HR Bureau Ghana Newsletter

HR Bureau Ghana Limited, over the past 5 years has provided indigenous and foreign companies with excellent Human Resource services. HR Bureau was established with the vision to be the leader in HR consultancy services by providing client focused solutions through innovation, competence, precision and professionalism.

Our team of experts are experienced Human Resource and Business Management professionals with a good track record of transforming organizations through effective people and talent management.

We are guided by the belief that solutions should be aligned to the vision and culture of an organization. This approach has attracted local and international organizations whom we provide a wide range of servicesincluding Executive Recruitment, Outsourcing (Employee, Payroll Management & Salary Administration), Research & Surveys, Hospitality Services and Training.

HR Bureau Ghana advocate for solutions that meet the needs of our clients and their employees because we believe people are the core of every business.

HOW SOCIAL MEDIA IS CHANGING RECRUITMENT IN GHANA.

With the advent of Facebook and the now defunct hi5, social media presents a means to connect with friends and families who we no longer see. These platforms helped reconnect with old classmates, long-lost family members as well as find new friends. Social media has kept conversations going and helped keep connections growing.

Although social media is still being used for these purposes, we have witnessed a progressive and diverse transformation from its usage as friendship-making tool to business-generating and support tools. Social media these days is being used by businesses to promote sales of their products and services, assisting entrepreneurs in finding investors, supporting law enforcement agencies in their investigations and connecting recruiters with suitable candidates during talent acquisition exercises.

Recruitment, in Ghana, in the early 90’s to 2000’s was mostly done through; posting of advertisements in various newspapers, notice board publications, the occasional staff bulletins or newsletters and by verbal referrals. These mediums though relatively effective at the time,  had a small reach as there was just so much connections one could have or just a small number of people who read the various newspapers and saw these advertisements. But with platforms such as Facebook and LinkedIn coming onto the recruitment scene, the reach for an advert is broader, targeted and diverse. A survey carried out by Jobvite in 2018 in the United States of America showed that 92% of employers had used or plan using social networks for recruitment.  Research conducted by HR Bureau Ghana in 2019 showed that 3 out of every 4 recruiters have used social media in their recruitment process within the past 1 year.

Let’s look at the most popular social media platforms and how they are used for recruitment, starting with the biggest platform we have at the moment – Facebook.

FACEBOOK’S ROLE IN RECRUITMENT

Facebook has grown in leaps and bounds since it was introduced in the 2000s. In 2010, Facebook unveiled the job posting button on business pages allowing companies to post vacancies on their social media platform. Recruiters and Organizations have the option of posting jobs on business pages either by advertising or simply posting to attract suitable candidates for roles. A usership of 5.8 million Ghanaians on Facebook presents a good audience for job adverts giving credence to the result of 1 in every 4 recruiters has successfully found a candidate for a vacancy on Facebook. Companies and recruiters alike are using Facebook as an effective tool to discover talent.

WHATSAPP’S ROLE IN RECRUITMENT

Since this messenger’s introduction, it has become one of the most popular messaging app; with millions of people using WhatsApp, the reach of this app is infinite. These days, recruiters put job postings in groups for students, colleagues and contacts who then share these vacancies with their contacts and network. The reach and scope for these postings is truly endless and immeasurable for the recruiter. In some instances, candidates are given the opportunity to chat and send messages with recruiters on WhatsApp platforms thereby introducing an interactive phase to the recruitment process.

LINKEDIN’S ROLE IN RECRUITMENT

LinkedIn is the crème de la crème of social media when it comes to recruitment. With an estimated 1.3 million Ghanaian users, LinkedIn offers professionals an avenue to network, share ideas and connect with other experts across the globe. LinkedIn is home to businesses who use the platform to grow their brand equity, connect with potential customers and more importantly, recruit able and highly qualified staff. With LinkedIn, a recruiter can scout and approach professionals directly or post jobs and receive applications from interested applicants. With recent Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms, recruiters receive tailored applications based on chosen benchmarks selected when jobs are posted. To curb spam and scams, LinkedIn now charges recruiters when jobs are posted. This ensures that only accurate information is posted and by serious recruiters. 

DIGITAL RECRUITING

One huge plus of social media is reach. Sitting in Accra, you can post and recruit a qualified person in Lusaka without having to travel all the way there. Social media greatly increases the pool of applicants that recruiters have to choose from and helps sort through the pool to ensure businesses reach out to only the most highly qualified of the applicants.

PRE-EMPLOYMENT CHECKS

A growing trend in pre-employment checks is the use of social media to verify the potential employee’s educational background, previous places of work and the person-organization fit. These checks have turned social media into not only a recruitment tool but a recruitment verifier tool that assists organizations in the hiring process.

OUR VIEW POINT

While social media presents a fresh perspective to job vacancy advertising and pre-employment checks,

it is essential for recruiters and organizations to employ a blend of selection tools in filtering unsuitable candidates during the shortlisting process. It is equally important to approach social media profile searches with caution bearing in mind that information presented online may be inaccurate, may not be up-to-date nor provide the full story of the potential employee.

Recruiters and Organizations must establish the specific purpose of using social media profile searches for pre-employment checks. Merely using it to ultimately find something unsuitable about the candidate is counterproductive. Such searches may be used to; verify details on the CV/Resume, qualification and educational history, enquire into reputational risk of the candidate depending on the position being recruited. There should therefore be clarity on which area the profile check is being used to ascertain

Secondly, candidates must be informed of the possibility of online searches being conducted prior to the check and must be given the opportunity to respond to information obtained during the search. Information and data obtained through such searches must be handled with confidentiality and within the framework of data protection legislation.

THE FUTURE

Technological advancement in business management brings us to the awareness that we indeed are in a digital age and offers us exciting times in people management. Social media will continue to be a true tool for recruiters and businesses as these platforms innovate and evolve technology.  There is really no limit to what recruiters and organizations could use social media for.

• Understand your role requirements. Speak to your Manager or supervisor to know more about what is expected of you and from them as well.
• Take note of the organization’s culture and their way of doing things. Then plan on how to adjust, improve or manage this culture. This is key to eliminating stress and frustration on the job.
• Be informed of the organisation’s communication culture. Observe the preferred channel of communication, i.e. email, face-to face and make adjustments.
• Make a chart of the names of your work colleagues and their respective positions. This helps in identifying your colleagues and staff at work in the first month of taking on a new role.
• Be punctual to all meetings. This indicates your enthusiasm and commitment to your new role.
• Show a willingness to learn and be teachable. You cannot know everything.
• Take notes as people talk you through processes and systems.  
• Ask questions to be abreast with matters quickly and ask for support when needed.
• Make adjustments to your routine if your hours of commute have changed i.e. get enough sleep to enable you wake up early, increase personal reading time to keep up with current trends of your new role.
•  Build strong connections with your colleagues to enjoy your new environment.

Give yourself time to grow and integrate into your new work environment. Be you and enjoy your time at work!