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How to Use Social Media in Recruiting
According to data on social media recruiting, 60 percent of employers are concerned about the cost of unfilled positions.
And given that the average position takes 27 days to fill, they should be. But with social media proving itself as the hottest hunting ground for recruiters and candidates alike, there’s no excuse for companies to wait this long to fill their vacant roles.
First, Establish Your Presence
You can’t market on every social platform, nor should you. Rather than going broad, think targeted efforts on the channels favored by your target candidates. Each platform has a different user base, offering built-in segmentation for your ads before your recruiting efforts begin in earnest.
After choosing your platforms, it’s time to build out your profiles. Make sure your organization has a dedicated and completed page on every channel you’re using. Aside from basic professionalism, creating an online hub for your company gives candidates a place to learn more about your brand. They can see what photos you post, your recent blogs, and how employees interact.
(As an aside, don’t underestimate the power of employee advocacy! Get your team to work evangelizing for your brand. Encourage them to post and start conversations on your page. By doing so, you’re providing valuable information to prospects about your company culture.)
The above research shows that 75 percent of hires aren’t actively looking—they must be found through channels like social media.
Get Your Name Out There
Establishing your presence on social media means knowing how to get noticed in the noise. Learn about each platform you’re using and how you can leverage tools to get seen. Hashtagging is a good example for Twitter or Facebook, but don’t stop there. Sites like LinkedIn offer a special suite of tools to make recruiting easier, and even Twitter is building out its platform to better cater to users. Make note of these tools and use them to get your name out there.
Get to Work Recruiting
Once you’ve established your presence, you can get down to business with some direct recruiting. For each of the most common social platforms, we recommend the following strategies.
LinkedIn
Most recruiters already use LinkedIn, but not all of them use it to full effect:
- Build as many connections as possible to reach the widest possible audience.
- Join groups affiliated with the industries you need.
- Use your company’s status box to advertise that you’re hiring (a nice workaround to the costs of keeping excessive numbers of job listings active).
- Use the wealth of work history data available to screen bad candidates before they enter your talent pipeline.
Facebook
Facebook offers a diverse talent pool for recruiters to leverage, provided they know how to use right tools:
- Start with the Facebook Directory to get your foot in the door.
- Facebook Marketplace offers a free platform for listing jobs, even though it lacks targeting capabilities.
- For maximum impact, consider purchasing Facebook Ads. These let you precisely target the audience you want to reach based on demographics or keywords, giving you a focused way to reach prospects.
Twitter
Twitter’s strength is in its brevity—you can get to the point, fast:
- Like LinkedIn, start by building out your network of followers as much as possible.
- Post brief job descriptions in Tweets; these are cheap ways to advertise, and the character limitation will force you to distill each post down to the bare essentials.
- Always hashtag posts to connect your message to others and create built-in filters for others to search for.
- Follow industry events and expos that get people talking; engage in the conversation and get your name out there without advertising directly.
Recruiting on Social Media
If you’re still unsure about beginning a social recruitment campaign, consider this: A full 89 percent of companies plan to recruit on social media. Those that aren’t leveraging this valuable resource are missing out on a wealth of potential hires. If you’re struggling to bring your social recruitment campaign to life, or just aren’t seeing the results you’re expecting, contact Urgenci. We’ll perform an assessment of your recruiting practices and help bring you back on track.
Urgenci
