January 2012Recruiters should use Twitter in a personal capacity before taking the plunge and launching a corporate Twitter account, said Katharine Robinson, sourcing recruitment manager at Capgemini. She told a meeting of the Forum of In-House Recruiters (The FIRM) in London last month Robinson: “Be a Twitter user first before you use it to promote your brand. Just be a guy or a girl and Tweet about The X Factor. You can make mistakes and it doesn’t matter, it is completely safe.” Panellists debated the pros and cons of having one international Twitter account for recruitment or accounts for individual countries or regions.

Katie McNab, talent acquisition change lead (Western Europe) at PepsiCo, said her company had decided “to go down the global route” and had got rid of its Twitter account for UK recruitment. However, the downside was that Twitter was host to multiple languages. “It becomes a bit less personable and less fun,” she said. However, she added PepsiCo was also considering whether to set up language-specifi c Twitter accounts.

Robert Allen, talent acquisition industry lead at Accenture, said his company used local Twitter sites because it ensured the content was interesting and relevant to users.

Robinson added that the decision depended on circumstances at individual companies.

COLIN COTTELL