Nonprofit HR’s Blog

By Leslie Walbridge

National Public Radio (NPR) has received quite a bit of attention for their social media recruitment strategy, featured in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and Nonprofit Quarterly, among others. Anyone who does any kind of recruiting can learn from NPR’s 21^st century approach, and Lars Schmidt, NPR Senior Director of Talent Acquisition and Innovation, has made it easy for us by laying out some of the key points in a presentation published on his blog.

One of the important points Schmidt makes is that “employment branding doesn’t have to be built around a broad multi-channel social media approach,” rather, it can be scaled to the size and needs of your particular organization. Most important is that the strategy you use is streamlined with the culture of your organization.

Employment branding is one way to advertise your organization’s culture to attract candidates who will fit well within it. Have you ever heard that money can’t buy happiness? It can’t buy good employees either. Simply offering good compensation will not get good candidates in the door. “Cultural fit” is one of the biggest challenges recruiters face when trying to find/match candidates. Using social media allows organizations to give applicants more information about the work environment and other factors that influence “fit.” This transparency about workplace culture puts some of the responsibility for culture-matching on candidates, who are able to use social media to learn more about organizations’ work environments and weed out positions in environments that do not suit their needs.

Chances are good that you already use social media. Learn from NPR how to effectively use the same skills and tools for recruitment.