Finding potential employees in an already tight labor market can be quite difficult and some project managers have decided to take a new approach to solve this issue. Since technology seems to be the way of the future, project managers are taking to social media as a way to draw in those who may not be searching newspaper job ads or showing up at recruitment nights at career fairs.
While the ads and career fairs will not be going away any time soon, social media networks are beginning to crop up as a unique way to reach new recruits. Handshake is one of those networks and it connects more than two hundred thousand employers with eight million students from over four hundred schools. It is similar to LinkedIn but geared towards college students looking for their first major job.
Any student that joins Handshake can be matched with an employer and vice versa. The network matches everyone according to their majors and employers can send students messages right from the platform. Once an employer has enough information or enough students, they can plan an event at a specific location and then send the information out to the students in that area through Handshake.
Conventional social media is also becoming valuable for reaching new employees. Many companies are encouraging employees to post links on social media that share why they love working for the company. Companies that do this are being seen as more personable. These links can be seen by students who are interested in the company and pique their interest even more by getting a conversation started right there on social media.
A lot of conversations that used to be held in person can now be held online with questions often being answered immediately. These social media conversations lead to face to face meetings and jobs, which is the goal of both employers and prospective employees.
Social media has been around for quite some time, but it is new in the world of construction for job leads. It does look promising though and if you are a project manager, you will want to embrace this concept as you continue to look for prospective employees to fill your needs.