One of the highlights of my early career days was a year spent in a group called NMU–NASHRM Mentor University. I learned much, developed some amazing friendships that I still appreciate to this day, and got to participate in a pilot program to improve the career prospects of local HR professionals. This year the group is still going strong, and one of the assignments was to create a blog post and have it published online by a known HR blogger. Donna Quinney, an HR pro from Huntsville, was paired with me. Her first ever blog post is below. Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Donna!

Social Media Recruiting: Should You Believe the Hype or Not?

I had the privilege of serving as a Mentee with NASHRM Mentor University program this past year. As part of the program, we were asked to prepare a 30 minute Powerpoint presentation, present to the class, and develop a blog post from that information. My presentation was titled “Social Media Recruiting: 7 Good Benefits Every Recruiter Should Know.”

Much to my surprise, I found that there was less negative and more positive information out there on social media recruiting. I've heard a lot about the security risks associated with having too much of your personal information hanging out on the internet. That's it…the only negative I could find on social media recruiting. But I must say, that one negative could potentially cause some major problems for you, your financial state, and most importantly your family. So be careful with that!

But, on the flip side, there are several positives for implementing a social media platform in your recruiting strategies. Here are just a few that I discovered:

• Cost Saving – Post positions on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. It's basically free!
• Improves Talent Pool – Connects you to the largest active and passive job seekers!
• Fill Positions Faster – Compared to traditional approaches: newspaper ads and/or job boards!
• Increased Candidate Diversity – Helps widen your search options even further!
• Company Branding – On-line presence gives candidates a glimpse into the company culture/ environment!

Now that you are up to speed on a few benefits of social media recruiting, are you ready to jump on board and recruit your next new hire via LinkedIn or Facebook? Are you convinced that social media recruiting is here to stay or is it just the next big hype? I'll let you decide!

Thank you NASHRM Mentor University for a great year…and the yummy cookies! I've officially been HR stretched!