In this Q&A with Rob Papworth, Recruitment Manager at Ericsson, he goes through how Ericsson source quality candidates through social media websites and online resources. He also details the major pitfalls most companies fall to when recruiting from overseas. Rob Papworth will be speaking at the Recruitment and Retention in the IT Sector Conference. For more information about the event, please visit www.recruitmentinIT.com.au or call +61 2 9229 1000 or email enquire@iqpc.com.au

1. Social Media Resources for IT Recruitment and how to
retain overseas talent
Q&A with Rob Papworth, Recruitment Manager at Ericsson
Recruitment & Retention in the IT Sector 2011
Human Resources IQ
In recent years we’ve seen IT recruitment being increased in social media focus, IT
recruits and HR professionals are using Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, blogs, and
others, to find quality candidates. So what is your approach to social media
recruitment? What kind of role does it actually play?
Rob Papworth
I tend to classify social media in two types. I think there’s more of a personal-style
social media, and I think there’s more of a professional-style social media. For me,
as a head of recruitment, I’ve aligned our strategies more towards the professional
side and we’re mostly focused on LinkedIn. We have a very strong presence on
LinkedIn by way of Ericsson Alumni, and we also advertise our roles, and we also
have a very active presence from my team in terms of linking with the actual
candidate marketplace.
In terms of the parts of social media, we initially did have a Facebook presence
which was mainly around connecting with undergraduate students, but we do find
Facebook very personal social media space so as an actual region, we no longer
have a Facebook presence.
In terms of Twitter, we decided not to have a presence there either. We personally
believe that Twitter has a lot of activities, a lot of noise, but I do question its benefits
for recruitment. And I know that different people in my role have different types of
use, but for us as Ericsson, mainly invested in terms of LinkedIn.
Also, we have some blogs. For instance, we actually maintain a blog on Whirlpool.
Whirlpool is a very popular place for IT undergraduates. And every time we do an
actual graduate campaign, we actually manage the Whirlpool site to liaise and
handle questions from graduates.
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2. Now on final note, we’ve also built an actual webpage which is ericssongrad.com.au
and we actually maintain a blog on that gives people the chance to correspond with
us. But in summary, for us it’s about having a professional social media and we’re
very aligned to LinkedIn because we find it a very professional tool.
Human Resources IQ
It’s well known that IT professionals don’t really job seek, so what kind of innovative
strategies do you have and to overcome this? And do you actually use current
employee network?
Rob Papworth
So we’ve got two types recruitment, one is what you called more than actual pool or
an actual proactive type recruitment when you try to weigh pool candidates in. For
us, we have a very active presence in terms of technical user groups and also
amongst Ericsson Alumni and also using the referral network within the organization
to actually try to identify candidates or to simply talent pool and capture people on an
ongoing basis. I think for us, there’s a strong presence in this body, sometimes
called the passive candidate market. But by saying that, I do actually believe that IT
professionals do look for work. And what I’ve found is the more technical they are,
the more they rely on technical search tools such as leveraging seek.com or using
LinkedIn. And what I’ve found with people that are more in IT, but more
management related, is that they tend to use more their networks and referrals. So
for instance, for me as a manager and designing a recruitment strategy, I will use a
lot of technical means to actually find technical people; put a lot of relationship
means to find management staff. And how we came about that is when we came on
board here, I simply surveyed the business, and I surveyed the new hires, and went
through a process to find out amongst those people - where would they go to
actually find work and where did they go to find work, and then we put up a very
complete profile of how to actually find people.
Human Resources IQ
Skills shortage in Australia has meant IT companies are increasingly recruiting from
overseas. Now, how do you ensure you’re creating a supportive working
environment for overseas professionals?
Rob Papworth
I think Australia still has a very strong value proposition internationally. Whilst I feel
from remuneration perspective, we’re not competitive against some regions, I think
from an actual lifestyle, actual job content, family, and from a social perspective, how
our proposition is actually quite strong.
In terms of relocations, I think it’s important to think about it from two points of view.
One is the actual individual who does actually come across and actually work from
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3. this region, but bear in mind they’re coming into an actual workforce and they’re
coming in to actually be bonded and are simulated into that work environment.
For the second part is –don’t forget the actual people around the individual. It could
be their family, it could be their partners, it could be anyone that’s attached and
coming across with them; and often organizations forget that. And in some of the
research I’ve done in the past actually says that most reasons why relocations
internationally fail is not because of individual, but because the people surrounding
that individual. So for us at Ericsson, we have a very strong focus in terms of the
complete relocation picture and in that case would outsource to a third-party to help
individuals with their transition.
At Ericsson, we obviously have a strong global community and for us here, it’s a
common gateway for us to hire people.
Human Resources IQ
Where do you think the IT recruitment industry is heading?
Rob Papworth
In terms of recruitment, I feel there’s been a few major changes over the last decade.
I did see recruitment become very much focused in terms of recruitment agencies
and a case of very small internal teams, engaging on a high percentage basis
agencies.
The last five years, I’ve seen a trend which is more the creation of larger internal
teams and less of an actual engagement of agencies and I actually do feel that
continuing. However, I do see a role for really good confident agencies who do know
their actual market because of highly confident internal team who always need an
agency in times of either peak workload, specialization, or in times of very tight
markets. And I feel that as the market is picking up we’re heading more and more
for third category.
I feel where we’re heading is a greater partnership between our internal teams that
are highly confident with actually highly confident agencies and I see the role of
agencies on that level diminishing over time because I think the market will slowly
move away from them.
Rob Papworth, the Recruitment Manager at Ericsson, will be speaking at the
Recruitment and Retention in IT Sector Conference. For more information
about this event, please visit www.recruitmentinit.com.au. Alternatively, you
call us on 02-9229-1000 or email us on enquire@iqpc.com.au.
Don't forget, you can also follow us on Twitter @iqpc_australia.
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4. Human Resources IQ
Can you please tell us a bit about your experience and your role at Ericsson?
Rob Papworth
At Ericsson, I currently manage recruitment for Australia and New Zealand.
We look after few things, we look after permanent recruitment both internal
and external, we look after contractor recruitment, contractor management,
graduate campaigns, and also interviews and downsizing as well. Personally,
outside of Ericsson, I have 13 years in total in recruitment, I’ve worked both
internally, the agency side, and also in RPO, and I’m currently studying
Masters of HR just to improve my skills.
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