Board now social networking

Waitemata District Health Board has signed up to social networking services in bid to attract new staff.

The health board is using Twitter, Facebook and Linked-in, a staff alumni page, to target younger potential recruits and new graduates.

Potential employees in Auckland or overseas are interviewed using Skype so they do not have to travel to the health board.

Recruitment manager Nicole Francis says we need to reach Generation Y.

"These young people aren’t reading newspapers, they’re chatting online and visiting sites like Facebook and Twitter," says Ms Francis.

She says using these different communication channels helps the organisation to be accessible and connect with the local community as well as the rest of the world. Using the social network websites is also a good way to advertise because it is free, she says.

"We think using these methods is good value for money as it costs nothing to set up Twitter and Facebook pages and interviewing by Skype is not only saving the candidate the cost of travelling to us, but saves us the cost of a phone call too," says Ms Francis.