Reinier de Graaf Groep actively uses social media. HR team leader Femke van Voorthuizen believes that social media will play an increasingly important role in the organisation’s recruitment efforts. Success is not a given, however: social media are only functional if you succeed in targeting the media channels that are most popular with your target group.
Through social media, Reinier de Graaf Group wants to show that it is an attractive organisation. Vacancies are regularly shared through Twitter, co-workers often tweet about their work and managers use LinkedIn to help share vacancies. ‘We want to tell our visitors what kind of organisation we are and what kind of people we are looking for. With social media you can easily distribute information among large groups of people. It allows us to bind future co-workers to our organisation. This only works, however, if corporate communication and labour market communication are perfectly aligned. But using social media alone is not enough. Other channels such as websites can also be very effective. You should decide per vacancy what kind of people you are looking for and identify the channels they use most. With smart, individually tailored combinations of channels, your recruitment efforts become much more effective.’
Support your co-workers
Reinier de Graaf Groep supports its co-workers in their use of social media. For example, recruiters always first talk to managers when planning a new vacancy. The aim is to discuss mutual expectations and to identify the channels that best match the preferences of the target group. The recruiters also help managers to share vacancies, for instance on LinkedIn. ‘The unique thing about social media is that everybody can help to share vacancies. Not only managers, but also recruiters, nurses and everybody else who is part of the same network. We get a lot of positive airplay, which increases our reach through social media even further.’ Femke has the following tips for organisations that are eager to start using social media:
- Support and motivate your co-workers in sharing vacancies through social media
- Take away the worries of your co-workers
- Align corporate communication with labour market communication
Connexys and Reinier de Graaf Groep
Recently, Reinier de Graaf Groep selected Connexys’ recruitment system. ‘Connexys allows us to work even more efficiently. We can generate reports about time-to-market and about the success of the media channels we use. The talent pool functionality of Connexys also allows us to communicate even more pro-actively and target oriented.’
Recruiting together
Reinier de Graaf Groep realises that in about five to ten years, good candidates will be in short supply. That is why the organisation is making a big effort to attract as many people to the healthcare branch as possible. Together with other hospitals in the area, Reinier de Graaf Groep has launched the volgjehart.nl campaign – ‘follow your heart’. ‘This campaign allows us to work together in competing with other branches, instead of competing with each other. In the face of future shortages we are determined to attract as many people as possible. And the use of social media is an important factor. With volgjehart.nl, we offer potential co-workers a single platform that contains all they need to know about working and studying at one of the connected hospitals. As a result of our collaboration – and the support of Connexys – we are now able to share candidates with each other.’
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