The #1 Reason You Do NOT Need a Social Media Strategy.

You’ve heard the buzz in campus recruiting and the buzz is: social media. The only other catchphrase competing as aggressively for your attention is: Gen Y. Your task is to attract Gen Y and you know Gen Y lives on social media and therefore… could it be any more obvious? You need to create a presence through social media. But you know social media is complex – there are so many decisions and choices to be made (Which channels? What voice? Whose responsibility? What frequency? Whose budget!?). So there can be no doubt: before you get started you must develop a well-planned strategy.

But most employers do NOT need a social media strategy.

Why not? Simply put: because they aren’t ready!

There are many reasons that a business may not be ready to develop a social media recruitment strategy. A big one can be a lack of buy-in from those who control the resources to make it successful – often because they question if it is really necessary and how success will be measured. Another reason can be the recruitment team’s lack of expertise – even if they are all over social media in their personal lives, they may not be ready to implement social media in their professional roles.

But the biggest reason that many employers are not yet ready for social media has nothing to do with social media at all. It is the simple fact that they have lower-hanging fruit to pick. That is, there are simpler challenges with better-understood solutions that should be addressed first.

Campus recruiting has many moving parts: campus events, coordinating hiring managers, making effective use of co-op programs, training interviewers, campus relations, projecting hiring needs, ensuring management buy-in, understanding today’s students, campus ambassador programs, developing an effective employment value proposition, on-boarding, an effective website, effective advertising, and so on.

To take advantage of the opportunities on campus, all these pieces need to be aligned and used effectively. Somewhere in that long list (and the list goes on), there is almost certainly something that can be fixed or improved more easily. That’s the low-hanging fruit you want to pick first.

Developing and implementing a social media strategy can and should be a vital part of your attraction strategy (which is itself a part of your recruitment strategy). There is plenty of guidance and support available to make it a success – but it does require the development of internal expertise and most likely the support of external resources and expertise also. It doesn’t have to be intimidating, but it is probably not your low-hanging fruit.

Social media will develop interest, start conversations, and expand your candidate pool. But the first step is to do an assessment (we call it a Campus Recruitment Audit) to make sure you are ready for success when it comes. When you’ve done your assessment and addressed your major challenges, then you’ll be ready to take on social media. (And we’ll be happy to help you when you do!)



Join the conversation and sharing of expertise regarding campus recruitment program audits, social media strategies, and campus recruitment best practices at the Campus Recruiting Forums coming to Calgary on November 30th (www.CampusRecruiting.ca), to San Francisco on December 12th (www.CampusRecruitingForum.com) and to Waterloo on December 15th (www.CampusRecruiting.ca).