Are you prepared for the growth of social recruiting?

S​ocial platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram have completely transformed the way we communicate with each other.

But today, the platforms are way more than just a communication tool for personal relationships and news-sharing. An increasing amount of recruitment professionals are harnessing the power of social media as a must-have business tool. 

A growing trend in the recruitment space is the searching of potential candidates on social media, otherwise known as “social recruiting”. Though this process is designed best to compliment more traditional recruiting methods, social recruiting is very quickly taking over traditional recruitment as the norm.

The decline of traditional recruiting strategies

Enterprises seem to be slowly edging away from traditional recruiting strategies. But why? Traditional recruitment can be an expensive, time-consuming process compared to well-formed social recruitment strategies.

For instance, recruitment site Indeed is a common platform used to search for job candidates. This site charges on a cost-per-click basis, amounting to anywhere between US$0.25 – $1.50 per click. Though this may not seem very much, if your job advertisement accumulates 3000 clicks, these costs can make a pretty big dent in your budget.

Furthermore, many of the best candidates do not regularly check these job-posting sites. They are, however, very much present on the social-sphere; particularly tech-savvy and millennial talent. In fact, according to a study by Aberdeen Group, 73 percent of job seekers between the ages of 18 and 34 discovered their last job on social media.

Top tips for social recruiting strategies

Social media can help find talented professionals to join your business | Source: Shutterstock

Before setting off and spamming your followers feed with endless job postings, it is important to formulate a concrete plan to ensure optimum effectiveness. Here are some tips to get you started.

1.Ensure your online presence reflects your brand

Company culture is key to attracting talent and brands who have a strong reputation and a positive online presence will be far more likely to do well in the recruitment process. In fact, a survey by Glassdoor revealed that 84 percent of participants would be willing to leave their current job for a company with a positive reputation.

When posting job openings online, the first thing a candidate is going to do is have a sneak peak on your company profile to get a feel for your company culture.

Therefore, it is vital you think about your brand manifesto with each and every social post, highlighting the core values of your company.

Many businesses are today utilizing employee advocates as a way of portraying their company culture. At its core, this is the promotion of an organization by its staff members, generating positive exposure for a brand.

Employee advocates can improve employer branding significantly to make talent acquisition more effective and drive down costs.

The general public ranks employees as the most trusted source of information on a company’s operational performance, business practices and treatment of employees according to Edelman Trust barometer 2016. As well as this, brand messages are re-shared 24 times more frequently when distributed by employees, instead of the brand according to MSL Group.

2. Hook candidates with compelling content

As well as ensuring your social media profiles reflect your company’s values, it is also important to actively post compelling and engaging content in order to attract potential candidates.

Boring content is one of the main reasons people stop following brands, so stop and ask yourself, why would people like, comment, and share a piece of content?

Consider posting content around up and coming recruitment events, employee profiles, company projects, as well as employee benefits such as professional development and mentoring initiatives.

Not only should you be posting content about your company, but you would also do well to share and engage with the content of others.  

The more interesting and engaging the content you post is, the more likely it is to be shared and reach a wider range of potential candidates.

3. Tap into the right platforms

While social media offers a diverse collection of candidates to employers, it is important to tap into the right platform depending on the role you are trying to fill.

A starting step is to profile your ideal candidate and consider where they’re most likely to spend their time on social. For example, a graphic designer may spend more time on image-based social platforms such as Instagram and Pinterest, whereas a salesperson will more likely be active on platforms such as LinkedIn.

With each platform, you should consider a tailored approach to candidate sourcing. For instance, on Twitter, you could incorporate hashtags to join the right conversations and increase your reach. On Facebook, a better strategy may be to visit career pages and job groups to discover potential candidates.

4. Measure your efforts

Like any of your other recruitment strategies, it is important to measure your social-recruiting efforts in order to see what’s working and what isn’t.

Tracking which platforms your most click-throughs are coming from and which type of content is getting the most engagement will enable you to re-think your strategy to increase the likelihood of reaching potential candidates.