How has social media changed education and recruitment?

As you may have picked up from my previous posts, I am quite a fan of using social media in the recruiting space.

Pinterest being the new kid on the block is one that really interests me — you can read my thoughts on how to use Pinterest as part of your recruitment strategy in an earlier post.

But what comes before recruitment? Well before you can get a job, generally, you need to know a thing or two. So the simple answer is education.

How has social media influenced education?

When I was at school we were taught on chalk board, overhead projectors and towards the end of high school, white boards. My brother, four years my junior, was introduced to smart white boards in early high school.

Kids today probably have asthma attacks at the mere thought of a chalk board and an overhead projector is as prehistoric as the T Rex. Today’s classrooms are filled with laptops, iCloud, eBooks, apps and tablets. Obviously not the greater majority (especially within Africa), but this seems to be the way education is going.

Learn the lingo

It cannot be denied that social media is changing the way children, and even adults, are learning. Hash tags, BBM and infographics are part of the youth’s everyday vocabulary and technology and social media concepts are filtering down into the classroom.

Although this may be new to some teachers, there’s no doubt that what were previously termed as ‘distractions’ are becoming an incremental part of education and, as we get older, recruitment. So why are we not integrating these new communication practices when talking to and looking for potential employees?

Can I download that?

According to Advtech, Apps to organise school work such as iHomework have allowed students to quickly enter homework assignments, tasks or course information. They allow students to read in a more fun, intuitive and convenient way. Kindles, iPads, Samsung Galaxy tabs, etc all prove the same point. In today’s classrooms it’s a case of “keep your cell phone on” as opposed to how it was back when I was at school and when our trendy Nokia 3210’s were taboo. Bearing this in mind, it makes sense to replicate what has been taught at school-level into the working environment. Right?

If children are growing up immersed in a digital world, where social media is the general form of communication, how does this translate at a later stage when looking for the right guy for the job?

Rethinking recruitment

Recruitment specialists are realising that leveraging the power of social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook Twitter or Pinterest can boost their chances of finding the right candidate for the job, and save them time and effort while doing it.

It may not be that far out to consider adding social media to your repertoire when looking to fill your next position. Fish where the fish are –- and in today’s world, they’re all getting social.