AlignMark Recruiting and Selection Blog

Social Media Recruiting to find Generation Web - Tomorrow's Workforce

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We've all heard about Gen X, Gen Y, Boomers, etc. and each of these generations have certain characteristics that "bond" them together with the most obvious one being age. Today a new generation has evolved that has nothing to do with age. We'll refer to the newest Generation as Generation Web or "Gen Web" as its members are bonded together by a single factor – Technology and Networking Groups.

Everyone talks of baby boomers retiring and the future shortage of qualified workers in the labor market. Well in almost all cases it's the new "Gen Webbers" that will fill this gap, regardless of their age. Given the current economic condition, workers from all generations that join Gen Web will be asked to fill tomorrow's jobs. Fortunately the time it takes to be part of Gen Web can be relatively short, as today the majority of jobs are becoming more and more dependent on technology. This trend will only continue, and in fact, accelerate faster in the near future. As a simple example for boomers - remember when you first used a computer, laptop or cell phone - for the younger generation, remember when you first began to text message or use MySpace. Technology weaves us all together, especially when it comes to recruiting and business.

• So what are the implications of this on your business?
• And have you tapped on the WebGen channel for the talent you want to hire?

The need for this new generation in the workplace will force businesses to change many of their HR practices, especially recruting and selection practices. The ways in which companies recruit, hire people, train and develop their employees, and manage them on the job will take on a very different look versus today (yes even today.) We're already seeing the rapid increase in the use of social networking to find new sources of candidates and passive job seekers. This trend will continue with new ways of hiring information, new ways of collecting performance data on workers, etc.

Traditional candidate marketing campaigns march on - day in, day out, week after week, every year; yet for all of the effort that goes into each, they have a finite existence. Leveraging the power of Social Media Marketing (SMM) HR organizations are making their hiring efforts and its existence infinite.

Social media marketing programs usually center on efforts to create content that attracts attention, generates online conversations, and encourages readers to share it with their social networks. The message spreads from user to user and presumably resonates because it is coming from a trusted source, as opposed to the brand or company itself.

What CAN you achieve from Social Media in a recruitment context?

• Use Social Media to listen
• Use Social Media to ask questions
• Use Social Media interact virtually with your prospective employees
• Use Social Media to increase candidate pull
• Use Social Media to strengthen client contacts
• Use Social Media to pre-sell your services

More and more businesses are realizing just how this promotion method can benefit their businesses.  If done correctly, social media marketing can give your business a serious boost.  And thanks to a new service it takes much less time to see results than it has in the past.  Download AlignMark's newest whitepaper on Turning Social Media into a Powerful Recruiting Tool for additional information.

Push or Pull - How does your Organization Manage your Sales Talent

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Do you pull your talent through leadership and work environment? Or do you push your organization to strive to achieve established goals set by management?

Great organizations excel in creating the philosophy that their people “can do” (possess the capability), “will do” (maintain their commitment), and “must do” (have the right alignment) that is required for success, now and into the future. To put it in different words, when talented people are trained and “nourished” to excel in their work, when they are provided a rich, engaging environment in which there is passion and excitement about doing great work and truly making a difference, and when they perceive a connection and alignment between their work and the realization of organizational goals and metrics—great things happen (e.g. individual and team excellence). We call this “Pull Magic”—where employees are passionate about being “pulled” in a direction of individual and organizational greatness.  This is the foundation for talent management practices that have a significant effect on the organization's bottom line.

Do Your Sales Managers and Your Organization:

• Understand expectations and goals?
• Understand actions need to meet expectations and accomplish goals?
• Possesses the abilities and personal qualities required to meet expectations
• Motivate employees to meet expectations; e.g. Do they personally value the perceived benefits of meeting expectations and achieving goals?
• Empower and enable employees to meet expectation; e.g. mitigate organizational and external obstacles; resources made available, etc.?

If the answer is no to more than 1 of these questions, perhaps your organization would benefit from shifting its leadership focus to Pull versus Push.

Unfortunately many sales organizations, achieve the opposite because they haven’t created this type of environment. In the absence of pull strategies, they resort to “Push” strategies, where people perceive being “pushed” in a direction most likely to benefit the organization − not the individual. Where push strategies are the dominant approach to driving organizational results tend to experience greater employee dissatisfaction, higher turnover, shrinking talent recruitment pools, and higher employee disengagement. Sales people are quick to lose sight of the relationship between their efforts and the organization’s success. Push strategies facilitate the growth of organizational climates characterized by a division between management and sales people and they begin to feel disconnected. A kind of “outcome myopia” emerges where decisions about discretionary effort and levels of engagement are based on what individuals perceive as good for themselves personally, effectively disregarding what is good for organizational success overall. Push strategies can encourage sales people to perceive management as a primary obstacle to the successful execution of their jobs, and they foster the belief that their interests are in direct conflict with management’s.  They view their work environment as “Us v. Them”, with “us” being the sales people, and “them” being management (most often expressed as “senior” management due to the fact that responsibility for managerial decisions often bypasses regional sales management, as those managers develop working rapport with their teams by “siding” with their teams on unpleasant or unpopular senior leadership decisions). The greater the push, the more visible the distinction becomes. And it doesn’t stop there. Push strategies quickly become self-perpetuating cycles. Because push strategies create employee resistance, management finds itself in the unpleasant position of having to “push” harder and harder to drive organizational results.  And of course that leads to more resistance, which leads to more “push,” etc. Ultimately, that cycle has to be broken, and it can only be broken by the kind of intense commitment to improving talent leadership which will result in “pull” rather than “push.”

In summary, sales leaders must break a cycle of internal focus and move towards an organization that is committed and focused to achieve a world-class sales organization productivity. The quickest way to do this is by incorporating some of the “Pull” techniques described above.

Feel free to download our latest white paper on building a world class sales organization through assessment and selection.