Searching the student version of the Wall Street Journal, I came across an interesting article, "How Blogs Are Changing the Recruiting Landscape".  Now although the link in WSJ did not work, I took it into my better interest to search for it on the Internet.

The article discusses the success that many young, college-aged individuals receive when conducting a personal blog in an appropriate manner.  One example from the reading describes how a twenty-something maintained a personal blog about his business experience, intellectual topics, and other discussions.  The blogger received a job offer because of this.

Now you may be asking, "Well, how does this help business?"  The article got me thinking about how to apply this to the business realm.  Through effective blogging, a business can attract young, spirited, motivated, and just plain curious college students to the company’s job opportunities.  Being a college student myself, I know that many individuals like me are constantly searching the Internet, high and low, for full-time jobs.  What do we find? A career websites that pool all the employers into a search database.  I can go to a career website and type in "Marketing Jobs" and return hundreds of hits from pertinent and non-pertinent employers.  Not only does this waste my time, but it wastes the company's resources on a mass marketing device that limits the customization of the company’s efforts. 

The Solution: Have your company maintain a separate blog for recruitment.  The next time I, or any other college student goes to type in, "Marketing Jobs" or other related keywords in the search field of Google, there is a better chance of your employment opportunity popping up.  Skip the capital investment in allowing a massive database to assist the company.  Trust only your employees when it comes to showing a recruit about the corporate environment; A job database website can’t convey the social environment of a corporation.  Parallel to this, your company won’t be competing side-by-side with other “employee hungry” companies on a database website.  Specific keywords designated to your blog will give you a better chance of being in that number one spot.

How to Implement:  Uniqueness of your blog, interactive posts, and staying on top of the trends.  Many college students today are logging on to YouTube to find the next big video to circulate around his/her friends.  Tap into this!  Compendium Blogware allows you to upload videos, such as YouTube, and other files/links to your blog post.  Separate your company from the others by showing that you know the college psyche.  Most of us college students are looking for a company that knows how we think and what we like to do.  Blogging for recruitment gives that job opportunity a voice, as if talking to the HR director one-on-one.


Next time you are looking for a recruitment strategy that will maximize resources and decrease costs, think about blogging.  It’s inexpensive, customizable, easily updated every minute, and allows you to know what is recent in the life of a college student.