Social Media, it’s been changing the way we communicate and do business today. It has a number of applications and in this week we talk about recruiting – specifically for those recruiting cross culturally, helpful for both managers in the BPO industry and any organisation operating on a global scale.
Understanding your candidates
Like with any recruitment strategy, understanding where your candidates come from and what they value is important. Job seekers from different cultural backgrounds may view the skills they consider integral to recruiters differently. This leads to various approaches on how they write a resume (what they include such as birthday etc) and how they present themselves in interviews. For example, many Asians such as Filipinos, are taught the younger generation is to respect their elders or superior. They address them as “sir” or “madam” or formal titles rather than by first names.
Social Media as a portal for value
After researching your prospective candidates, the next step is to make them feel comfortable with your organisation. Focus on a consultative sell of valuable information when people need it. Content marketing is important with this approach, so your people need to be aligned with your marketing team. Your front line employees and managers know what’s important to their prospects. Share this data with your marketing team so they can develop case studies, guides, infographics, and how-to videos.
Think Local
Workers have a lot in common across the globe, but they also differ in crucial ways, depending on where they live. This is why it’s so important for employers to get smart about cross-cultural recruiting efforts. They cannot go into new markets and just use the same old tricks that have worked for them in developed countries. Each market is unique, but things to look out for are: interests in mobility, career aspirations, and the most effective ways to communicate. It’s key to have a healthy mix of channels in your communication strategy.
Different Responses
Cultural differences always impact how people use social media. For example, in New Zealand, Kiwi’s engage more on Twitter, whereas Americans tend to use more automate tweets. This arguably is because both cultures differ, one historically more collaborative and the other more individualistic.
This week’s managers tips:
- Include people from diverse backgrounds on your recruiting team
Having international recruiters can help identify cultural differences that could lead to rejections or unconsciously biased judgments on candidates unrelated to their ability to perform a position.
- Starting out
If you’ve never used Social Media before, the first platforms for any business to get on are Facebook and LinkedIn. Facebook is the world’s largest social media site and boasts more than 500 million users with numbers going up by the day. Its users are your everyday people, people you could recruit across every demographic imaginable. LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional social network online and is seen as the platform of choice by most entrepreneurs and high-level executives.
- Post to your social media and on your site
A lot of cross-cultural relations come down to understanding. Post your recruitment process and outline the preferred format of a sample resume, Q&A, and other criteria used to evaluate candidates. This helps candidates understand what you are looking for and gives them a chance to prepare in their own language.
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