I got a sneak look at Work4’s new Graph Search tool that has come out in Beta. Sourcers have long been seeking a way to plug the gap between active sourcing and the millions of Facebook users. What we have learned is that Facebook takes more of a long term approach via a relationship built on a fan page. The new recruiter product from Work4 might go some way to bridging the gap.
I’ve seen Facebook, until now, as a brilliant recruiting channel, but not a sourcing channel. The differentiation being that successful recruiting is dependent on engaging via a career page, and having a clear link to search and apply for jobs via the page. This is dependent on great content, as well as regular participation by employees and/or recruiters. It is a longer term strategy that brings great results when done well, accelerated by the use of targeted interest advertising and sponsored stories to get the right potential candidates to the page.
What works best with advertising is promoting stories and updates in the Newsfeed to compel fans to come to the page, rather than simply relying on Classic Ads. This is also why retargeting from career sites to Facebook pages works so well. The downside of this is that it is mostly automated, and it is dependent on close matching of interests, along with PPC advertising budgets.
As I see it, the Graph Search tool will give recruiters the opportunity to really target those whom they want to engage with updates via the careers page on Facebook. This has major benefits, because recruiters will be able to expand their talent communities out from existing fans and their friends to people with shared interests, experience, etc.
Facebook has been moving in this direction for some time. Not just with Graph Search, but also with the ability to message and update directly from fan pages in the same way as you can from an individual account. What has worked well for me in this respect is using search to find a mutual friend and then asking them to make an introduction.
With Graph Search you can now ask the “man in the middle” to pass on an update, which encourages the spread of information to targeted fans. Your page, of course, has to be engaging once people get there in order to encourage them to sign up, but the combination of sourcing through Graph Search, along with engaging and inviting new talent to the page, is a powerful prospect.
Bill