NOTES AND

COMMENTARIES
presents preliminary
research, review of
literature and comments
on published papers or on
any relevant subject

Tweet Your Tune Social Media, the

New Pied Piper in Talent Acquisition
Debolina Dutta

here is consensus in research that there exists a war for talent and that winning this war is critical for an organization to gain strategic and competitive
advantage (Chambers, Foulon, Handfield-Jones, Hankin, & Michaels, 1998;
Gatewood, Gowan, & Lautenschlager, 1993; Michaels, Handfield-Jones, & Axelrod,
2001; Rynes, 1991; Turban & Greening, 1997). Early stages of applicant attraction thus
become critical, especially in a robust job market, as the potential recruits have a number
of choices about where to employ their human capital (Aiman-Smith, Bauer, & Cable,
2001).
Human resource management has been unknowingly using marketing strategies to
sell the employment product and job offer (Price, 1996). Moving forward, talent acquisition leaders would be required to think like marketers while developing media
and sourcing strategies. Competencies traditionally considered as marketing and sales
skills (e.g. competitive analysis, product positioning, and target group segmentation)
are increasingly becoming a part of the required talent acquisition skill set. To measure
the corresponding outcomes through a different yardstick than what is conventionally used by HR functions to measure recruitment efficiencies requires the development of appropriate metrics.
Job seekers psychologically engage with an organization through various sources of
information which shape their attitude and beliefs, and hence their image of the organization. In todays age, social networking as a recruitment tool is gaining popularity (Doherty, 2010). Organizations embracing this channel are perceived as evolving,
innovative, and open to technological change. With the growing interaction of the
current generation on social media sites, organizations are waking up to the potential
of leveraging these channels to build their brand images and attract applicants to their
organizations.
KEY WORDS
Social Networking
Strategic Recruitment
Applicant Attraction
Employer Branding

This paper looks at integrating research on recruitment with literature on marketing

communication and social media to propose a quantifiable approach to leveraging
social media for strategic recruitment. The aim is to develop a systematic approach
which organizations can use to delineate their strategy, choose the appropriate social
media channels, and understand and define the metrics involved for each channel
and the related investments required for successfully carrying out social media recruitment.

VIKALPA VOLUME 39 NO 3 JULY - SEPTEMBER 2014

93

LITERATURE REVIEW
Recruitment
Recruitment has always been a critical function responsible for attracting and selecting the right talent for organizations (Schneider, 1987). So, while an organizations
human resources are perfectly inimitable (Lippman &
Rumelt, 1982), organizations that succeed in winning the
war for talent are able to attract larger pools of quality
applicants and achieve a huge competitive advantage over
their rivals (Michaels, Handfield-Jones, & Axelrod, 2001).
These organizations have a clear two-fold strategic advantage over their competitors, i.e. the ability to be more
selective in their hiring decisions, which increases the
effectiveness of their overall staffing systems (Boudreau
& Rynes, 1985) and the ability to earn above-normal returns through the acquisition and deployment of human
talent (Barney, 1986; Lado & Wilson, 1994). Thus, the
competence to attract, recruit, develop, and retain high
calibre talent is the single-most important determinant of
organizational effectiveness and a source of competitive
advantage (Borstorff, Marker, & Bennett, 2007). The recruitment function of an organization serves as the engine focused on winning this war and providing the
competitive advantage.
Recruitment has been defined in multiple ways. Rynes
(1991) defined it as encompassing all organizational
practices and decisions that affect either the number or
types of individuals that are willing to apply for, or to
accept, a given vacancy(p. 429). The definition proposed
by Barber (1998) was much narrower in scope and included only the purposeful actions taken by the organizations. According to Breaugh & Starke (2000), Recruitment
consists of those organizational practices with the primary purpose of identifying potential employees, informing them about the job and organizational attributes, and
persuading them to join the organization. A more recent
definition by Breaugh (2013) says that recruitment is defined as an employers actions that are intended to (1)
bring a job opening to the attention of potential job candidates who do not currently work for the organization, (2)
influence whether these individuals apply for the opening, (3) affect whether they maintain interest in the position until a job offer is extended, and (4) influence whether
a job offer is accepted. While this definition appears to be
the most relevant in extending the realm of recruitment to
encompass the influence of social media, it does not ad-

94

dress what organizations do to enhance the employer

brand, even in the absence of an active job opening. It is
therefore suggested that the definition of recruitment
needs to be expanded beyond those related to active recruitment and to include all activities by an organization
which help bring potential applicants into the consideration set of the organization. This can be considered as
passive recruitment. Hence, recruitment can be defined
as all the activities undertaken by an organization to enhance its employer brand which helps it to attract both
active and passive applicants to the organization for current and future job opportunities and which influences
them to apply, maintain interest during the selection process, and join at the appropriate time.
Barber (1998) delineated three phases of recruitment as
applicant attraction, recruitment operations, and final job
choice decision. Breaugh and Starke (2000) outlined a
recruitment framework wherein the recruitment objectives
(retention, job performance, cost, speed of filling, etc.) were
instrumental in driving the strategy development for the
recruitment function. This in turn, led to the recruitment
activities, with applicant related intervening variables of
applicant attraction, message credibility, accuracy of applicants expectations, self-insight of applicants knowledge, skills, ability, and needs mediating the recruitment
results (Breaugh & Starke, 2000).
It is important that the communication made during the
process of recruitment is both consistent and credible
(Breaugh & Billings, 1988), not only during the initial
stages of application but also during the recruitment process, for organizations to successfully attract talent. This
credibility and consistency in communication is assessed
by the applicants during the process (Rynes, 1991) and
also helps explain the greater effectiveness of the various
internal recruitment sources such as employee referrals,
internal transfers, or re-hires (Zottolli & Wanous, 2000).
For instance, Saks & Cronshaw (1990) found the realistic
job previews to be more credible when presented by the
recruiter rather than the written format. Applicants tend
to infer job and organizational information based on the
organizational image projected along with the perceptions formed during their early interactions with the organization, if the information is not clearly provided by
the organization (Ryan & Tippins, 2004). Recruitment
research suggests that individuals might discount organizations when exposed to neutral information (Collins &
Stevens, 2002). So, from a recruitment context, this means

TWEET YOUR TUNE SOCIAL MEDIA, THE NEW PIED PIPER IN TALENT ACQUISITION

that neutral news is not necessarily good news. Hence,

the method of message delivery becomes important, apart
from the content. All of this provides important linkages
to the manner in which information is disseminated in
the social media.
The financial implications of recruitment, turnover or attrition, for both entry level and senior management, suggest the need for better and effective recruitment practices
(Sanford, 2005). Wright and McMahan (1992) defined
strategic human resource management as the pattern of
planned human resource deployment and activities intended to enable an organization to achieve its goals.
Strategic recruitment would require a synergy of recruitment activities and processes with the organization goals.
It is also of interest to see what recruitment strategies and
processes help organizations gain a competitive advantage in attracting talent in a manner to retain them through
mobility barriers (Caves & Porter, 1977), thus immobilizing the perfectly mobile resources (Barney, 1986). Since
recruitment can help organizations achieve competitive
advantage through its ability to accumulate new resources
more efficiently and effectively relative to competitors
(Delery, 1998; Mahoney & Pandian, 1992; Prahalad &
Hamel, 1990), a convergence of the organizations strategy with the recruitment strategy and implementation
becomes critical for recruitment to deliver strategic value.
For instance, a recruitment function which remains inward-looking and focused on managing costs, or improving its source mix, may be harming the organization by
delaying a quicker resource fulfilment. Today, it has become imperative for an organizations HR to understand,
articulate, and operationalize an appropriate social media recruitment strategy, which will help the function and
the organization as a whole. Those organizations that
leverage social media strategically have an opportunity
to deepen connections with their target users, building
affinity, and loyalty (Powers et al., 2012).
Proposition 1: The more recruitment communication is linked to organizations strategic goals,
the more effective it is likely to be.

Applicant Attraction
The whole purpose of an organizations communication
before and during the process of recruitment is to attract
potential job applicants to the organization (Breaugh &
Starke, 2000). Thus recruitment communication can be
VIKALPA VOLUME 39 NO 3 JULY - SEPTEMBER 2014

defined as any recruitment information which is personally relevant to an applicant and messages received during interactive communication (Breaugh & Starke, 2000)
to attract applicants. Allen, VanScotter, and Otondo (2004)
found face-to-face interactive communication being rated
as the richest medium to attract applicants, followed by
text communication which was rated higher than pure
audio communication in richness. The Psychology literature indicates that more the information (both positive
and negative) prior to the start of employment, lower is
the turnover (Farr, OLeary, & Bartlett, 1973; Gannon,
1971; Wanous, 1973; 1975). All of this indicates that the
information about when and how the applicant receives
his information about the organization and the role can
influence the applicants behaviour after joining the organization. The power of social media emerges as a rich
interactive channel for contextualizing and personalizing the communication at an individual level.
The antecedents to job application are the cognitive and
affective processing of information about job choices,
wherein a congruency is sought between applicants
needs and the perceived job and organizations offerings.
What people construe as distinctive, central, and enduring about the organization helps define the organizational image (Dutton, Dukerich, & Harquail, 1994). An
organizations image plays an important role in the minds
of the applicant and helps him differentiate the organization from its competitors (Aaker, 1997; Cable & Turban,
2003; Scott & Lane, 2000). Hence, being able to establish a
favourable image in the mind of the applicant can help
an organization attract a larger and more qualified talent
pool to its door.
Employer branding has been defined as the sum of a
companys efforts to communicate to existing and prospective staff that it is a desirable place to work (Edwards,
2010). This is analogous to customer-based brand equity
(Aaker, 1997) which helps in creating a unique favourable brand image in the target customers mind and helps
increase the likelihood of the product or service being
chosen over other similar products or services; employer
branding also works in a similar fashion for the applicant pool. Employer attractiveness or the perceived benefit that the applicant may get by being employed by an
organization, is the antecedent to the development of an
effective employer brand (Arachchige & Robertson, 2011).
Rynes (1991) suggested that given the small amount of
information available to applicants early in the job choice

95

process, initial application decisions are heavily based

on general impressions of organizational attractiveness
or organizational image. Belt and Paolillo, (1982) found
applicant responses to organizations with a better image
to be significantly higher. Fisher, Ilgen, and Hoyer (1979)
showed that graduating students found information obtained from people outside the organization to be more
credible than the same information obtained from organizational representatives. This indicates that job applicants
are significantly influenced by their reference groups. This
becomes important in the context of social media, where
the level of peer communication is very high. This is also
substantiated by Kilduff (1990), who found the graduating MBA students being more attracted to organizations
most preferred by their peers. Collins and Stevens (2002)
argued that applicants could rely on employer brand
images for guidance in decision-making, since in many
cases, the true attributes of the job and company may not
be easily known. Therefore, establishing the employer
brand becomes critical for organizations hoping to attract high calibre talent. All of this research indicates that
organizations can significantly leverage the power of social media to establish and communicate an attractive
employer brand and influence initial applicant decision.
Research indicates that applicants move through a
gradual process of bringing an organization into their
consideration set, evaluating it through the lens of their
work values, before making the decision to apply for the
job. The behaviour of highly skilled job seekers in a tight
labour market is similar to that of consumers in a crowded
marketplace (Collins & Stevens, 2002). The job choice process begins with an individuals evaluation of information obtained from recruitment sources, including printed
advertisements, media messages, and friends (Gatewood,
Gowan, & Lautenschlager, 1993). An organizations failure to supply information may be viewed as a signal of its
lack of professionalism or of its lack of interest in the applicant (Breaugh & Starke, 2000). This indicates the need
for a concentrated effort by organizations to channelize
favourable and consistent messages through the various
channels towards their target applicant pool. Thus, even
investments in social media recruitment need a thoughtful strategic approach by the organization, if its power is
to be harnessed.
All of this implies that while multiple information sources
(Breaugh & Starke, 2000; Fisher, Ilgen, & Hoyer, 1979;
Kilduff, 1990) influence applicants behaviour, social

96

media channels help organizations to not only address

and influence potential job applicant behaviour but also
build a favourable employer brand.
Proposition 2: Higher the use of social media
platforms, the greater will be the employer
branding among potential applicants to the
organization.

SOCIAL MEDIA
Social media was defined by Marketo (2010) as the production, consumption and exchange of information
through online social interactions and platforms.
OReilly (2010) defined Web 2.0 as the second generation of Internet-based services that facilitate interactive
information sharing, social networking, collaboration and
end user participation. Hoffman and Fodor (2010) identified the 4 Cs of connection, creation, consumption, and
control as the motivators behind social media engagement. The common denominator therefore is the social
media, which is a platform for communication and collaboration. Since engagement and collaboration are the two
sides of the social media coin, a clear understanding of
the potential job applicants needs and commensurate
degree of information sharing is required.
The primary and secondary value creating activities of
an organization in its value chain can be significantly
influenced by social media (Yang & Mason, 1998). The
growing popularity of social networking websites like
LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter are forcing organizations to recognize the potential it provides in attracting
todays Generation Y workforce. With over millions of
users on LinkedIn and Twitter, and over a whopping 800
million users on Facebook (Hunt, 2010), clearly the large
segment available for talent acquisition is too attractive
for any HR function to ignore. The power of the internet,
of which social media is a part, is increasingly being
leveraged by HR functions for the purposes of recruitment, selection and training and interacting and engaging with the current and potential employees (Florkowski
& Olivas-Lujan, 2006). Research suggests HR 2.0 as a
new term for the collective human resource management
processes enabled and facilitated by Web 2.0 based applications (McAdams, 2010) and especially used in recruitment through passive job seekers, branding, and
relationship building before and during the selection process. Web 2.0 based tools and techniques like corporate

TWEET YOUR TUNE SOCIAL MEDIA, THE NEW PIED PIPER IN TALENT ACQUISITION

intranets, blogs, and professional networks can be used

to attract and induct suitable talent. LinkedIn has been
particularly helpful for some companies in finding out
additional information about job applicants (Roberts &
Roach, 2009).
While it is generally believed that the strategy adopted by
the organization should drive its use of social media
(Hunt, 2010; Andzulis, Panagopoulos, & Rapp, 2012),
Doherty (2010) argued that organizations started looking at social media as a recruitment tool due to cost pressures. The question then is: Are organizations accurately
tracking and measuring the right metrics? The conventional recruitment metrics measured efficacy of recruitment channels through the time to hire and cost of hire
(Breaugh, 2013; Otter, 2009; Rynes, 1991). As argued earlier, the applicant attraction process is analogous to targeted marketing, with employer brand image and
employer value proposition helping to seal the interest.
The power of social media lies in its ability to effect peripheral persuasion, as defined by Petty and Cacioppos
(1986) elaboration likelihood model (ELM), wherein the
potential applicants lack the motivation or the ability to
carefully process a message (Breaugh, 2013).
However, as Hoffman and Fodor (2010) stated, social media diluted the circle of influence and control of the organization and placed higher levels of control on the
interfacing individuals. Organizations need to also look
at these channels as a potential area to improve employee
branding and be perceived as an employer of choice
among the Generation Y workforce. Hence, in this context, apart from the conventional recruitment metrics, it
becomes necessary for HR functions to measure and evolve
metrics to assess the employer branding. As Hoffman and
Fodor (2010) stated, effective social media measurement
should start by turning the traditional ROI approach on
its headinstead of emphasizing their owninvestments
and calculating the returnsmanagers should begin by
considering consumer motivations to use social media
and then measure the social media investments customers make as they engage with the ..brands.
Social media should therefore not be thought of as simply
another channel for recruitment, another means by which
to interact with the potential applicant, or another tool by
which to manage employer brand and organization reputation but, rather, all of those things simultaneously.

VIKALPA VOLUME 39 NO 3 JULY - SEPTEMBER 2014

For the recruiters, the information available on the social

media provides additional insights into the candidates
personality, interests, and values which may not emerge
from the more conventional resume. However, there is a
clear need for caution to ensure that public and non-professional information, if used to support a hiring decision, does not flout the discrimination policy of the
organization (Doherty, 2010).

COMPARISON OF CONVENTIONAL AND

SOCIAL MEDIA RECRUITMENT
Prior research on recruitment has studied pre-hire outcomes (e.g. number of applicants, job offer acceptance
rates), post-hire outcomes (e.g. job performance, employee
turnover), recruitment objectives (cost of hire, time to hire,
number of positions filled, diversity) (Breaugh & Starke,
2000; Breaugh, 2013). It therefore becomes important to
differentiate conventional recruitment methods and outcomes from the social media methods and outcomes in
terms of their applicability, strategy, and use. As mentioned earlier, prior literature has looked at recruitment
purely from the lens of active requirement fulfilment.
Therefore, all metrics defined therein depend on the outcome of actually recruiting an applicant. This is a fundamental difference, since active recruitment through social
media reduces social media to just another channel. The
power of social media exists in its ability to enhance peripheral persuasion (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). As cognitive and affective processing of information about the job
choices can be significantly enhanced by using social media, it provides an invaluable opportunity to influence
applicant attraction, enhance employer branding, and
target specific talent pools. Therefore, social media can be
leveraged both for active and passive recruitment, but
more importantly for passive recruitment.
Organizations today place too much emphasis on two
basic metrics Time to fill and cost per hire but fail to
sufficiently debate upon, identify, and measure a new
age parameter called quality of hire. They need to evaluate if they are reaching their targeted audience vis--vis
an unwanted global audience. In the effort to get the
fastest available applicant, the most suitable applicant
may get missed out. Social media channels clearly allow
for organizations to disseminate targeted messages to a
filtered audience thereby contributing to and increasing
the quality score card.

97

An important measure of recruitment effectiveness is defined by the quality of hire a parameter which organizations are slowly and increasingly beginning to recognize,
while the efficiency metrics (time to fill, cost per hire, attrition rate) are still measured and are still relevant. The
quality of hire measure has two dimensions: the measures of recruitment-focused quality (assessments, fit
against defined job competencies, and skills) and posthire contribution and performance quality index. These
measures are necessarily contextual and cannot be standardized. However, the metrics aligned to business outcomes are generally accepted as valid measures for quality
of hire. These may be the strength of the talent pipeline
(talent mapping, sourcing, knowing the competition, and
presenting the most qualified candidates), new hire attrition, assessment scores for critical roles, candidate experience (measure of perceived and actual fit), employer
experience (measure of assessed and actual fit), percentage of diversity, etc. These measures of quality remain
relevant even for social media recruitment.
Additionally, customized targeting of potential applicants
of defined demographics through social media lends itself for affirmative action in specific areas of recruitment
like increasing diversity (gender, disability, racial, etc.).
The fundamental differences between conventional recruitment channels and social media recruitment are
given in Table 1.
The Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (Venkatesh, Thong, & Xu, 2012) postulates that a difference in age, gender, experience, habit, etc., of individual
users can result in a significant difference in the behavioural intention and technology use. The performance
expectancy (degree of benefit technology will provide),

effort expectancy (degree of ease in use of technology),

facilitating conditions (perceptions of resources and support available), and social influence (extent that an applicant perceives that its reference groups believes that they
should use technology) all work towards influencing
behavioural intention to use technology. The influence of
reference groups on applicants behaviour had already
been established (Van Hoye & Lievens, 2007; Van-Hoye
& Saks, 2011). All of this indicates that only an applicant
population which is technology savvy will be the targeted segment of social media recruitment.
Social media may not be amenable to active recruitment
at all levels and positions; hence a judicious use of these
channels for appropriate target segments is advised. Organizations would be ill-advised to discard conventional
recruitment channels, operations, and metrics without a
careful analysis of its strategy.

STRATEGY FOR SOCIAL MEDIA RECRUITMENT

Before an organization enters the social media arena for
the purposes of talent acquisition, it must determine the
appropriate goals associated with the social media implementation (Andzulis, Panagopoulos, & Rapp, 2012).
It needs to identify and understand the value proposition
for the talent pool, not just the organization. A recent
study indicated that of the 35 percent of the employers
using social media for recruitment, 21 percent are using it
to recruit and research potential employees, and 18 percent are using it to strengthen their employment brands
(Hunt, 2010).
The tactical choices and investments done in social media typically emanate from four strategic goals that an
organization may have. Analogous to the strategies in the

Table 1: Differences between Conventional and Social Media Recruitment

Measure or Criteria

Conventional Recruitment

Social Media Recruitment

Objective / Utility

Active demand fulfilment

Active and passive recruitment

Channels of communication

Newspapers, referrals, direct, job board,

recruitment consultants

Social media channels like blog sites, micro-blogging,

websites and forums/discussion groups, social networks
(LinkedIn, Facebook)

Metrics of measure

Pre- and post-hire outcomes, operational efficiencies

Employer branding and personalized engagement

Locus of control

HR function

Social media community

Level of individualization

Medium to low

Very high

Target applicant group

All individuals matching current open positions

Gen Y , internet savvy, having access & active on social

media channels

Tenure of engagement

Relatively short-term, from application to

on-boarding of applicant

Continuous engagement

98

TWEET YOUR TUNE SOCIAL MEDIA, THE NEW PIED PIPER IN TALENT ACQUISITION

sales and marketing context, (Andzulis, Panagopoulos,

& Rapp, 2012), recruitment strategies are relationship
building, employer brand building, active recruitment,
and finally cost optimization.
Table 2 indicates the philosophy, operational investment,
and tactical outcome to be expected from each of these
strategies. Based on organizational needs, resource availability, and priorities, HR functions should carve out their
social media plan. However, it may be feasible for an organization to choose a few of these or all of these concurrently and decide the relative degrees of investment
required.
Due to the high costs of social media monitoring, MROCs1
provide a relatively economical alternative. However, the
inputs received here are qualitative in nature, even when
surveys and polls are used. The special nature of the recruitment of MROCs and the sensitized nature of the participants involvement means that the data should be
interpreted in a qualitative way, rather than assuming
that it directly represents the universal population. Community panels are the e-version of traditional in-house
panels and employ the latest techniques in engagement

and communities to optimize relationships with brands

(Poynter, 2011).
Organizations focused on passive recruitment or even
those having a robust succession planning policy can
look at proactively engaging with the passive job seekers
through the social media channels. The targeted and personalized engagement with the candidates creates greater
candidate loyalty to the company and makes it more
difcult for competition to attract them (Doherty, 2010).
All the above channels can also be used for monitoring
social reputation and building an aspirational employer
brand. There is a need for substantial commitment and
continuous monitoring by the HR function for social media to become a concomitant and dynamic channel within
the recruitment function.
This suggests that organizations need to follow a structured approach (See Figure 1). As indicated, the choice of
channels will flow from the desired strategy and recruitment need. The performance realized will indicate the
changes required in operational investment and choices
of channels.

Table 2: Alignment of Strategy, Philosophy, Investment, and Outcome for Recruitment

Strategy

Philosophy

Operational Investment

Tactical Outcome

Relationship strategy

Trust building and collaboration

through personalized engagement

Dedicated community manager focused on

prospective talent lead generation and engagement

Strategic talent inducted

into the organization

Employer branding

Establishing credibility, gaining

attention, demonstrating employer
value propositions

Social media monitoring, sentiment analysis,

creation of purposed communities, MROCs
and community panels.

Organization perceived
as preferred employer
of choice

Active recruitment

Reactive demand fulfilment

Maintaining a dynamic career microsite

reflecting active open requirements

Active recruitment
positions closed

Cost optimization

Reducing costs of recruitment

channels

Maintaining a dynamic career microsite and

integrating with active open requirements. Dedicated
resource to close applicants from these channel

Reduce recruitment
spend on more
expensive channels

Figure 1: Social Media Recruitment Approach

Social Media Strategy

Choice of Channels

Metrics

Operational Investment

Performance

Market research online communities, dubbed MROCs by Forrester Research in 2008, was initially pioneered by Communispace and
became mainstream by 2010.

VIKALPA VOLUME 39 NO 3 JULY - SEPTEMBER 2014

99

The social media strategy defines the stage which an

organization can use, which thus helps in choosing the
appropriate channel. For instance, if the social media strategy of an organization is active recruitment, the stage is
the career page in the organization website. This is then
linked to posting of active jobs on various job portals and
social media sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.
The metrics of efficacy will thus be the number of active
positions closed through these channels. If the intention
of using social media is to boost employer branding, the
stage becomes the website blog page, LinkedIn, and
Facebook pages where the content is updated on current
events and achievements of the organization, recent
awards and recognitions received, employee testimonials, and insights into the culture of the organization. The
metrics of measurement in this case will thus become the
number of unique visits, the return visits, the search ranking, number of followers/members/fans and also number
of re-blogs, frequency of badging on other sites, re-tweets,
etc. For instance, LinkedIn has defined constructs of talent brand reach and talent brand engagement and used
these to develop the concept of Talent Brand Index as a
measure of employer branding.
While this is illustrative, it becomes important to define
the stage, channel, and appropriate metrics for each in
more details so that an effective ROI can be garnered from
the use of social media in recruitment.
Proposition 3: The more social media strategy
and corresponding metrics are aligned to the
organizations strategy, the more effective would
be the social media recruitment

MEASUREMENT OF ROI IN SOCIAL MEDIA

RECRUITMENT
Hoffman and Fodor (2010) argued for changing the traditional ROI metrics for effective social media influence
measurement. As stated earlier, the fundamental difference between conventional recruitment and social media
recruitment is that, in the latter, the locus of control has
shifted to the applicant pool. This essentially mandates
that social media recruitment develops a different set of
metrics to measure outcomes than the conventional recruitment metrics used by organizations. Therefore, in
the recruitment context, instead of emphasizing the organizational investments and calculating the returns in
terms of hires or time to hire, HR managers should begin
by considering both the applicants motivations to use

100

social media as well as the organizational desired outcomes and then measure the social media investments
made by the potential applicants as they engage with the
organization brand. As Hoffman and Fodor (2010) state,
returns from social media investments will not always
be measured in dollars, but also in (applicant) behaviours and investments tied to particular social media applications. The argument is that this approach takes into
account both short-term (immediate recruitment fulfilment) and long-term returns of significant organization
investment in social media. The key metrics should therefore evolve in terms of job applicants (active and passive) behaviours which are tied to particular social media
applications.. The conventional metrics of advertising of
reach and frequency or an inward-looking view of recruitment cost and fulfilment time will defeat the very
purpose of social media recruiting. The intrinsic challenge is that in this medium, the applicant community
creates and consumes online content, which essentially
makes organization controlled metrics meaningless, as
the control is not with the organizations. As Hoffman
and Fodor (2010) state, the four key motivations which
drive social media are connections, creation, consumption,
and control. A significant difference is that the control
exists with the community and not with the organization. Therefore, organizations which depend on or leverage the social media channels for their active operation
are most likely to gain maximum mileage from social
media recruitment. Additionally, organizations facing
challenges in acquiring key talent may look at building
relationships with potential talent pools. This can be more
easily achieved through social medial channels.
Proposition 4: Organizations which use employer branding and relationship strategy as
predominant recruitment strategies are more
likely to use social media for recruitment.
The relationship strategy is akin to brand engagement in
the marketing context, just as employer branding is analogous to brand awareness, as defined by Hoffman and
Fodor (2010). Depending on the types of social media that
have been adopted for talent acquisition, there will be
different metrics and tools used to measure the impact as
shown in Table 3.
Based on the strategic goal, organizations can choose the
stage, the appropriate channel, define the operational
investments required for each channel, and then set the

TWEET YOUR TUNE SOCIAL MEDIA, THE NEW PIED PIPER IN TALENT ACQUISITION

Table 3: Suggested Relevant Metrics for Social Media Recruitment

Social Media Strategy

Suggested Stage

Suggested Channels

Appropriate Metrics for ROI Measurement

Relationship strategy

Blog site

Career page in
company website

No. of members
Average length of time on site
No. of comments
No. of responses to polls, contests, surveys-Amount of user
generated content
No. of RSS feed subscribers
No. of references to blog in other media and re-blogs

Social network

Facebook/LinkedIn page

No. of comments
No. of active users, friends & friends of fans
No. of likes or friends feeds; sources of likes
No. of user generated items-Usage metrics of applications/widgets
No. of posts on wall/reposts and shares-No. of responses to
friend referral invites

Micro-blogging

Twitter

No. of followers
No. of replies
No. of Re-tweets
Tweet : Re-tweet Ratio

Forum &
Discussion groups

Google groups,
domain groups

No. of relevant topics/threads

No. of individual replies
No. of sign-ups
Citation in other sites
Incoming links
Tagging in social bookmarking

Blog site

Career page in
company website

No. of unique visits

No. of return visits
No. of times bookmarked
Search ranking
Ratio of Unique: Return visitors
Source of traffic (search engines/other links/sites)

Social network

Facebook/Linked in page

No. of - reviews/ratings and valence (+/-)

No. of members/fans
No. of impressions and bookmarksTotal reach and viral reach- Source of traffic (search engines/
other links/sites)

Micro-blogging

Twitter

No. of tweets about the organization-Valence of tweets (+/-)

No. of followers
No. of filtered clicks
No. of mentions

Forum &
discussion groups

Google groups,
domain groups

No. of page views

No. of visits-Valence of posted content (+/-)

Active recruitment

Blog site, Social

network, Microblogging

Career page in
company website
linked with active
jobs on online
recruitment portal
job postings on Facebook/Linked in/Twitter

Ratio of job postings: joinees

No. of applicants to active jobs
Apply click ratio (no. of people landing on the page vs
number of people applying after landing)
No. of hires through this channel
Ratio of Unique: Return visitors
Time to fill - Cost per hire

Cost optimization

Blog site, Social network, Jobs on career site,

Micro-blogging

Employer branding

Sourcing cost per hire through social media channels vs

other channels

Note: Adapted from Hoffman and Fodor (2010).

VIKALPA VOLUME 39 NO 3 JULY - SEPTEMBER 2014

101

determined metric outcomes. While there clearly are complexities in calculating the ROI for social media recruitment, apart from the issues of size test, control samples
and recruitment outcomes, a longer-term study could link
the quality and tenure of hire to the source, apart from
assessing applicant satisfaction levels in engagement
through various channels. This longitudinal study will
help establish the proxy estimates to generate the calculations necessary to link social media investment to HR
outcomes. What is irrefutable is that without effective
measurement, there will be deterioration in the effectiveness of the medium over time. Without a focused effort to
develop metrics in the context of the 4 cs (Hoffman &
Fodor, 2010), the social media recruitment efforts will remain fuzzy and essentially become just a flash in the pan,
possibly even harming the organization and the employer
brand.
Since the stage for social media could be common across
the various strategies, it becomes important to cite the
appropriate metric for the related strategy. Since relationship strategy is analogous to brand engagement, as defined by Hoffman and Fodor (2010), where a targeted pool
is engaged through personalized relationship, metrics like
number of members, RSS feed subscribers, amount of user
generated content, length of time spent on site, and response to polls/contests/surveys become relevant. However, if the social media strategy is used to increase
employer branding and thereby enhance the organizations image (Aaker, 1997; Arachchige & Robertson, 2011;
Cable & Turban, 2003), the same platforms would require
different yardsticks to measure the impact. Here it becomes more critical to assess the impact on a larger talent
pool vis--vis a targeted talent pool. Hence metrics like
the number of visits, the time spent, the valence of blog
comments, and updates on Facebook and Twitter pages
can be used to measure outcomes like organization brand
awareness and word-of-mouth increase. For relationship
strategy of the same platforms of Facebook and Twitter,
number of comments, active user/followers, would be
more appropriate.

IMPLICATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS

The goal of this paper was to present a broad overview of
social media and its role in the strategic recruitment. It
also looked at building parallels between marketing concepts and applicant attraction and discussed how social
media provides a logical platform for working on appli-

102

cant attraction. Apart from applicant attraction through

employer branding, social media can also be leveraged
for active recruitment. However, there exist clear differences in the approach and philosophy of conventional
and social media recruitment. This therefore necessitates
articulating the relevant strategy and then defining appropriate metrics to check for achievement of the same
depending on whether organizations want to pursue
strategies of relationship building, employer brand enhancement, active recruitment or cost optimization, the
choice of channels, the appropriate investment and the
corresponding metrics of measuring desired objectives
change. While social media is opening the doors and
changing the way recruitment functions, it should not be
mistaken as the recruitment strategy going forward but
rather a part of the recruiting strategy. When an organization looks to attract and hire candidates, emphasis
needs to be laid upon what an organizations employee
value proposition is and on the basis of this value proposition and the organizations culture, growth path, and
hiring needs, a recruitment plan needs to be laid out along
with milestones and objectives to see how they can be met.
As this area is relatively new, there are countless avenues
to proceed with future research. The focus of this paper
was on the more important and influential areas of social
media in the domain of talent acquisition. This paper has
provided some critical take-away for organizations HR
functions in terms of summarizing the approaches and
desired outcomes based on the organizations HR strategy. The limitations of this paper are that the concepts
and suggested metrics have to be empirically substantiated, which provides clear avenues for future research.
The additional areas for future research that were uncovered in writing this paper were security/privacy concerns
of the applicants as well as the ethics of using information available in the social media for making recruitment
decisions. Additionally, the use of social media in other
domains of HR practices such as learning and development, employee engagement, etc. have not been explored.
As the body of academic work in this field slowly replaces
the practitioner pieces in the way an army strategists cull
the best practices learned on a battlefield, social media
will become a substantial source for future research that
has the potential to shape, craft, and transform not only
HR strategy, but also corporate strategy for years to come.
It is hoped that this research would open the door for
insightful research on the role of social media in the world
of strategic human resources.

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Debolina Dutta is the Head of HR, India at VF Corporation,

Bengaluru and is currently enrolled in the FPM Industry
programme at IIM Indore. With a degree in Electrical Engineering from College of Engineering, Pune and a Post Graduate Degree in Software Enterprise Management from IIM,

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research: Current and future directions. Human Resource
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Bangalore, she has 22 years of work experience in the HR and

Sales domains.
e-mail: fi12debolinad@iimidr.ac.in

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