Organisation - December 16, 2010

Looking for new employees on Facebook

Imares recruits new staff through social networks

Recruitment ads in newspapers are out. What young person these days has a newspaper subscription, wonders Imares spokesperson Hans Bothe out loud. 'Young people don't have much affinity with newspapers. They get their news from the Internet.' And so Imares, which is looking for eighteen new employees, is changing tack. Staff are actively looking for new colleagues through their own social networks, i.e. though LinkedIn, Facebook, twitter, YouTube or any of the other networks the more than 220 Imares employees belong to.
Typical employees
The new recruitment campaign was launched last week. Job hunters are tipped off about the job opportunities at Imares through messages in the 'social media'. Interested candidates are taken to a new web page, where three 'typical employees' talk about Imares and working for this organization. They are professor of Toxicology Tinka Murk and the researchers Sander Glorius and Lorna Teal. To give a better picture of work at Imares, there is a link through to a special YouTube page containing about forty films.
Another new element in the recruitment campaign is the use of profiles. Imares is not advertising for predefined jobs; instead, it is looking for people who fit a certain profile. 'The profiles describe the kind of work we do and the kind of employee we need for this in terms of character, knowledge and ambitions.' Bothe is expecting good results from the new recruitment drive, which is merely a fraction of the cost of traditional recruitment ads. The first week has already produced 85 applicants.