The term ‘social networking’ is so ingrained in our daily life that it’s easy to forget why it started out that way. Of course, social networks don’t deliver tangible products or services, rather they allow you to socialise with others on a level that wasn’t possible beforehand. These may well be people you know, but they could just as well be people you’ve never met: perhaps they’re just people you’d like to know.
The reason social networks are so successful are that they bring people with common interests together and get them talking which, if you’re trying to interest people in your corporate site, is exactly what you need. Trading information allows people to become better informed about your opportunities and you about theirs. One of the finest ways of doing this is by creating your own social network online: a forum.
Questions and Answers
Whichever side of the table we’ve been on, we have all been through that interview where the applicant isn’t very clued up on the role. This is particularly common for difficult technical positions and, really, it’s understandable: the fine details of a role are what you learn on the job. Forums can be fantastic ways of allowing applicants or even recruits to talk with each other or current employees about the role and to help themselves prepare for that big interview or the big first day.
Letting Networkers Network
Using a homegrown forum allows new or potential recruits to talk to and find other people who could well be useful to your business in the future. Whether interviewees get the job or not is not important – connections are useful inside and outside of your firm. If you think about the number of people you’ve met at interviews alone, you’d be amazed at the expertise available at your fingertips: a forum can do that on a huge scale.
Innovation in Moderation
It’s true that forums need to be closely moderated and that anything inappropriate should be removed, but it can also be interesting to see what potential applicants have to say about a role online. Beware – candidates will talk much more openly on a forum than in an interview, but a forum could even be a useful pre-interview tool for seeing who does and who doesn’t have the right online communication skills.
A good, well moderated and active forum can be an invaluable tool for a recruiter. It can draw in applicants or introduce recruits to one another and can act as a useful SEO tool. If you’re still unconvinced, take a look at sites like thestudentroom.co.uk to see just how useful the right forum can be.
Tom started his career early; taking on an associate role at Deloitte just a few days after his eighteenth birthday, working in a technical role but with a focus on identifying and recruiting talented undergraduates. He is now entering his final year at Exeter University and he continues to work with the recruitment side of the firm and remains an active brand ambassador on campus.
Over the last few years, Tom has spent time building up a reputation as a freelance writer and has developed both a strong client base and good knowledge of social media along the way. Though there’s still plenty to learn, experience working in both the smallest and the largest of businesses has served him well and given him a feel for balancing strong corporate ideas with a personal tone.
As a student, Tom is able to offer a valuable insight into the way graduate recruitment works from the other side and how students and interns react to particular styles of marketing and recruitment. Eventually he hopes to take off his copywriting business before embarking on an MA in philosophy.
