Yours socially, Recruitments

The social media profiles and active connections of people has enthused one and all in the business community. The human resources fraternity is not an exception to this. Don’t we hear news here and there that the HR departments in companies have started to review the social profiles of candidates to understand the candidate’s suitability for the organization? Though the social profiles of candidates can describe and determine the candidate’s personality per se, however the fact remains that these social media profiles are created by the candidate himself. Hence, these profiles do not by any way testify their authenticity for the candidate’s background. For example, if a candidate claims to have worked in ABC Corporation for 3 years under a certain capacity, you as a recruiter can’t turn to the social profiles and ascertain this but you do try & contact ABC Corporation by yourself or employ third party agencies for the background verification process. Don’t these activities take a lot of time, money and resources?

Well, if you say, YES to the above question then I suggest that the below blog post is for you. Correct, a typical social media for businesses can help in determining the authenticity of a candidate’s career, background information and much more.

Imagine, a b2b collaboration platform or a true social media for businesses that revolutionizes the way companies collaborate externally (i.e prospects, customers, and suppliers) and internally (employees). For understanding purposes, the same b2b collaboration platform that a company uses to contact prospects, customers etc can act as a secure intranet providing collaboration space for employees.

So, this b2b collaboration platform is also an enterprise social media enabling organizations to manage & control detailed information, policies, roles, responsibilities etc pertaining to all the employees. Now, if this b2b collaboration platform can hold the profile data of each employee then companies can access the background information of the candidates within a few clicks. So, the next time a candidate walks in for an interview, you can simply cross check the information provided on his resume with that on the b2b collaboration platform.

This can also be perceived that the business community on the b2b collaboration platform can not only transact with their respective products & services but also share such authentic information.

In addition to this, companies can make use of the business apps that are tightly coupled with the secure intranet. The Jobs application on the b2b collaboration platform can help the HR departments in companies to manage job openings, internal recruitment processes, etc with ease.

Business lives catching up with our social lives, eh? Watch this YouTube video for a first hand view of the b2b collaboration platform

Similarly, community apps (like Jobs, Products, Groups, Events, Blogs, Answers etc) can be built and shared by the b2b fraternity and spectacular benefits can be realized.

Ready to get started? Create your company account for FREE and experience the social media for businesses!

Business apps in the social community environment

Social communities are here to stay. So why not unleash the power of social communities on the business apps too. We have ample business applications focussing on varied purposes and uses today. However, the concept of deploying these business apps on the cloud has slowly begun while I am focussing this blog post on deploying these business apps on a community that exists on a cloud based b2b social collaboration platform. In simpler terms, you can securely share your business apps with a select set of companies and professionals.

Though the concept of sharing business applications can be imagined on various apps, I would like to take the example of RFX app on the business community.

Say, there is a company “A” that has a business requirement of IT infrastructure and seeks other businesses to provide the necessary products / services. Now company “A” makes use of the RFX app on the b2b collaboration platform consisting of the active business community to post its requirement in real-time. On the flip side, the same RFX application will help marketers in other companies who can provide the required product or service to receive the same as inward RFX queries. In our case, say company “B” that is into infrastructure solutions will receive the business requirement posted by company “A” as an inward RFX inquiry.

For clarity, when you post your business requirement in the form of an RFX, you can set specific criteria including the industry from which you expect a response. When you do this, the RFX application will post the requirement to all the relevant companies that match the criteria selected by you. All this happens in real-time. So, you are not only enabled to obtain quicker response to your queries but also a response from relevant companies that could provide you the right product or service matching your requirement.

Since all this happens in the same business community, the credibility of the vendor – buyer relationship is enhanced as all the details like customers, employees, their individual profiles, testimonials etc of both buyer and vendors are readily available for verification.

In addition to this, significant cost savings can be experienced by both company “A” and company “B”. Company A need not spend time, effort, and money on seeking vendors while company B can save on its marketing costs as the RFX enquiry can be a bonus lead.

Here is a YouTube video where I have exactly depicted this with an actual example. Please do watch the same and share your thoughts.

Similarly, community apps (like Jobs, Products, Groups, Events, Blogs, Answers etc) can be built and shared by the b2b fraternity and spectacular benefits can be realized.

Ready to get started? Create your company account for FREE and experience a new saga in B2B social media or social media for businesses!

B2B social media: Where are they today?

As a person from the b2b space and also a normal social media user for my personal connections, I think it is worthwhile for us to evaluate the existing social media for businesses today even before we decide about the “cost-effective” social thingy for our organization. So, I take this blog post to ask a few questions that will help us with this decision for our respective companies. On the flip side, these questions below will also help us understand where the social media stand as of today with respect to a b2b use.

1. Other than just business leads, do LinkedIn, Facebook & Twitter solve the typical issues of the b2b space including long sales cycle times, inability to effectively engage the users, influencers & decision makers involved in the sale etc?
2. Heard that LinkedIn, Facebook & Twitter can be useful for customer support purposes. Think again. Are these existing social media helping you to post a negative customer comment as a support ticket for resolution? Or do they help in publishing a positive customer comment as testimonial to flaunt on your marketing collaterals? or do these existing social media provide you help to post a feature request as an input to your R&D team?
3. There is a lot of hype about sourcing candidates to your organization’s job requirements. Well, do existing social media networks render help in verifying the candidate’s background in any way? Isn’t the social media profiles of the candidates are a mere extension of their resume? These profiles can in no way be of help in your company’s recruitment process that includes the statutory background check of candidates.
4. Ever wondered about your employees spending a lot of time juggling around different systems like File sharing, Emails, CRM etc to accomplish their tasks and the result being the redundant tasks with reduced employee productivity. At a time when organizations are looking to reduce costs, shouldn’t you be expecting the social media for business to come to the rescue here?

What if the secure intranet or the collaboration space became the place to not only find our employees but also our business apps, our prospects, our customers, our vendors & suppliers?

Wouldn’t it be nice if all the companies of the world harp onto one cloud based b2b platform to collaborate externally (i.e prospects, customers, and suppliers) and also internally (employees)?

Yes, the ideal “social media for businesses” should be a b2b collaboration platform that allowed SMBs to connect and collaborate with companies worldwide and also allowing them to increase marketing and sales effectiveness, increase customer experience & retention and multiply employee productivity by leveraging the B2B community, secure intranet and apps marketplace.

Here is a YouTube channel where I have aired my thoughts as a plausible solution to the above questions raised by me. Please do watch all the videos in the channel and share your thoughts.

Ready to get started? Create your company account for FREE and experience a new saga in B2B social media or social media for businesses!