Web 2.0 social media talent community recruitment manager

Yep, quite a job title!  I had a conversation earlier this week with @lisascales about how her community technology platform can be used as part of a recruitment strategy.  What was interesting though, is how we were saying the same but not (initially) speaking the same language.

But what has this got to do with the job title?

We started off debating the point of a community platform being used to build and maintain a talent pool.  I felt that this type of technology better suited internal communities or alumni groups rather than passive candidates and that a talent pool would be managed separately using different types of technology with a different engagement strategy/process e.g. newsletters.  Anyway, as we discussed this further, it became evident that the real point is about the people (candidates, applicants, employees etc) rather than the technology or term of reference such as community, talent pool, passive candidate etc and we were agreeing with each other.

In fact, regardless of the term, a recruitment team has to look after a number of communities:

• People that have applied for a job.
• People that have registered for more details but have not yet found/applied for a job.
• Rejected applicants.
• New hires - great for referrals.
• Internal employees - career progression.
• Leavers that may come back.
• Alumni Groups.
• And many more....

But who is taking a top down look at how all of these communities stay connected with your brand?  Well, this is where my fancy new job title comes in.  Big organisations need to be looking at social media from a strategic viewpoint and investing in having the skills at a senior level to drive the overall social talent strategy.  The job may not yet exist but give it a few months and I reckon we'll start to see a small number of these new jobs appear.

What do you think?