Is your campus hiring, ‘social’ empowered?

We only keep hearing of how campus recruiters – companies chasing talent – have used the power of twitter to build their company brands, and also create loads of visibility for their campus recruitment initiatives.

Now, in 2013, its imminent that colleges use twitter to showcase their talent to the outside world – it’s important not just for the sake of doing it – but to position the campus, college/university and its students as great prospective employees.

Twitter and other social media are one of the ways colleges can make sure that they stand out – with the proliferation of science and professional colleges/universities in a country like India, and the reduced intake expected in the much sought after information technology/IT enabled services businesses, organizations no longer would want to visit campuses all and sundry.  HR and hiring managers responsible for campus initiatives will only be choosier, and only be willing to look at institutes where the ‘ employ-ability’ factor is relatively very high.

So, it’s time that campuses, placement, coordinators and students took a plunge into how they can effectively use twitter to position their ‘brand’ as a place with students with diverse employ-ability skills, and hold great promise to organizations of the future, and the HR/hiring managers.

Campus hiring managers can look at even rolling out highlights of the student profile in various lines of study, tweet their placement brochure to all the targeted and top organizations, and exchange information on specifics of the skills looked for, the number of students with the targeted ‘employable skills’ and so on. The extent to which information can be showcased is only limited by the bouquet of skills sought for.

English: Infographic on how Social Media are being used, and how everything is changed by them. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Individual student accomplishments which are unique and note-worthy, case studies and research papers by the students, pod-casts where students showcase their unique skills and abilities… there are a host of variations that can go out through the twitter handle,

And with the power of student social networks, this kind of talent broadcast will give a great branding opportunity for the campus, its programs, and the talent they churn out.

With a little thought, mixed with the power of student innovation, this is one of the ways that campus branding initiatives will fetch long term positioning and talent visibility – drawing organizations like butterfly takes to flowers with honey.

So, is your campus brand (campus hiring program) on twitter and social media?

Does your campus program have the power of social?

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Agility ‘myopia’ – will your social media plan ever help?

Social Media Cafe (Photo credit: Cristiano Betta)

Organizations’ round the world are slowly adopting to the brutal embrace of the social media.  The word brutal might sound crude, yet, that is only to signify the powerful impact the medium has on how contemporary business is done, and how customers across every business are gathering real-time information of your products, services and people!

As a matter of fact, it will not be an exaggeration to say that your customer knows better than you, or your product/service or people, more that you; not just that, the customer gets to know it faster that you.

Once the customer gets to know – by virtue of your brick and mortar touch points – they could be your product performance, your people response, or your service credential, he gets online and shares this knowledge to the world – by a blog, a podcast, a tweet or a face-book post…  any tool that comes in handy to him at the click of a mouse.

Speed or call it ‘agility’, is the mantra. And your organization being ready to embrace the power of social also means that you are willing to engage in conversations real-time, round the clock, and round the year!

Most organizations miss this point – they have a social media plan, yet, the system is steeped in old world bureaucracy – the social team, or the team that is meant to respond real-time is a victim to the rigor of seeking approvals from the higher ups – who are completely myopic to the power of agility in social media. When the need is to swiftly respond, they engage in internal debates on the how and when, and sometimes the tangible benefits/losses and the ‘budgetary’ impact of the actions to be taken.

Little do these agility-myopic people realize that there is a negative spiral out there swallowing the reputation of the organization, one bite a second (or is it faster?!). In this age and world of 24/7 social, your hard-built reputation is at stake, every minute you are embroiled in useless bureaucracy!

Social media is not for the agility myopic – if your organization has a well made social play-book, yet does not have the culture of agility or is not willing to swiftly embrace the ‘agility culture’, then there is one way out – throw the social play book in the dustbin, and get back to business as usual.

May sound rude, yet, that’s the harsh reality – the social space is NOT for those with agility myopia!

Related articles

• 7 Reasons Agile Marketers Are Better at Their Jobs Than You (hubspot.com)
• The Power of Agile Thinking (greatfinds.icrossing.com)
• 7 Reasons Agile Marketers Are Better at Their Jobs Than You (rpmgr.com)
• Customer Experience Update: 11/3/2012 (businesstechnologypartner.wordpress.com)