fact my friend is hard to ignore, especially if you are in business. Now you may think that is all well and good but how do I recruit using social media and more importantly why should I?

Like I said earlier the whole world is on it, and I bet you hundred dollars that your staff is on it as well whether they are on the road as drivers and owner operators or in the office and home every night. Heck my wife sits in a chair in our living room and watches her iphone send Facebook messages every two minutes. I told her she needs a life so she is checking that out with her friends on Facebook. The point is with the new technology out there people are using social media for more than communication, it’s their entertainment. Your drivers and staff are the same. They’re on the platforms and their friends are on the platforms. Think about it this way, if you ask someone for their phone number what happens? They used to write it on a piece of paper or a napkin and send it to you. Now when you ask someone for their phone number before you finish your sentence they have sent you an electronic business card via email or text. If you give someone your phone number they say hold on, pull out their phone, and set up a contact for you right away. Now let’s get back to recruiting, if two drivers are sitting in a truck stop restaurant and one asks the other who they work for and if they are looking for drivers what do you think the other driver does? He pulls out his phone, asks for the other persons email or phone number and sends them the business card for the company. Or if a driver says how can I find out more about your company I am interested in working there, you’re driver can say, “Oh you should check out our blog, or they always update Twitter with the latest information for us.” Everything is right there and if you’re not on social media then that information may not be getting passed on. It’s not about whether you want to use it or not, it’s about how the world is communicating in general. I tell people to try and look at the big picture, if the world is using social media to communicate, then you are part of the world and should be at least looking at using it to communicate!

About the Author

Bruce Outridge is a business and leadership coach from the Southern Ontario area of Canada. He can be reached through his website at http://www.outridge.ca