this is npr: recruiting for a big brand without the big budget

THIS IS NPR:Recruiting For A Big Brand Without The Big Budget

Lars Schmidt | Director Talent Acquisition | @ThisIsLars | @NPRjobs | #NPRRIS1Thursday, May 17, 12

The News

• Recruiting budgets & resources are tight

• Competition for ‘top’ talent remains fierce

• Social media has forced recruiting to evolve

• Less distinction between ‘active‘ & ‘passive‘ job seekers

• Buzzwords dominate but substance can be elusive

@ThisIsLars / #NPRRIS

2Thursday, May 17, 12

Background• I was hired in February 2011 to

rebuild the talent function

• Long legacy of reactive transactional recruiting in most areas of the organization

• Our team is small and resources very limited, vital we were very smart with our spend

• Which led us to...



NPR Talent Strategy• Leverage our media reach, history, consumer brand, and

social media to build our employment brand

• Engage our employees, promoting their involvement in employment branding, sharing jobs to their networks, etc.

• Cancel most of our major job board accounts

• Results: NPR.org, referrals, LinkedIn, and Twitter all became leading source channels

• Employment brand strategy as a business necessity



So, how did we do it?



Step 1: Know Your Objective

• What are your recruiting goals?

• What are your resources?

• What are your priorities?



Step 2: Know Your Organization

• Tailor strategy to your organization

• Know your social media policy

• Who are the internal stakeholders that need to support your efforts for them to succeed?

• Step out of HR: find your internal influencers, invest in those relationships



Step 3: Know Your Platform• Who are you trying to reach?

• What platforms can you use to reach your desired audience?

• Where are your employees? What platforms does your organization use? (@nprnews - 960k+ followers, NPR on Facebook - 2.37M fans)

• Prioritize - better to be highly effective in small number of platforms



Step 4: Launch & Engage• Get your employees engaged - ideally organically

• Evangelize internally & externally

• Experiment & pilot; track metrics, monitor, adjust, scale

• Engage with your fans

• Everyone is a brand ambassador, everyone is a recruiter

• Social media is NOT an extension of your job board



Anatomy Of An Account: @NPRjobsLaunched in July 2011 - focused in 4 areas:

• Promote NPR job opportunities

• Build our employment brand by showcasing our employees and providing behind the scenes looks at life at NPR (#NPRlife)

• Give back to followers by providing career advice and resources

• Promote career opportunities across public media (#PubJobs)



@NPRjobs Growth8,800+ followers in <1 year

Top Tweet: #PubJobs Launch - 199 RTs, 787,863 impressions



Case Study - The Power of a TweetSituation: The volume of applications for our Fall 2011 internships was below target levels as the deadline approached

Results:114 RTs, 742,976 impressions, 140 new applicants, 15 hires

Solution:We extended the application deadline one week and announced with a single tweet (below)



External Engagement: #NPRlife



Internal Engagement: #NPRlife



What’s Next

YouTube

Facebook



What’s Next

The Daily Muse



Parting Thoughts• Find your internal stakeholders and work hard to build

relationships

• Identify and engage internal champions & influencers

• Activate your employees

• Listen to your fans, interact with them

• Be disciplined with the time you dedicate to social media

• Don’t be paralyzed by what can go wrong, focus on what can go right



Questions & Discussion

Lars Schmidt | Director Talent Acquisition | @ThisIsLars | @NPRjobs | #NPRRIS


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