Stakeholders urged to employ social media managers
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Hospitality and tourism sector companies appointing dedicated social media managers will have a definite advantage as the ‘war for talent’ continues to intensify. This is the view of TMS Asia-Pacific CEO, Andrew Chan, who has warned that the travel industry could lose out to other sectors if it failed to engage ‘Gen Y’ employees. Social media, Chan said, is playing an ever-increasing role in the recruitment process and more and more employers have come to realise the benefits it offers above and beyond traditional recruitment channels, particularly with the Gen Y demographic. “Savvy organisations understand that they need to adopt similar strategies in marketing to potential employees as they would their customers,” Chan said. “Those taking the next step and ensuring they have a ‘Social Media Manager’ on the HR team stand to place themselves well ahead of the game. “Gen Y candidates are attracted by organisations that empower them to be individuals, are socially responsible and promote work life balance. I’ve seen some very clever campaigns from hotel companies ensuring these types of messages are clearly carried across to potential candidates and we are starting to see a huge increase in the number of job advertisements appearing through the likes of Facebook and Twitter.” Chan said the key advantage of using social media as a recruitment channel was that it was instantaneous, was extremely cost effective and importantly, gave employers the opportunity to interact with potential candidates via far richer and more highly targeted media than traditional channels. “The advantage of Facebook is that the brand becomes far more personal to a candidate – they get to see who they might be potentially working with whereas a corporate website can come across as being far more sterile,” Chan explained.”Judging by the speed with which this ubiquitous social media phenomenon has taken a grip on the recruitment process, I think it’s highly likely – and timely too – that very soon many employers within our sector will be creating dedicated ‘Social Media Manager’ roles in order to ensure they are keeping abreast of their competition as the ‘war for talent’ continues to intensify.
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