Interview with Vic Okezie, Director at Crexia and Founder at the Social Recruiting Conference

Hi Vic, could you introduce yourself ?
Sure, I am Vic Okezie and I am Director at Crexia, a Digital Consultancy & Social Media company for HR and the future of Workplace. Crexia create communication tools for HR, organise conferences & run Social Media courses.
My background has been in Recruitment (both in-house and agency) as well as Employer Branding campaigns via multiple platforms.
You're behind the Social Recruiting Conference in London. What's the purpose of it? What returns from the latest edition?

Yes, the Social Recruiting Conference is an attempt to shift the conversations around the use of Social Media within Recruitment and Employer Branding from just talking to actual case studies from a wide range of organisations.
The concept of Social Media Recruiting is relatively new, and quite a lot of companies are yet to fully grasp how Social Media could be used as a part of their direct sourcing strategy. So the conference brings together speakers and presentations from companies who are implementing Social into their hiring strategy.
Our last event was attended by over 120 people in London, who braced the snow on 30th November 2010. We had an active twitter hashtag #srconf and over 600 views watching the streaming via uStream. The next conference will explore more diverse set of case studies with relevant insights into the ROI of Social Media in Recruiting. It will be held on 30th June 2011 in Central London. Delegates can register via http://srconf.eventbrite.com/

Why talking about "social recruiting" now? Any similarities and/or differences with Talent Acquisition?
Social Recruiting is the effective use of Social Media & Social Networks by employers to attract, source, engage with and hire candidates. It is a relatively new concept that HR Professionals & Recruitment Managers need to understand. Hence, its important to discuss this and grasp what is involved in utilising this 'new' form of media for recruiting etc.
Talent Acquisition is the ability to manage all the processes involved in finding, attracting and hiring staff. It covers the full candidate attraction life-cycle. While Talent Acquisition focuses on the processes involved in recruiting, Social Media Recruiting offers a medium or platform to engage with talent.
What are the common pitfalls when starting social recruiting initiatives?
Quite a few actually, but atimes it may not be a bad thing if a company makes mistakes along the way. I will just mention a few of the common errors that some organisations could make.
1. Social Recruiting is not for everyone. Many companies see others using Social Media for recruiting and jump in the bandwagon, just for the sake of it. If their current recruitment processes is working well for them (cost-effective, quality of hire, candidate engagement via their careers website etc), then Social Media may just be a welcomed enhancement to their direct sourcing strategy.
2. Fishing where the fishes are not. It is important that companies understand the kind of roles they recruit for or who their potential candidates are, where they might be, before they decide which Social media platform will be ideal in investing more time and efforts on.
3. Broadcasting instead of Engaging. The social media platforms that we know and use are based on the principles of open conversations. Several organisations are using them to push out jobs without having any form of discussions about the roles with potential candidates. Although for many, this is usually the first step into using Social Media for Recruiting, but it is always encouraged that conversations with the target hires will add more value to the company's employer brand and reputation management.

What are your upcoming plans/events for this year?
Yes, we are planning the Social Recruiting Conference again for June 30th 2011 and Crexia is also organising another super cool Social Media event for November 2011. Details of that event will be announced in a few weeks time.

How to get connected with you? (social media presences)
You can connect with me on LinkedIn, follow on Twitter and my blog is www.vicokezie.com
Thank you very much Vic!