If your aim is to be a master of social utilities, you should strive to mimic Accenture.  If your goal is to be an expert in campus marketing and talent acquisition, you have no better model than Carrie Dacey, where she leads the US Recruitment Marketing team.

Accenture has implemented some really courageous and innovative social networking methods.  And here’s a hint:  it isn’t all just about LinkedIn.  (No offense to LinkedIn, of course.)

• Video Blogs from real employees about real work.  Nothing says “realistic job preview” from hearing it directly from the source.  Our newest generation is not amused or tricked by actors reading scripts or corporate schills.
• Reading more your style?  Then surf on over to the at least one dozen different active blogs, again from real employees about their actual work and what it’s like to do it.
• Accenture has a virtual presence in Second Life.  Now, I never managed to even get out of the tutorial in SL, but that doesn’t mean others don’t play there.  (Apparently the top online user has spent a total of 726 hours online in SecondLife.  That’s over 30 NON-STOP days.  Or over 90 working days.)  Talk about a captive audience.  Enough has been said about the trials and tribulations of recruitment marketing by minds far more powerful than mine, so I won’t digress too much further.  But I must raise this final point:  if you aren’t there, who is?
• Yup, Accenture has a corporate Facebook page, too.  Actually, it has more than one.

Get the point yet?  These sites- and I am guessing their strategy- is about much more than “Apply Here for Job Now”.  Sure, that’s one of the overall aims, but it isn’t the end-all be-all.

Their social networking strategy also isn’t an endgame- rather, they already have a terrific talent mindset and want others that share in that vision, and this is how they figured out to find them.  Oh, and by the way, those blogs aren’t edited. 

I promised in an earlier post to tell you about my June traveling roadshow- HCI, MonsterTrak and Monster MediaWorks teamed up to go on a three city tour across our great country with pitstops in Chicago, LA and New York City.  Along the way, we showcased some great information about recruiting young people on campus, and met some terrific recruiters.

Our first stop was Chicago, and the event was held at the University Club of Chicago.  I love these old clubs- the decor of the space was so collegial and last-century.  (I’ll include some pictures that I took along the way here as well.)  For those of you that haven’t been to an HCI Innovation Tour- it’s a great experience.  Typically these are free, breakfast, networking and information events.  In this tour, we decided to feature the co-authors of Recruit or Die, Chris Resto and Ian Ybarra.  Chris was the keynote speaker in Chicago.

I’ve already written a bit about Recruit or Die here.  After Chris’ keynote, we had a panel session with Chris, Ian, and Carrie Dacey from Accenture.  We started out the panel discussion with my proposition of the following main challenges facing employers looking to recruit college grads.

The Challenges…

• Finding the right young talent
• Exponential growth in social media
• Crafting an appealing message
• Delivering the message
• Standing out in a crowd!

If you have suggestions of other challenges I missed, or would like to delete one from the list, feel free to say so in comments.

We ended the day by engaging our panelists in some thought-provoking questions, and the couple that I found the most interesting were:

• Q:What are some examples of innovative ways organizations are using social media? 
• A:From Chris and Ian:  Don’t just use it to use it.  Make sure you already have a great recruitment process in place and that your social media strategy works to elevate one or more aspects of Career, Glamour, Gossip.
• A:From Carrie: I’ll be writing about Accenture’s awesome strategy in the next few days.  They include blogs, Facebook, podcasts and SecondLife, among others.
• Q:How are employers delivering (career opportunity) messages?
• A:From Carrie:  Accenture uses an integrated web-based approach to delivering messages to recruits: Drive candidates to website or dedicated landing page through electronic newsletters, email campaigns, online banner ads, one-on-one conversations, search marketing tactics, campus events and presentations, print ads and on-campus ads, and print collateral.
• A:From Chris and Ian:  Compile case studies of past hires - their background, other companies they could have worked for, how they grew in their roles, options they had later and where they are now.   Post-offer management - multiple contacts at firm, visits to office, extended decision periods, and community building