Community managers and the evolution of the recruiting function
Written by Susan Burns
The idea of a community manager isn’t unique to the recruiting function. The term is borrowed from the consumer world and emerged with the influence social media is exerting on brand engagement and reputation. While the role is still relatively new, companies have begun to realize the potential to attract, engage, nurture, retain and expand their customer / client base beyond traditional marketing and PR. Its about creating brand value through experiential engagement and listening rather than talking to nurture conversations and relationships. In a connected, multi-channel world, staying relevant requires new thinking and developing the skill to engage people in conversations is one way to accomplish differentiation.
The same is true in recruitment. The role of a community manager is not only important but one any company interested in developing an adaptive recruitment strategy should consider. The community manager is at the center of success for any social recruiting strategy that aims to move beyond “socializing job openings”, which isn’t sustainable and isn’t where the value lies in social media. Requirements of the role also address a new set of skills and competencies for successful recruiting strategies. As we experience rapid advancement and expansion of the channels, applications, tools and technology available to attract and engage prospective talent, the structure and competencies of the talent function need to evolve as well. It is possible to apply social networking for recruiting and even enjoy some success without a community manager. However, if you want to develop a sustainable and integrated social media and networking component as part of the company’s talent strategy, a dedicated community manager role is what you need. There are a number of ways to approach developing and integrating this role depending on company size, budget and hiring objectives. Before we get into the specifics of structure lets look a little deeper into why the role is important and the value it presents.
The dynamics and operating environment of today’s recruiting function is significantly more complex than even two years ago. Over the past 10 or so years complexity came from a confluence of trends and events – the rise of the Internet, talent scarcity (remember 4% unemployment), and a long, prosperous economic cycle. Needless to say, we’ve seen web adoption rates increase quite steadily, economic cycles wax and wane, and the hunt for good talent continue, with scarcity still existing in many instances. Recruiting functions must now excel in multi-channel branding, be adept at utilizing a variety of technology and related applications, and, overall, do more with less – certainly in today’s environment. They must also do everything they did before to anticipate and prepare for the company’s talent needs (workforce planning); select, assess, and hire the right people; and, develop outstanding relationships with hiring managers. Technology is bringing efficiencies to the recruitment process but this is not an environment that is standing still. We saw a first-generation response to these environmental factors with the introduction of applicant tracking systems (ATS) and the rise of sourcing functions as a means to streamline and develop specialization in the recruiting function. In many cases though, ATS’ weren’t able to meet the growing needs and sourcing functions were not effectively integrated into the recruiting function, were significant in size and were then the first to be cut when the economic situation and outlook worsened. The growing wave and influence of social media calls for a second-generation response – the community manager, to take the strategy beyond sourcing and develop sustainable communities. The value derived from the community manager role is a combination of efficiency, sustainability, brand leverage and reduced hiring costs. The value of sourcer, marketer and conversationalist is combined into the community manager role to target priority talent areas and support the company’s workforce planning strategy and respective needs.
The perspective I’d like to provide is from the view of a corporate talent function leader. I’m going to take a holistic look at the community manager role to provide companies of varying size the options they need to be successful. Its often easier to tease apart the layers of a role and harder to consolidate them for effective execution and performance.
Structure:
The community manager reports into the talent function team leader and interfaces with recruiters, HR, marketing, internal communications, and targeted business leads. Through regular updates with the talent function team leader the community manager understands the talent priorities and designs a targeted strategy to attract and engage prospective talent. Talent priorities can be broken down by skill/experience, job levels, geography, function, business unit, etc. depending on the structure and needs of the company – think of alignment with workforce planning. The community manager should not be focused across the entire organization. This could come in time, but I would recommend beginning with a narrow rather than broad approach to establish the role and realize success before expanding. At the same time, it would benefit your strategy to have a longer-term vision so you stay aligned with the objectives and move forward incrementally. The community manager is focused on building pipeline and community not on open reqs. They should have a real-time view into open roles to expedite talent to recruiters and deliver more value to the connections they’re making externally.
This could be structured as a part- or full-time role. The resources allocated will obviously affect the pace of progress but it is doable. What is not doable is combining this role with a recruiter role. Why? The inherent risk when the role is structured as part of another role is that any time an urgent recruiting need comes up the community manager’s responsibilities end up on the back burner. You won’t build the traction and momentum, progress will come more slowly and delivering on ROI objectives will be challenged. Additionally, the cost of building community is primarily in the human factor, and the absence of “voice” will leave people questioning their own time investment to engage with your brand.
Four skills of a great Community Manager
Communicator:
Being a good communicator is as much about listening as it is about talking. The community manager should be skillful in developing and nurturing relationships across a broad spectrum.
Internal relationships: The community manager builds relationships with multiple stakeholders to position themselves and the company for success.
External relationships: Develops relationships with prospective talent through a variety of channels – creates original content (text, visual and audio), comments and responds to engage across communities.
Company acumen: The community manager is most effective when they have a visceral understanding of the company’s brand, culture and objectives – what is the company trying to achieve and what is their authentic message.
Technically Adept: This role is a combination of conversationalist, sourcer, and marketer. Technology is the thread that weaves these together.
Persistently Curious:
While there may certainly be challenges with integrating this role in today’s business environment there is potentially more risk in not moving forward. It is equally important for the recruiting function to be on the edge of newness and invest in preparing for the future, as it is for sales, marketing or product development, and IT. It could be argued that its even more important to invest in the recruitment function to support the company’s business needs and ensure the talent they need to execute across all the other functions can be found. Investing in the community manager role now will allow the company to build a foundation at a time when there is an opportunity to engage talent at a lower cost of attraction and ensure the company is prepared as the business environment improves.
If you’d like additional background on the role of social media and recruiting, you can reference my article, Building a Recruitment Strategy in a Social World. You might also enjoy this article from the NYT that describes how communication, ideas, community and transparency are influencing the world.
Comment by Steve Fogarty
Made Sunday, 19 of April , 2009 at 8:44 pm
This is probably one of the best blog posts I’ve read in a long time. The four skills of a great Community Manager is brilliant. This has become, and continues to increasingly be, a very important function for an organization. For smaller companies I can see this person playing a role across teams but for a large organization I can see the need to have several of these people.
How strategic and experienced do you envision this person to be? I have seen people who, by educational standards, aren’t the best communicators in world but manage to be very effective community builders. It’s like the popular kid in high school that knows how to relate to masses. I also know people who understand the technology but don’t know how to community build. I definitely get the need for internal partnership and cross-team collaboration but could a recent grad take on this role? Someone who knows how to build relationships, communicate, lives and breathes the social web, etc? Or do you see this person as a more experience social media marketing person?
Either way I absolutely love this post. It’s so relevant!!!
Comment by susan
Made Monday, 20 of April , 2009 at 9:27 am
Thanks for your comment Steve. Good questions. Breaking this down between skills to acquire and skills to develop I would prioritize the “conversationalist” skill and experience as #1. Authenticity in voice and respect for social communities is a must. This could be an experienced social media marketing person but considering the newness of the space how many are there? The potential for a “trained” marketer or pr person to unlearn their current conversation style could be challenging, but not impossible. The next characteristic I would look for is someone who embraces the company’s values and passion around its product or service, which is central to authenticity. Next would be familiarity, curiosity, interest and desire to play and learn the technology driving the social space. Building the internal relationships and translating the “business” to conversation can be taught. As long as the talent function team leader is invested in developing the community manager this is the easiest piece to learn. The community manager role could also be a recruiter who has the skill and desire to evolve their role and company contribution.
Comment by Shelley
Made Monday, 20 of April , 2009 at 11:03 am
Very interesting article Susan. Our company have quite a few Community Managers and I’ve always thought their jobs looked really fun. Typically, they’ve been from the technical side and they have approachable, outgoing personalities. They are also experienced professionals not recent university grads. While I think university grads are great at community building and the social media arenas, I don’t think they necessarily deem the in-person relationship building experience. I think work experience is a better attribute than having just graduated. Being from the University Relations area, I think these people are perfect candidates for this type of job. They reside in HR but have to build their credibility inside the company, build relationships with various groups from engineering to marketing. Externally, this group needs to be the sourcer at the highest level. This group has to be knowledgeable of products and strategy, must be able to relate at a the highest level of development directors and faculty to the undergraduate students just getting started in their college careers. What a great job – when can I start?
Comment by Cade Krueger
Made Friday, 1 of May , 2009 at 2:36 pm
Susan,
First of all, that was a great article. Your ideas were articulated very well and are quite applicable. I can understand the need of a community manager and those qualities that are vital to that position. I also like how you stated earlier in the article that,”As we experience rapid advancement and expansion of the channels, applications, tools and technology available to attract and engage prospective talent, the structure and competencies of the talent function need to evolve as well.”
I also believe you can have some success using social media, but what strategies do you believe are the best to utilize these tools? Even if the success is limited in your opinion.
Comment by Susan
Made Friday, 1 of May , 2009 at 4:59 pm
Thanks for your comment Cade! Re your question about the strategies best utilize the tools – Companies need to assess what is right for their culture, brand and product or service. There are so many options that it can be daunting. The biggest challenge is in sorting through the noise to determine the right approach, scope and channels. Much of what is in play today would fall into the category of “socializing job postings”. While this approach does take advantage of social media, it misses the opportunity to develop a sustainable approach that allows a company to develop an adaptive strategy. The real value in social media is when you can move from transactional to relationships to establishing community. Its great to drive traffic but keeping people engaged in a conversation is the differentiator. Entice offers great tools to attract and drive traffic. Once you have their attention, keeping the community engaged in conversation around the company’s products and services by integrating blogs and incorporating tools like CRM offers the opportunity to build a sustainable approach. This is especially valuable today so companies can strengthen connections and leverage their community as we move through a down cycle and business strengthens again.
Comment by Susan
Made Friday, 1 of May , 2009 at 5:10 pm
Shelley – Thanks for your comment. I agree that building the business relationships can be more challenging for a college grad but it can be for those with lots of experience as well. The talent function lead would simply need to be more involved in those conversations and participate initially in helping the community manager build relationships and translate the business to conversation. I’ve led programs that placed college grads in complex multi-million dollar businesses that required them to build stakeholder relationships at a variety of levels. Most succeed and when supported with additional business exposure and allowed to infuse their creativity do extremely well and advance rapidly. I’m not advocating that this would be the right approach for every company or that this should be who is targeted for the role. But, it is one option. Taking an approach that identifies the priorities most critical to the company, knowing and being honest about the company culture, and developing a supportive infrastructure is most important. It is a great job and one I hope we continue to see emerge!
Comment by David
Made Friday, 8 of May , 2009 at 5:37 am
I received your article on the community manager and totally identified with it. I immediately sent it to my director in relation to strategy and my interest in this type role.
