Do you like Slack? Now employers are using it for recruiting

Employers are embracing a new Slack trend: hiring workers from Slack-specific networking groups in the never-ending war for talent.

Slack is a business communication platform known for its instant collaboration capabilities. A lot has changed since the platform launched in August 2013: Slack, which was Inc.'s Company of the Year in 2015, now has over 10 million users dailies. This made the company a compelling acquisition for Salesforce, which bought it in July 2021 for $27.7 billion.

But another use case is emerging: people looking for their next job have turned to exclusive networking forums on Slack, where they can swap tips or discuss job openings. current jobs. Group members would also liaise with hiring managers.

It's a trend employers are also catching on to. Sherika Ekpo, director of diversity and inclusion at Anaplan, explores the potential for integrating Slack into the recruitment approach of the San Francisco-based business planning software company. Ekpo, a former senior Google executive, says she first discovered Slack while working in the federal government and over the years has seen how useful Slack can be for building communities. Today, she wants to explore the potential of the platform to increase her representation at Anaplan.

"Slack is revolutionary in this space in that it enables instant messaging," she says, adding that "it allows us to target groups and intersectional groups that share a common goal of value."< /p>

Rolling out the approach is still a case study for Anaplan, but Ekpo expects the company's recruiters to enter some of these forums, build relationships, and verify certain user activity so that they can find opportunities to connect with candidates. at a different level.

One thing Ekpo likes about Slack? Its informal atmosphere, which allows companies to share more about "the employee experience and the lived experiences of the people who work in their respective companies", she says. This could make it a better way to communicate with candidates, and there is a great need for it. Although job openings fell in May, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were still 11.3 million vacancies.

Slack has created a way for employers to connect directly with potential candidates who match what they're looking for. Ekpo defined one of Anaplan's potential visions for using the platform: "Once the recruiter first reviews resumes for a specific position, they can invite the top five candidates to a private Slack channel to ensure candidates have a safe place to ask questions about the role and the recruitment process," Ekpo explains. "We can also invite the Employee Resource Group Managers [ERG ] on a channel to answer candidate questions about Anaplan's culture." GREs are groups of workers who come together around things they have in common. There may be GREs for younger employees, new parents, wives, etc.

This use of Slack can, in part, be attributed to the pandemic, which has changed the job market landscape, says Diane Taylor, associate director of career services at Heinz College at Carnegie Mellon University. In the early days of the Great Resignation, an influx of job postings overwhelmed recruiters, and Slack "was really able to fill that void," Taylor says. And there can also be real cost savings, not to mention time savings, since Slack enables instant communication.

Slack has its limitations, however. One downside, Taylor says, is that you're casting a smaller net because the majority of job seekers browse more traditional job boards, such as LinkedIn or Indeed. "These recruiters who are going to Slack to recruit candidates may be missing out on other talented candidates who don't know that Slack is sort of a recruiting haven at this point...