A Social Media Strategy for Recruitment
The pandemic has made the job search for both the candidate and the recruiter challenging.
Never has a tight labor market had a deluge of resources in the talent search coupled with savvy job seekers? Online recruiting is not new. In fact, in the mid-1990s, the first online job boards changed the way candidates applied for jobs. Goodbye cotton resume paper, and hello to the digital CV.
There’s no question that organizations worldwide are searching for talent, and that net is wider than ever with work from home and works from anywhere.
Job candidates are no longer limited by geography, and organizations, in theory, have a much wider talent pool. With the job market and the search going through dramatic digital shifts, the way that organizations find talent and connect to candidates has shifted as well.
Social Media has become an invaluable tool for the active and passive recruiter, as well as the active and passive job/career seeker.
- According to Sprout Social, 25% of all job seekers use social media to pinpoint their next career opportunity.
- The Muse states that 92% of companies use social media for hiring (and that isn’t just LinkedIn).
With the era of digital natives entering the workforce and Millennials rising through the ranks, finding talent will be even more social.
Social recruiting is simply using social media tools to connect, share and engage with potential candidates. Does it work? There’s no question. However, the platforms a recruiter versus a candidate use can vary.
83% of job seekers use Facebook as their primary tool to search for a role, while recruiters only use that platform 65%.
Benefits of Social Media Recruiting
One of the best ways to get great candidates is to use your current employee network. Employee referrals are a rich source of potential leads for open positions.
Did you know that if your employees are NOT referring friends to the company, this could be a sign of weak employee engagement?
Other benefits include:
- Increasing brand and awareness for your organization.
- Growing your pool of candidates
- Opening door to employee engagement
- Ability to screen candidates in a unique way
- Cost Savings
How to Recruit on Social Media?
1. Know Your Goals
Before all else, start with your goal and remember that social can inform your entire recruitment process.
Monitoring the social sites of candidates can give you insights into the values and cultural fits of candidates. Before you interview, it’s best practice to check the candidate’s resume vs. LinkedIn profile. You can gather an incredible amount of insights from open social profiles.
2. Use the Right Platforms
Using the right platforms at the right time is equally important. LinkedIn is a professional social network; however, your employees are most likely using other socials, socially. Be where your candidates are gathering online socially.
Facebook has some incredible groups targeted to specific roles, industries, or regionals that focus on simply sharing and targeting candidates.
Of course, there’s the Facebook Job Board and Facebook provides insights into how to effectively post on business pages.
3. Have a Social Presence
It’s important to note that if you have a social presence and are using it to recruit, make sure you’re conducting social profile audits.
A social profile audit will ensure that your social brand, by the platform, is consistent with your corporate brand. This is where a candidate can get a sense of the organization, the culture, the vision, and the mission of the organization.
Showing who you are socially to attract candidates is critical in a competitive job market. Culture can be reflected in your social assets, and it is a principal factor for job seekers. Did you know that 69% of job seekers will not consider a company with a weak culture?
4. Post the Job on Social Media
Naturally, posting the role on socials, using proper hash-tagging on the posts such as #hiring, and ensuring that the interested candidate has a clear path to connect with you.
LinkedIn has a #hiring badge that can be added to a profile, and that badge automatically creates a free job post.
This is a great way for your network (and your networks, network) to know you are hiring.
Some tips when promoting roles on social:
- Keep up with your Glassdoor reviews, this can hurt your chances if you don’t manage this profile.
- Engage your audience, tag coworkers, and ask them to share the role as well.
- Make it easy for candidates to apply.
- Promptly reply to candidates, it is a professional courtesy and in this tight market a brand and game-changer.
- Always look for top candidates who may not be seeking a job, reach out and ask them if they know anyone. Chances are they MIGHT be looking. I love to call this the strategic talent swipe. Recruiting top talent may mean that person is not an active job seeker.
- Promote your corporate culture. Quality of work and life is at the forefront of conversations in every corner office. Diversity is just as critical to creating a workforce that is rich in talent, diversity, and engagement.
Every brand needs a social media strategy, and a recruitment strategy is a part of that overall plan. It’s vital to ensure that your recruitment strategy is aligned with your sales and marketing strategy.
One of the biggest challenges that many brands face is an incongruent experience from the brand promise and the job seeker’s experience. Take the time to integrate a social recruiting strategy into your company’s social media strategy. Work together and consider the brand experience.
