Is recruitment ready to embrace Web 2.0?

In June, Top-Consultant.com ran their first virtual careers fair. For many recruitment consultancies (FreshMinds Talent included) it was a first foray into the world of Second Life, populated by virtual stands staffed and visited by people sitting at their desks miles apart. And boy did it work.

The virtual careers fair is a well-establish phenomenon over in the US, but not unusually it has taken the UK a few years to catch up. Yet the market is there. The Top-Consultant fair attracted thousands of remote visitors, which in turn generated hundreds of job applications and a very busy day indeed in the office.

Yell has brought the opportunities presented by Second Life even closer to the recruitment industry. The producers of the Yellow Pages recently ran a real-life recruitment campaign that brought potential candidates to a virtual phone box on Second Life territory, where they could meet digital representatives of the company dressed in yellow T-shirts. There was even a spot set aside for candidates’ digital characters to pick up their own yellow T-shirts, thus becoming advocates for the company as well as prospective employees. Unsurprisingly, the innovative campaign earned Yell a shiny first place medal at the CIPD recruitment marketing awards.

But there is more to Web 2.0 than the glitz and pizzazz of Second Life. The development of blogs, forums and online communities (like those set up and managed by FreshMinds’ sister company FreshNetworks) affords employers a unique opportunity to have an active conversation with their candidates, extolling the virtues of their company. Which in turn gives them the upper hand in the war for talent.

With fewer graduates reading printed media, Web 2.0 solutions offer a refreshing alternative to the dog-fight of online job boards. Social communities like Facebook are a start, but they do exactly what they say on the tin – they are ‘social’ places where friends get together to gossip, not find jobs. Recruiters need to get a bit more digitally savvy if they are going to stand out. FreshMinds Talent is looking at ways of bringing our best candidates together in specially designed communities where they can meet the team and find out more about our jobs and our clients. Other employers are setting up blogs, posting video case studies of happy employees on their websites and venturing into independent forums.

All of which is great in theory, but difficult in practice. I might just start a Facebook group about it…

Read more here

• Yell take first steps into Second Life
• Top-Consultant launch virtual careers fair
• The other point of view from John Ingham