From Bill Boorman…
I’m going to be delivering training next week to a team of corporate recruiters on effective ways to use twitter for sourcing talent. Whenever I run this workshop, it always reminds me how some of the most effective features in twitter are underused, in particular twitter lists and twitter searches.
I think the engagement aspects of the channel have been well covered., though I will talk a little more about this at the end of the post. It stuns me when I hear of industry spokesman saying recruiters shouldn’t tweet, and shows a distinct lack of touch with reality. Twitter is the introduction channel. You need no invitation to follow anyone and engage with anyone. People are happy to talk to strangers about most things, and there is no real hierarchy of rank.
I know that if I invited recruiters to a networking event which was going to be attended by candidates and clients in their target market, you would be queuing up to attend. I think they would also be wise enough to know that once they got their, the conversation would be about a lot more than shop talk. They wouldn’t just walk up to everyone in the room and introduce themselves by saying “I’m a recruiter, do you want a job?”. There would be plenty of small talk about all number of things in order to start a relationship. Its part of networking. The people who talk only shop get shunned quite quickly, and new connections get tested out with questions or requests for advice from time to time. It’s a part of good networking, and why the concept of the elevator pitch is actually a bit of a joke as an introduction, though it helps to practice answering the question of what you do, without sounding like an a**e. It’s an inevitable question your going to get fairly early in a conversation. When I’m asked, My answer is that “I host unconferences and implement social recruiting plans.” That creates questions if they are wanted, without over pitching. The way you conduct yourself on twitter should not be any different, and small talk will form most of your conversation with any target contacts. This is a good thing, and part of the getting to know you process. In this post i want to share some tactics for organising your twitter followers and following, some applications that help organise you and how to make the channel work for you. 
Another myth I want to challenge at the start of this post is that automated job feeds don’t work. Actually they do when they are operated correctly. I think anyone who recruits in any capacity should have one, and here’s why:
Among the social recruiting projects I’m involved in or have access to data, these accounts represent 20% of hires, and a higher volume of click-throughs. People are still actively looking for jobs in the way they always did, and that means searching via google, as well as other search engines, as well as searching in twitter. I’m not sure what the long term impact on this of the twitter feed coming out of Google search results, but right now it is still working, and there’s lots of searches going on within twitter itself. The key to making these posts effective is including location, using #’s for job type, job and location. It’s also important to list that the feed is a job feed, and not to expect engagement, (listing another account for connecting with recruiters for engagement.) Set the feed to post at different times during the day. You can use one of the excellent applications to do this like TwitJobSearch or TweetMyJobs, or alternatively do it yourself by setting an RSS feed to the twitter account or using an automated posting tool. The best I’ve seen at the moment for this is Buffer. Other tips that work are including the link in the middle of the tweet (5 times more likely to be opened), and where there is space asking for a retweet, it still works for increasing reach.
Thanks Bill!
The Staffing Man 