HP's Journey To Social Media Recruiting

As many world leaders can attest, building an army takes time and patience. And like most, HP had limited resources for a new employer branding and digital strategy program to take flight. We had a meeting of the minds and collaborated on how to make an impact. The largest impact was to ensue in several global trainings to align the staffing teams with the importance of using social media recruiting as the vehicle to attract top talent.

Having come from a recruiting background, it is important to share that employer brand and digital strategy have been my life for over a year now. Originally, I wasn’t sure how the two were really related and was completely scared at the concept of having both programs under me.

In a very short time, I realized that one could not work well without the other, so it made perfect sense to have the programs intertwined. I joined the employer branding team, in the middle of the preparation for the relaunch of our new brand. I was exposed to some of the best talent attraction nuggets in a short amount of time. I learned more about our culture and value proposition on those calls.

A new sense of passion was sparked in me and I fell in love with employer branding and in particular HP’s brand. So it made sense, that when the employer brand was rolled out , the biggest elephant in the room was how do we make this come to life? Immediately we knew social media was the answer, but the key component was to make our employees a part of the solution. It’s easy for a digital media team to evangelize the employer brand and candidate experience using social, but the key is to build an army of brand ambassadors to help with the story.

Over the past few months, we have embarked on both global and regional trainings to ensure our brand ambassadors understand the brand and know how to use social. Our most recent training was held a few weeks ago, speaking to the importance of using social to brand yourself as the best recruiter and as a vehicle to connect with top talent. The missing element is that while all recruiters are using social to farm talent, we are not using the sites to be social connected. Social provides an outlet to make real connections with people beyond the job title on their profile. How ideal would it be to connect with a Developer that highlights a commitment to volunteering, by sharing that HP gives employees 4 hours a month of time to volunteer?

As companies continue to fight for top talent, whether it’s to retain or attract, it is the little things that will set your company apart. It is the tiny things that will make your staffing team world class. Social media is just one portion of the hiring strategy, but one of the easiest to stabilize in a short amount of time. However, it is the long term approach that ends up hurting most that try to tackle social recruiting. Creating a page or a talent group is easy, but growing that network with the daily TLC takes time, dedication and passion. Employer brand promotes that passion; passion for your company culture and employee life. Once you ignite the passion in your staffing teams, you will find that they are now armed with the ammunition to engage with top talent.

Celinda Appleby is a Recruiter by trade, Sourcer at heart. Having started her career as an Agency Recruiter, you can now find her managing Digital Media for HP’s Global Staffing Organization. She is passionate about sourcing, social recruiting and branding. Connect with her on LinkedIn, Twitter & Facebook! Photo Credit John Atkinson.