Successful social media strategy needs to be aligned to recruitment and business strategy, according to Arie Ball, vice president for talent acquisition at Sodexo USA.

At TRU [The Recruiter Unconference] London 3, Ball told delegates that Sodexo had looked to social media vehicles to rebound from a “humongous” disaster of outsourcing its recruitment in 2004.

Sodexo took its recruitment in-house with the view that its outsourcing partner didn’t understand the complexity of their business or the cultural fit of a company with 6,000 locations internationally, Ball said. She did not identify the company.

To increase brand exposure, the service solutions company experimented with Second Life and created a blog and a Facebook page in a bid to build its talent communities. The rewards have been great, she said.

Sodexo has reduced its reliance on job boards with vistors to its own site growing from 55,000 in 2007 to 260,000 a month now. Time to fill has also decreased. Quality of hire increased and hiring manager satisfaction rose from 3.3 to 4.63 on Sodexo’s scale of 1-5.

Through the firm’s Reconnexions, rehires have risen by 10%, while 46% of internal hires and 47% of external hires had used its social media platforms. Sodexo has hired a social media manager, and the cost of the firm’s recruitment advertising has also fallen.

Ball said: “Social media is important to us today but it’s not a comprehensive recruitment strategy. It is an important part of it but it is aligned with everything else.”

She continued: “All of our recruitment is connected. We supported the business and company growth. That alignment was critical.”