EPSO recruiting through social media
Thursday, June 17th, 2010In 2010, The European Personnel Selection Office (EPSO) introduced a new procedure for selecting permanent staff for EU institutions. Alongside the launch of the AD5 competition in March, they started actively promoting EU Careers on Facebook and Twitter. We asked their social media team to answer a few questions about their use of social media.
Why did you start using social media and how do they fit in your communication strategy?
We wanted to promote EU Careers to a younger audience and be more accessible to candidates across Europe. Our strategy focused on giving potential applicants an insight into what it is like to work for the EU institutions and we felt that social media were excellent tools to achieve this.
Which social media platforms do you use and what for?
We have EU Careers Facebook pages in English, French and German, an EU Careers Raconteurs Facebook page and individual pages for each of our EU Careers Raconteurs.
EPSO uses EU Careers Facebook pages to:
- Advertise upcoming EU Careers events and events which we will be attending;
- Answer questions about the EPSO selection procedure;
- Post regular updates about competitions, information about EU events and opportunities advertised by related Facebook groups (e.g. Interpreting for Europe);
- Post photos from events we attended or were organised by the institutions;
- Display tweets from our Twitter account (using Twitterfeed);
- Inform fans about our Twitter sessions.
We use the EU Careers Raconteurs Facebook page to display links to all the blogs written by our EU Careers Raconteurs (using Twitterfeed). Our EU Careers Raconteurs use their individual Facebook pages to blog about their jobs and life in Brussels, and to respond to their fans’ questions.
We have EU Careers Twitter accounts in English, French and German, as well as an EU Careers Raconteurs Twitter account.
We use EU Careers Twitter accounts to:
- Host interactive question and answer sessions (on a weekly/fortnightly basis);
- Tweet several times a day about competitions and what’s going on in the EU institutions/Brussels;
- Retweet other Twitter users’ tweets which might be of interest to our followers.
We use the EU Careers Raconteurs account to retweet EU Careers Raconteurs’ tweets.
Who is involved in your social media activities?
The content on both social media platforms is primarily managed by our trainee. When answering questions she contacts colleagues from the relevant units in EPSO or uses material published on the website. Sometimes her answers need to be checked by several EPSO employees to ensure their accuracy.
Her work is monitored by other members of the Communication team. Twitter sessions are done by EPSO Communication team in turns.
How do social media relate to your website?
We post news items on our website in order to advertise our Twitter sessions. We also advertise our Raconteurs programme. We link to important news items/information on our website from our Facebook and Twitter accounts. Where appropriate, we refer social media users to existing information on our website. However, we often provide a summary of the information to save users from having to repeatedly click on different links.
How has your audience responded to your social media activities?
Our audience has responded very positively. We currently have 14,506 people following our EU Careers Facebook page in English and 1,071 people following our EU Careers Raconteurs Facebook page. We have fewer followers on French and German sister sites. As the English Facebook page became increasingly active, people tended to interact there and not on the French and German sites. Inevitably, our activity on these sites decreased, also due to language skills of the staff working on social media and workloads.
On the English EU Careers Facebook page candidates ask questions and engage in discussions about the competitions on a regular basis. On average, we receive between 5 and 15 questions a day (this depends on what competition is ongoing at the time).
Candidates appreciate that we respond to their questions. We have had some complaints about our procedures, but at least we have a forum where we are able to correct candidates’ misunderstandings. Sometimes we are unable to answer questions straight away because we are waiting for further information or conducting research. Occasionally, candidates become slightly irritated about this; particularly when we don’t necessarily answer questions on a first-come first-served basis.
The response to Twitter question and answer sessions has been extremely positive and they are very popular. But since fewer people use Twitter than Facebook, most users would prefer it if we did Q&A sessions on Facebook instead.
What have you learned from using social media?
- To double check information before publishing it.
- To interact with followers as much as possible. Candidates don’t respond well to unanswered questions and prefer to be informed about the fact that we are looking into their question.
- To post information/updates on Facebook on a daily basis and tweet on an hourly basis (if at all possible) so as not to lose followers!
- How to improve some of the ways in which we communicate information to candidates based on their feedback.
- To adopt a friendly approach when responding to questions. Followers respond well to answers using less formal language.
- To take into consideration capacity issues. Management of our current social media activities is very time-consuming.
What are your social media plans for the future?
- To investigate other social media sites that are popular in specific countries.
- To expand our EU Careers Raconteurs programme to more senior officials.
- To continue to interact regularly with our followers.
- To create a cycle so that members of the communication team tweet and write updates on a regular and rotating basis.
- To come up with a set of guidelines outlining our future approach to answering Facebook questions.
- To utilise applications on Facebook such as surveys and quizzes.
- To investigate mobile media applications that can link to social media sites and apps.
- To monitor and listen to other success stories from across the institutions.
What would you advise Commission DGs and services who are thinking of using social media?
Draft and agree on some guidelines regarding the kind of material which will be posted on social media and concerning the answering of questions (if applicable).
Ensure that all members of the team understand how to use social media so that everyone can contribute to the project.
Consider any capacity issues before starting.
Don’t assume that social media will reach all target groups and solve all problems. It needs to be part of a wider approach.
Posted by Alenka
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