Students are burdened with a lot of stereotypes and though some of them are most definitely true, many of them are just myths. Aside from the obvious, students are well known for being one of the brightest, most tech-savvy groups in society. Any lecture theatre in the UK will be full of tablets, ultra-thin laptops and, yes, plenty of smartphones all online, almost all connected simultaneously to Twitter, Facebook and multiple e-mail accounts, collectively downloading more information than was being downloaded from the lecturer.

It was surprising, then, to see the results of a survey conducted by a top student forum, The Student Room, that claimed that students don’t find university social media particularly trustworthy or especially useful when compared to emails, meetings or university newsletters. Given that the average university is planning to increase spending on social media by 60%, it’s a worrying thought and it’s a problem for all those looking to attract attention to recruitment by social media.

A part of the difficulty is that undergraduates, as do all of us, consume social media at a remarkable rate. The smartphone allows us to flick through maybe two hundred Twitter updates in less than thirty seconds and there’s almost no possibility of saving or flagging a particular tweet for later: it demands our attention and it wants it now! This ever-changing environment makes it extremely hard to relate what we see and consume online to an actual real-world process.

We also know how easy it is to update a social media account; it takes about ten seconds and one individual. As opposed to a thoughtful, composed email that has most likely been checked by other members of your recruitment department, it’s too easy to assume that information posted on social networking sites is due to be updated and amended at a laster date or, worse, just inaccurate.

Because of this, we struggle to treat important information exclusively posted on social media sites with the seriousness it deserves. Whether that’s a call for applications or the announcement of an office open day, we consume it and we forget about it almost immediately. It’s no surprise that even students, the great experts of social media in our generation, are struggling to trust what goes up on social media sites.

Of course, there’s no need for this to be a limitation to your social media use. So long as your feeds link to permanent, official and accurate corporate web capital with, preferably, an RSS subscription for updates, you can ensure that social media is just another way of getting to the final message, without being a goal in itself. This takes away the content from your transient Twitter feed and confidently sets it in web-based stone, there to be checked, used and revised for as long as it’s needed.

Traditionally, recruitment has been about nothing more than finding the best candidate for the job. However, in recent years we’ve seen a lot more time, attention and column inches dedicated to the ethics of the recruitment process; how companies are recruiting, where they are advertising and how they’re reaching different aspects of the labour market are all under scrutiny. Workforce flexibility and excessive nepotism have all been debated hotly in parliament and, in the changing world of recruitment new technologies are rapidly being made to fit into line.

With social media becoming an ever more powerful recruitment tool, ensuring your online recruitment is ethical recruitment is paramount to successful use of social media.

Attracting a Broad Audience

If you’re looking for bloggers, front end developers or SEO experts then Twitter might be the right place to look, but you could be missing out on a huge range of different applicants if you only use social media as a recruitment tool.

Social media also has an incredibly temporary feel and if you’re tweeting several times a day, you’ll quickly find your recruitment drive eclipsed by other posts. You could easily be missing a slice of the market that you really should be attracting, seriously disadvantaging a number of quality applicants.

Equal Opportunity

Providing internal and external applicants an equal opportunity to find a position isn’t so easy on social media. Advertising on internal networks like Yammer will restrict your outlook only to internal candidates and public social networks generally attract more external candidates than internal.

The best way to address this situation is to keep your copy homogenous and drive recruitment equally from different social media aspects, all linking in to one recruitment page. Keeping your corporate web capital simple and standardised is important to provide equal opportunity to all candidates.

Finding the Best Candidate

It might seem appealing, easy and cheap to stick up a post on Twitter and give the internship to the first appropriate candidate. Though this might be a cost-effective method of recruiting and it does has a certain charm to it, it almost certainly will end up with you dismissing several quality candidates.

It could also be deemed that by advertising only on social media such as LinkedIn, you’re unfairly using your connections to take on employees. Though this isn’t necessarily illegal, it won’t do much for your reputation if it’s uncovered.

Though it’s completely right for recruiters to be making the most of the capabilities of social media, it doesn’t always mean it’s smart practice to do so. With more pressure on recruiters to keep on the right side of ethical, it’s key to keep thinking about how you’re using social media and how your practice is affecting business generally.

It’s taken some time, but most companies now have at least some sort of social media presence and, particularly in recruitment, there’s a tangible cost to not having a social media presence. Of course, having social media is one thing, but using it properly is something completely different and it’s here that poor application of what is useful web capital starts to creep in.

Like all media of communication, all forms of social media has some very particular strengths and some massive weaknesses which, if you don’t latch on to, could put you in trouble. Blog articles are often a particular pitfall for businesses because it’s very easy for serious and important information to get lost. It’s easy to assume that a well written blog article with good SEO will convey what you need it to, but it’s not always the case.

For example, you quite often see blog articles announcing the next recruitment drive with details on how and where to apply which, quite often, includes a postal address for CVs. Obviously this does a job for the first few days; it might draw in a few hits who spot it on the front page or click a link from Facebook.

After that, however, it starts to get lost in cyberspace. New articles supersede it, the marketing focus gets lost and all of a sudden your important article is three pages back in a blog feed accessible only by a very specific search or from a tiny link on your front page.

This is just one example of where the content of your social media needs to match its form. The nature of blog articles is that they’re transient, they usually get written quickly, they draw you in readers with clever headlines and quick paragraphing and, much like an essay, it gets absorbed and passes on ideas.

This is perfect for little tips and tricks, political ideas, how-to guides or up to the minute updates, but if you’re doing something like recruitment, you need permanence that a blog article (or a Facebook status, for that matter) just can’t give you.

So, give the serious things the space they deserve: a recruitment drive is a big deal so by all means support it with a headline-grabbing article that pops up on an aggregator, go for the Facebook statuses and Twitter hashtags but make sure that they all link back to one definite, permanent and easily accessible page which won’t get lost online.

The web is ‘world wide’, right? Well, yes, in theory; everyone can access almost anything at any time, all over the world. Providing you have the right security settings and a wifi connection, the wealth of data you can access really is massive. However, this data is only  really useful if it’s properly understood and interpreted, and when you think about all the information from all over the world, there’s actually a lot of it that is not very friendly to the international reader.

Much of the time this isn’t a problem and we absorb only what we need to glean from the net, but there are occasions when things don’t quite add up. Different languages, dialects, currencies and timezones are all possible problem areas when it comes to social media, and if you’re looking to attract top international graduates, you need to be sure that your social media talks the language of the world.

Setting a Tone

It’s wise to set a businesslike tone across all your corporate web capital, but be careful when it comes to things like blog articles; it can be tempting to slip into a more informal mode of communication. While this is great for ninety per-cent of readers, be aware of the fact that some phrases might not translate all that well for the international reader.

Informal business jargon, for example, translates particularly poorly. Asking someone to ‘action’ something, for example, isn’t particularly helpful for someone who has learnt English as a second language – ‘action’ is normally a noun! Acronyms are just as bad for an international audience; while a native speaker can usually guess, an international audience may struggle.

Geographical Restrictions

It’s worth being aware of any geographical restrictions that might affect the exposure of your social media. Unless you’re using copyright material with particular restrictions or have any specific branding requirements that prevent you from issuing global content, there’s no reason for your content to be restricted just to the UK.

Be particularly careful with things like Youtube videos or external links, these can be notorious for denying access in particular countries. Though sometimes and in some countries there’s just nothing you can do, it can be worth having a chat to your IT department to see if they can help!

Working with Details

When at work it’s easy to assume that everyone is on the same level as you, but it’s not always the case! Keep a very close eye on the details of everything you post on social media sites; if you’re offering a live webcast at three o’clock, is that three GMT or BST or CET?

Currency often causes confusion, too, and though it’s unlikely you’ll ever have any serious problems, close attention to the details shows that you’re accommodating for those who might be reading from other countries.

If you’re looking to attract top graduates from all over the world, you should ensure that your social media is accessible, easily understood and free from anything that might be exclusive to those reading from your own country.

The relationship between interns and full-time staff is well known and well documented and there’s a distinct learning relationship that both firms and interns really value during their time in any company.

For the intern, however, this certainly isn’t the whole story and feedback from interns often shows that the most valuable relationships are those which are formed between the interns themselves. It’s hardly surprising that interns in the same firm get together to share stories, thoughts and the occasional drink, but it is surprising that many firms aren’t always too facilitating to inter-intern interactions.

Developing Firm-wide Connections
Though some inter-intern relations are purely social, there’s a very good business case for encouraging quality interactions between young graduates. Normally there isn’t much demand for more than one intern in any department and, thus, when interns mix, they’re able to discuss practice, talk about working culture and share advice from different areas of your business.

This information is not only invaluable to each individual department in comparing and matching up its progress against others, it’s also great for strengthening inter-departmental relationships. It’s all too easy for new recruits to get comfortable in their own departments, but by interacting from the off with other parts of the business, interns can begin business life as well connected and well aware of the potential of the whole business.

Connecting Outside of Your Firm
Equally, not all interns will stay with your firm when graduation time comes and though this isn’t great for your retention figures, it can be a tangible advantage when it comes to actually doing business. If one of your interns graduates and then starts off with ties to other interns who moved into, say, accounts, banking and project management, it’s a connection that’s there to be exploited later.

It’s also worth remembering that most interns can talk a lot and will be more than happy to share their experiences. Providing their time at your company was positive, a good network of connections all over the country can be a great recruitment tool for your department in the future.

Harnessing Good Relationships
Interactions between interns are great, but if your business isn’t working to harness them, they might as well not be there. There’s a fine line between stifling any genuine interaction by being too rigid and organising too many compulsory after-hours events and missing the boat all together.

One very simple way to keep interactions strong is to use social media to great effect. Encourage the use of LinkedIn and highlight the importance of networking and also don’t be afraid to set up (and monitor) a Facebook group for arranging meetings and sharing ideas. It’s simple, it keeps interaction honest and businesslike and, best of all, it’s free!

If you’re taking on more than one intern this summer, make sure they’re not isolated. Ties that are formed with other interns can last for many years: be sure to use them to your advantage!