In February 2012, Sodexo launched a mobile app designed to tie all of the company’s social recruiting efforts together. The app, available to iPhone, iPad, Android and Blackberry users, sought to better help candidates to engage with Sodexo’s recruiters on all its social networks as well as search and apply for jobs straight from their smartphones.
Arie Ball, vice president of talent acquisition at Sodexo explains, “Social media has allowed us to develop deeper relationships with our talent community. Rather than rely on job boards, phone calls and e-mails, we can reach out to candidates on the platforms that they prefer to use and provide them with far more information about our company, our culture and what it’s like to work for Sodexo.”
The mobile app saw 15,000 combined downloads across the various mobile operating systems . As a result, Sodexo received more than 2,300 candidate applications which impressively led to 141 hires.
Arie’s approach to social recruiting is about identifying key trends early on, adopting them, measuring the results and adapting to do more of what works. She told Glassdoor, “The way we communicate with candidates today is vastly different than it was even just a short 5 years ago. Today, social media and mobile communications dominate over traditional e-mail campaigns.”
At Sodexo, her talent acquisition team works hard to harness the power of social media and leverage it with mobile access, with measurable success.
Perspective On The Future Of Social Recruiting
Arie finds the results of Sodexo’s social and mobile recruitment strategy encouraging, however, technology evolves at a rapid pace in today’s world, as does the war for talent. She sees the path to future social recruiting success tied closely to paying attention to what works and what doesn’t.
“We will need to continuously monitor technological innovations and make strategic decisions about how to implement new technologies into our recruitment (and social) strategy,” said Arie. “This will be critical as we strive to stay ahead of the curve and maintain our competitive advantage in attracting top diverse talent, and maintaining a highly engaged workforce that creates solid business results for Sodexo.”
Want to find out more about what other top social recruiters are doing to attract talent? In this 10-part series, Glassdoor dives deep into the minds of the 2013 Talent Warriors to reveal details about their social recruiting style, innovative programs they’ve implemented and predictions about the future of social recruiting.
