Social Media for HR Professionals

Social media is a tool human resources professionals can use to enhance recruiting efforts and broaden communication.

A variety of applications can be used to help HR stay relevant, impact marketability, and ensure a connection with younger generations. An HR professional’s best option is to embrace social media rather than avoid it. The key, especially for those unfamiliar with various platforms, is to learn how the platforms can be used to improve engagement and to understand their limits.

Here are four ways HR professionals can utilize social media:

• Recruiting: Many recruiting opportunities transpire with social media, making it the perfect platform to engage and gather information by following potential recruits. Approximately 86 percent of job applicants use social media for their job searches.
• Professional Networking: Using social media, HR professionals can make connections with peers to learn valuable information. It provides an avenue to discover HR-related events and share relevant news and information.
• District Branding: Use of social media can help build the reputation of a district through strategically curated stories and information.
• Training and Employee Communication: HR can share information to build skills, disseminate news, promote events, and release announcements to a large number of employees in a timely manner. These efforts can support district digital transformation, such as discovering research and innovation tactics that could help improve district performance.

Personal accounts are often used by HR professionals to learn and understand others, including friends and relatives. Personal accounts should be kept separate from the organization accounts.

In the context of hiring, HR should ensure supervisors and principals are not conducting social media searches on applicants. Strict guidelines for these types of searches should be created to avoid finding out information that may be prohibited from being used in the hiring process. Read Proceed with Caution when Searching Applicant’s Social Media for additional hints.