Your Guide to Social Media Recruiting
Recruiting has changed quite a bit in the 21st century. From job orders to candidate searching at networking events via business cards, the recruiting world has changed drastically. Not only has it gotten more competitive due to technology, but that has been in part due to how easily accessible top talent can be.
How, might you ask? Social Media.
The thing that’s evolved over the last 15 years or so from the Facebooks and Twitters of the world has blossomed into a huge network of billions of people. In 2020 alone, Statista has reported that 3.6 billion people were actively using social media to connect, communicate and share content.
What does this have to do with recruiting?
About 25% of job seekers use social media to find their next opportunity. Not only that, but 92% of companies use social media to boost their hiring efforts. In an effort to reach the many candidates who are on social media throughout their job hunts, this is a great place for companies to advertise their open positions. When it comes to social media recruiting, there are a number of different strategies, tactics and ways you can use this tool to be able to take full advantage of social media’s power.
How can you take advantage of this tool?
Pick the Right Platform
While there are many different social media platforms, the most popular ones are typically not best for sourcing candidates. While Instagram or Twitter might be your first choice for posting pictures and thoughts - they can be pretty impersonal platforms.
For a more professional angle, LinkedIn provides insights into a candidate's work experience as well as their current status in their respective industry. LinkedIn is typically the platform of choice for recruiters for this very reason. Engaging with candidates through this medium is also made readily available with ways to make connections and send messages.
For more on how to utilize LinkedIn properly as a recruiter, refer to our article where we go over the best ways to utilize the social media platform.
Use the Right Technology
While most people use social media on their phones, this is typically not going to cut it for a recruiters workspace. Using the web-versions of social media on a computer will be a lot more effective when you’re trying to network and recruit. Along with the bigger screen real estate, there is the added advantage of using chrome extensions to help your recruiting process.
The CATS chrome extension is a powerful tool where you can quickly grab a candidate's information and put it in your database. Using this, you can streamline your social recruiting instead of having to manually input all of the information that you find.
Form the Right Strategy
There are a number of ways to really bulk up your social recruiting effectiveness. Below are some areas where you can look to improve your all-around social presence:
- Referral Programs:
- Engagement:
- Consistent Branding:
This is undoubtedly one of the most effective strategies at getting new candidates in the door. Referred employees are more likely to stick around than candidates who happened upon the position organically. With greater retention rates and possibly a quicker recruiting process, referral programs can be a great way to grow teams.
One thing that companies don’t do very often is keep engaged with current employees, as well as people interacting with their content. There is a balance between keeping things professional and responding to people’s comments on a social post. The engagement between company and consumer however distinguishes your company as more than just another corporate entity: rather, it’s something that is a little more dynamic and thoughtful.
A really important focus of social media is your branding. This is going to house things such as your logos, banners, color schemes, headshots, names, etc. With all of these things to keep track of, you want to make sure that your branding, or your recruiting information is consistent with everything else a candidate interacts with. Otherwise you could run the risk of confusing potential candidates in the future.
