MySpace Used by U.S. Marines for Recruiting

Here is the fourth guest entry as part of ongoing "Blog Swap". This weeks entry is from Steven Rothberg of CollegeRecruiter.com. Welcome Steven!

In this fourth week of the Recruiting.com blogswap, I have the good fortune of having my entry run on Mike Taylor’s Online Recruitment Marketing blog. I am the President and Founder of CollegeRecruiter.com, a high traffic career site used by college students and recent graduates who are looking for entry level jobs and internships .

One of the most popular web sites in the world, and perhaps the most popular site with teens, is the social networking site MySpace . The site has re-defined the way a generation communicates and boasts 100 million registered users. Users are primarily those in their teens and twenties and are often referred to as Millenials or members of Gen Y. They use MySpace, Facebook, Friendster, and other such social networking sites to post personal profiles about themselves and connect with people who have similar interests.

Interests that most young people share are the desire for adventure, employment, and a college education. Sitting at this intersection of interests is the military and, in this case, the U.S. Marine Corps. Yes, that’s right. The Marines are using MySpace as a recruiting tool but not just by running banner or other advertising. The Marines’ MySpace profile contains streaming video of drill sergeants, wide eyed recruits struggling through boot camp, and seasoned Marines landing on beaches.

Teens and other potential recruits who visit the Marines' MySpace profile page can click on a link entitled "Contact a Recruiter." When they do, they’re taken to the main Marines web site where they are asked to fill out a form with their name, address and phone number. That information is sent to a recruiter who then contacts the potential recruit. According to the Associated Press, over 430 people have asked to contact a Marine recruiter through the site in the five months since the page went up, including some 170 who are considered "leads" or prospective Marine recruits.

So far, the Marines are the only branch of the military that has a MySpace profile page. The Army and Navy have purchased advertising. The Navy has yet to use MySpace at all.

Is the use of MySpace by recruiters, specifically military recruiters, a positive development? It probably depends upon your point of view regarding military recruitment, but I feel that this is a tremendously positive use of social networking sites such as MySpace. The Marines are not pretending to be something that they’re not. Any visitor to the page immediately knows that it is a recruitment page for the Marines. Those who are offended or not interested need not stay. Those who want more information about the opportunities afforded by the Marines can get that information from the page anonymously without having to contact a recruiter. Those who are still interested may choose to contact a recruiter, but that choice is theirs. Unlike the use by some recruiters to conduct background checking of candidates using Facebook and other social networking sites, this use of MySpace by the Marines is designed to include candidates in the hiring process, not exclude them. And unlike the provision in the No Child Left Behind Act that that requires high schools to provide student lists to military recruiters, the Marines’ MySpace page is completely opt-in.

So what lessons can we learn from this bold step by the Marines? The experience of CollegeRecruiter.com has been that the military tends to be an early adopter of new recruiting tactics. Back in 1996, they were amongst the first of our employer clients to purchase banner advertising. Many non-military employers have since run banner ad campaigns with us. The military were also early in their use of other products such as targeted email, pay-per-lead (pay-per-resume), pay-per-click, co-registration, and others. Again, many non-military employers have since used those products. This early adopter trend does not seem to be disappearing, as the military also appears likely to be one of the early users of our cell phone text messaging (SMS) product. Non-military employers are just starting to be aware of the product, let alone be interested in it or laying plans for how to incorporate it into their recruitment strategies. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: if you want to modernize your recruitment tactics and strategies then follow the lead of the military recruiters.

- Steven Rothberg is the President and Founder of CollegeRecruiter.com , a high traffic career site used by job hunting students and recent graduates and the employers who want to hire them.

Comments

[Teresa]

Is it impossible to find a "free" networking sight? I am attempting to fill a recruiting manager position (outside consultant has not been successful), without going through the standard job sites and paying hundreds of dollars in fees (as the consultant has done). This is not my normal job, therefore, I have spent too much energy on researching the internet to no avail. Surely there must be an accessible networking sight.