August 29, 2010
T-Mobile turns to social media for seasonal hiring
NWjobs
Late August is not a time most people are thinking about "ho, ho, ho" and mistletoe. But at Bellevue-based T-Mobile USA, the holiday season is just getting under way as it prepares to make its seasonal hires in the next few weeks. This year, the wireless communications giant is establishing a stronger social media presence in the local job market with a new Job Search and Share application on Facebook, which can plug job seekers directly into the company's careers page.
Launched about two weeks ago, the interactive app enables users to see the latest online job listings at T-Mobile and search for jobs in any of 17 career categories. What makes this different from a regular career search tool is that the app can be added as a tab on job seekers' home pages. Once the tab is added, viewers can receive news feed updates about T-Mobile jobs on their Facebook walls and comment on them.
September and October is when T-Mobile usually ramps up its seasonal retail hiring, so it expects the Facebook app to get a lot of use in the next few weeks, says Christina Hong, brand/sourcing coordinator for T-Mobile. To view the app, visit the Careers@T-Mobile page on Facebook and click on the "Search Jobs" tab to view instructions on how the app can be uploaded to your home page.
"What we've found is that people don't want to leave Facebook to search for jobs," Hong says. "This app is integrated directly with our ATS [applicant tracking system] in real time, so they can apply for jobs immediately."
By posting the T-Mobile jobs tab on their personal pages, job seekers can also expand the social aspects of the application in "pay-it-forward" style by sharing job tips with others in their network. "This is a very viral app," Hong says. "You may seem some positions that may not fit you, but maybe you know someone else who is looking for that job. You can share that information on your profile, or you can send that message directly."
The Facebook app is the latest phase of T-Mobile's social media campaign that began about a year ago with the launch of its Facebook fan page, a Twitter account and a LinkedIn profile page, Hong says. "The social media platform is where all recruiting is moving," she adds.
In the coming weeks, Hong says T-Mobile will also experiment with banner ads on Facebook that will be aimed at tech-savvy job seekers with a strong background in the retail sector. "The people we're looking for in our seasonal hiring are not always on LinkedIn," Hong says. "Since everyone seems to be on Facebook these days, this gives us a broader reach, 24 hours a day, with our target demographic."
Later this year, T-Mobile also plans to expand the app's capabilities with other social features that will allow users to find out who else in their friends networks also works at T-Mobile, which can help job seekers get a foot in the door well after the holiday hiring surge.
Randy Woods writes about job-search tools, networking techniques and other tips to help you land your dream job.
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