What Is Social Recruiting and How Can You Use It to Find Qualified Candidates?
As the world becomes more and more digitized, social media has become one of the most powerful tools that businesses can use to connect with potential customers or clients. But did you know that social media can also be a way to connect with job seekers? Social recruiting is a process that allows businesses to connect with potential employees through social media platforms. The influence of social media continues to grow, making it a huge, untapped resource for many employers. So what are the benefits of social media recruiting, and how do you implement an effective social media recruitment strategy to attract more job candidates?
What Is Social Media Recruiting and How Does It Work?
Social recruiting, or social media recruiting, is a type of recruiting that uses multiple social media platforms to advertise job openings and connect with candidates. In order to be successful in social recruiting, you need to have a good understanding of how social media works and which platforms are most popular among job seekers.
When used effectively, social media offers many opportunities to grow your business, attract new clients or customers, establish your brand, and build a strong online presence. The popularity of social media continues to grow, and if your marketing strategy doesn't include social recruitment practices, you're missing out on a valuable tool that can help you reach your target audience and attract more qualified candidates. And if your target audience includes digital natives or millennials, then you're really missing out, as these groups are often the ones spending the most time on social media. Your social media accounts are not only platforms to publish employer branding content, promote your products or services, and connect with customers, but are also a great place to find candidates and connect with job seekers.
There are various ways you can use social recruiting to attract and identify the right candidates. First, you can post your job opening on your social media platforms. Not only is this a cost-effective way to publish your available positions, but it also lets you directly interact with candidates who respond to your job post. You can use these interactions to screen job applicants and narrow down the top candidates to bring in for an in-person interview. Encouraging employee advocacy through staff members’ posts on your social media platform is another way to promote brand trust and employee engagement while emphasizing employee satisfaction and company culture.
In addition to sharing new job openings, posting about the latest news in your industry or offering insight into business trends will improve your company's reputation as an industry expert, while sharing photos and videos from company events or teambuilding activities can show off your fun and friendly work environment and highlight the benefits of working for your company. Social recruiting doesn't stop when you fill your open position though. Developing a long-term social recruiting strategy will help you build professional networks and establish a talent pipeline of qualified candidates who are interested in working for your company.
What Are the Benefits of Social Recruiting?
There are many benefits to adding social recruiting to your overall recruitment strategy. These include:
Connect with More Candidates (Including Passive Ones)
According to a 2021 report by Pew Research Center, 72% of Americans use social media, many of them visiting social sites at least once a day. Using social media sites connects you with a huge pool of potential job seekers, including passive candidates who are not actively job searching and would usually never know about your job opportunity. You can also leverage the power of word-of-mouth, as followers may share job openings you post with family and friends who are looking for new career opportunities.
Use Creative Job Postings That Attract Job Seekers
Job postings on social media platforms are often shorter than those on job boards, since you need to be concise in order to capture and keep the attention of potential candidates. This gives you an opportunity to be creative and target your posting to attract the type of candidate you are looking for. Instead of the simple, plain-text job descriptions that are part of many traditional recruiting strategies, you can use a variety of multimedia content, such as videos, photos, and infographics, to show off your corporate culture and workplace or grab the attention of social media scrollers. You can also use creative job postings to target specific demographics or interest groups. For example, if you are looking for software engineers, you can post an engineering challenge on Twitter and ask candidates to tweet their solutions using a specific hashtag. This will not only help you identify candidates with the right skills, but also those who are creative and resourceful enough to come up with an innovative solution.
Save Money on Job Boards and Print Media
While you may have to spend some time and effort creating an effective social recruiting strategy, once you have established a presence on social media, it is generally cheaper than other types of advertising, such as job boards or print media. By using hashtags and keywords to target your potential candidates, you'll also avoid wasting your recruiting budget advertising to people who are not interested in your open positions.
Showcase Your Employer Brand and Company Culture
Your social media presence provides numerous opportunities to show off your employer brand and company culture. This is especially important for attracting top talent, as many job seekers are looking for more than just a paycheck. They want to work for a company that shares their values and provides opportunities for them to thrive. Even if you can afford to offer a great salary, top candidates may reject your job offers or not apply at all if your company has a poor reputation or a toxic culture. Posts that highlight culture or encourage current employees to share positive experiences can attract interested candidates who will be a good fit for your team.
Many employees are also looking for companies where the work they do will provide a valuable contribution to society. If your company provides products or services that have a positive impact, or if you are active in your community, be sure to highlight this in your social media posts.
Engage with and Screen Candidates
Social media allows you to directly engage with potential candidates who express interest in your job posting, answering their queries and asking screening questions. This can speed up the application and screening processes, enabling you to narrow down the candidate field more quickly and only schedule in-person interviews with your top candidates. You may also start a dialogue with passive job seekers who could become viable candidates in the future. Additionally, most employers are already using social media to research potential candidates and gain insight into their experience, interests, and personality. Just take care to avoid unfairly discriminating against candidates based on information that is not job-related.
Shorten Hiring Time for Job Openings
Some hiring managers find that having a social hiring strategy speeds up the hiring process and helps them shorten their overall hiring time.
What Are the Risks of Using Social Media Platforms to Recruit?
While social hiring can be an effective way to connect with potential candidates, you need to make sure you have an effective social recruiting strategy. If not done correctly, social media recruitment can come across as spammy or intrusive. You don't want to annoy potential candidates by bombarding them with too many job postings or messages. It's important to strike a balance between promoting your career opportunities and providing valuable content that will keep candidates engaged. Additionally, make sure that your posts reflect an honest picture of your company. Don't make false promises or try to hide negative aspects of your company culture, as this will only cause problems later. Finally, be aware that anything you post on social media can be seen by the public, so avoid making any statements that could damage your company's reputation.
How Do You Get Started?
First, you need to identify which platforms are most popular among job seekers in your industry. For example, LinkedIn is a great platform for connecting with professionals, while Facebook and Twitter can be used to reach a wider audience. If you need to fill a position that requires creativity or visual content creation, Instagram or TikTok may be more effective.
If you don't already have an account for your business, create one on the social media site or sites of your choice. Once you have an account, join or follow relevant groups and build your presence by posting quality content that will promote your employer brand and help you connect with job seekers. Monitor your social media accounts for opportunities to engage with both customers and potential job candidates. Having a long-term marketing plan will enable you to build your brand authority on your social media channels and will increase your chances of being noticed when you do post your job openings.
Tips for Using Social Media to Recruit Job Candidates
Be clear and concise. Social media users are unlikely to stop and read long blocks of text, so avoid being wordy or including unnecessary information.
Include key information, including job title, salary range, basic job duties and requirements, location (especially emphasizing remote/hybrid options), and how to apply. Many candidates won't follow a link for additional information, so provide the pertinent details while staying concise.
Use strong visuals. A quality image or video is more likely to catch a candidate's eye while scrolling social media feeds than text alone.
Don't forget to brand! Promote your employer brand by sharing content that showcases your company culture and mission. Additionally, make sure your social media posts always accurately reflect your company and brand.
Have an easy and clear application process. Include a link to your career page or an online application form. Monitor and respond to comments and messages.
Encourage existing employees to share your posts and promote your brand. Employees are some of your best brand ambassadors. Make sure they're aware of your social recruiting efforts and encourage them to share your posts with their networks.
Choose the right platforms. Unless you have a full-time social media manager, you probably won't be able to maintain an account on every social media platform. Identify which platforms are most likely to help you connect with your target customers and candidates and focus your efforts on those.
Adjust your job posting to fit the platform. One size doesn't fit all in social media recruiting, so the post you use for Facebook probably won't work as well on Instagram. You'll want to use relevant keywords, hashtags, and social media tools when appropriate so that your posts appear in search results. Adjust your posts as needed to incorporate platform-specific strategies and make sure your posts are seen by the right people. Take advantage of social media sites that have special options for job postings and be open to receiving less traditional applications, like video resumes.
Have a social media strategy and track your results. Establishing your social media presence or brand authority doesn't happen overnight. You should be posting regularly and providing quality content that will keep followers engaged. This will support your long-term social media recruiting efforts, as active job seekers who are interested in your company will follow you, and your job postings will be more likely to get results. Pay attention to how many people engage with your posts so you can see what type of content is the most successful and adjust your social media recruiting strategy as needed.
Make the Most of Social Recruitment Strategies
When used correctly, social media can be an extremely powerful tool to reach a large number of active and passive candidates quickly and efficiently. Social recruiting should not be the only method you use to recruit candidates, but it can be a excellent complement to your other recruiting efforts, such as working with experienced recruiters, using job boards, and asking for employee referrals. It's also a great way to showcase your employer brand and company culture while building a strong social media presence that supports your marketing strategy. With so many people spending time on social media, there are numerous opportunities to post job openings and expand your recruitment efforts.
Article Author:
Ashley Meyer
Divisional Business Coordinator
Albany, NY