You may be asking “What is social recruitment?” Social recruitment is more than just using social platforms to recruit new employees. It is about moving a lot of what is involved in normal recruiting, like your brand, community, and activities onto the online space. The purpose is not necessarily to recruit, but to build online communities, networks, and relationships, which you’ll be able to tap into in the future.
All social platforms are good tools to find and attract people to your company, so you must use them wisely. Knowing how to use each of these goes a long way to ensure that your time and efforts are not wasted and to make sure you see some return on your investment.
Of all social networks, Facebook is the most used. It is also where you are most likely to find possible candidates who fall in the lower- to mid-income range of the population, including students and recent graduates. For candidates with average to higher incomes, you are most likely to find them searching for jobs on Twitter. LinkedIn, as you can probably guess, is better used as a tool to reach out to more senior candidates, around 30+ years of age and with more experience and higher incomes.
Of course there are exceptions, as with everything, so do not worry too much about these—but do keep them in mind as you go about social recruitment.
Let’s look at how you can leverage your presence in these networks to find the best people for your company, then.
LinkedIn as a Recruitment Tool
We should start with LinkedIn, since it is the most “professional” network.
LinkedIn is a great platform for social recruiting since it offers you actual tools for it. More than Facebook and Twitter, it encourages recruiters to reach out to candidates—the best of which are probably currently employed and not actively looking for anything.
There are a few things to remember about LinkedIn.
Use Search Options Effectively
LinkedIn search allows you to select most of the criteria you need. Whether it be skills required, years of experience necessary, or previous employers. It is pretty much like looking through CVs, except you’ll know these CVs all suffice at least the most basic requirements.
Make Sure Your InMails Are Personal
After you find suitable people, you will most likely contact them through InMails. Even though most of them may not be actively looking for something, few will say that they don’t want to hear about a good opportunity.
And your chances of garnering interest will be much higher if you address people on a personal basis. Use their names and a fact about themselves. If you have too many InMails to send and can’t address all semi-individually, then split your audience into groups and address people from different groups differently.
You might find suitable candidates in a group about, say, Software Engineers and in a group about Robotics—address them differently and personalize your message accordingly.
Tap Into Your Employee’s Networks
Who says that you have to find every possible candidate through a search or coincidently?
Provided you have great employees, they should know people just like them. And even if you do not have great employees, they are very likely to know people who fit the role you are trying to fill. Why not use all their networks and your employees’ own voices to find great people?
Most employers still find their best candidates through referrals. So make use of the opportunity LinkedIn offers you to find these and encourage your employees to advocate for you as well.
Track Your Success
Don’t forget to track your success. LinkedIn provides you with the tools necessary to get metrics on your efforts and data on your recruitment activities. Make sure to track it and analyse it, in order to continuously improve it.
Using LinkedIn Recruiter is better if you intend to recruit on an ongoing basis. It will provide you with the ability to track your success, personalize your messages, and find people more easily. But even without it, you should be able to attract great potential using the tips above.
Twitter as a Community
Twitter is different from LinkedIn in an important way. Twitter is a means to put your voice and thoughts out in the world on a variety of things. It is much more of a community than LinkedIn is and it must be treated as such.
Build Your Brand
Twitter is about branding. Take a moment to think of yourself. What you say, what you think, who you talk to, what you talk about—all these things define you in the eyes and mind of other people. The same thing happens with companies. What companies do and share, talk about and respond to, define their brand in their followers’ minds.
So what do you do? You share, and a lot. Build a network of followers by communicating with them, responding to them, and sharing with them. As your network grows and your brand awareness increases, you’ll notice that attracting top talent becomes much easier.
But only if you are careful with what you share with the community. Remember to keep a voice consistent with your values. If you do this, you should be able to easily convey your brand personality and pull candidates that share the same values and identity.
Learn From Others
Chances are that some of your competitors are doing it right, so don’t be afraid to learn from them. Go to their pages and see how they are interacting with their community. What makes them special? What do people say about them? What can you learn and what can you improve upon?
Remember, find the best practices and use them yourself. Each industry is different, so what works for some may not work for others, and vice-versa.
Engage Your Followers And Employees
Twitter is the platform that encourages conversation the most. So use it for that purpose.
You can probably think of several stakeholders that could benefit from more interaction with your company. However, when it comes to recruiting, there are two that you should focus on: candidates and current employees.
First, engage potential candidates by asking questions, asking for recommendations, creating polls and competitions, etc. These are good strategies for dormant candidates–those who might apply but are largely unaware that they should or want. This is good not only for candidates but also for your brand image at large.
Second, engage actively-seeking candidates by sharing stories that show why they should work for you. Show who the employee of the month is, share a quote about the perks of working for you, share the three most important things to have when applying to you. Potential candidates will see this and feel like they are having a conversation with you, and like you want them to apply.
Finally, engage your current employees. They are part of your family and, as we saw above, they know a whole sea of talent that you can’t see unless they show it to you. Ask them questions, share their accomplishments and their concerns, and show them why they should care to make you part of their social life, and as a result make you part of their networks’ social lives.
Schedule Your Tweets
Will this take a long time? No. In fact, using tools readily available on the internet you can easily schedule your social media activities, so that they come out in a specific time of the day. This is not only for tweets but also Facebook and LinkedIn. Do a little research about the best time of the day to post things in your business and schedule your posts for that time. The rest will take care of itself.
Measure Performance
As with LinkedIn, here too you can measure your performance and return on investment. You can see what type of target audience you are reaching the most, whether they are communicating with you or not, and many other helpful metrics. Even though not always applicable, in this case the old “maxim” couldn’t be more appropriate: what gets measured gets improved.
Don’t Underestimate Facebook
Facebook is the last significant platform covered. You may think that it is not a professional network, but it doesn’t mean it’s not important. Most people are on Facebook. There are about 1.6 billion people using it every month. If you’re not leveraging this network, you’re missing out on a lot.
Post Job Openings And Promote Culture
You might not have many people searching for “jobs at XYZ” on Facebook… or so you think. There are a lot of people finding jobs through Facebook—so post your vacancies, share them, and ask your employees to share them. People spend about 1 minute in every 10 of their waking lives on Facebook, so post actively.
Facebook is also an excellent place to promote your culture. Here is a space where you can reach a wide audience and share your stories with them. You can post videos, images, albums, etc. Each of these may tell its own story and you can shape it as you want. Culture is a very important deciding factor for candidates, so show them why they should go with yours. You use Twitter to communicate actively, but Facebook, and LinkedIn to an extent, to showcase your company.
Join Groups
Just like on LinkedIn, you should be joining groups. Facebook is a platform of communities. People like to show others what they listen to, what they watch, where they have been, etc. Most people are in one group or another. You can find incredible talent in groups that relate to your business. Just imagine, these great people are joining these groups on their personal online platform to be part of something they enjoy–they are not writing it down on a CV or cover letter. What better culture can you look for than one full of people who do their jobs for pleasure?
Create Careers Pages
Facebook allows you to do something else: create pages about careers in your company. And you should be doing it. These will attract people that are actively looking for jobs and much more. You’ll be able to post about a typical working day, video testimonials, interview tips, promote your culture a little more, etc. While it may not be ideal to do all these in your normal company page, in a career page these are all acceptable and encouraged.
Make Use of Facebook’s Diversity
Facebook is, almost by definition, more diverse than any other social platform. You don’t join Facebook because your group of friends is on it. You kind of… just join it. And stay there. LinkedIn targets a specific type of people and Twitter is little different. But you will find pretty much everyone on Facebook.
It makes sense, then, that you make use of this quality of the social platform to reach out to different types of audiences. Today you may post something about an employee that loves hiking, and you’ll attract people who like hiking and are happy to see that they would be encouraged to do it. Tomorrow you may post a photo of some employees watching the new Star Wars in the company lounge, and you’ll attract a different type of audience.
The point is, Facebook will allow you to communicate with a more varied audience, hear their feedback and opinions, learn about them, and ultimately allow you to recruit the best people.
The Other Social Platforms
It may be that not too far from this day we won’t be referring to these platforms as “the other social platforms.” However, for now their impact is not as large as that seen in the abovementioned ones. But that does not mean that they can’t be used. Indeed, they can and should, for they are an important complement to the ones we’ve already covered.
Snapchat
Until recently, Snapchat had been used mostly as a means of receiving creative applications from candidates. However, nowadays companies have learned to make better use of it. You should use Snapchat as a tool for storytelling.
How? Why don’t you take your followers inside for a tour of the company office? Take them backstage and let them see what they can’t see anywhere else and make them feel like they are there with you. Show them what a day at the office is like. Let them get to know the team on a more personal level. Roll out new products on Snapchat and create a buzz around them. Snapchat as a recruitment tool.
Use Instagram to show the creative side of the company, to show your followers interesting statistics and facts in the form of infographics. Let your employees take over your Instagram and post their photos and engage with the community and their friends themselves. The possibilities are endless and you can create a fantastic brand around these concepts.
Periscope
Share big moments, presentations, talks, etc., with your followers. Allow them to be there with you, in real time, and be part of the company’s most important days and occasions. These, again, will increase your brand awareness, improve its image, and ultimately make it very attractive to potential employees.
But The Most Important Thing Is…
You have now seen how you can use the several social networks to improve your social recruitment efforts. If you use these tips we offered and are generally aware of the differences in these platforms, you should see a significant increase in your success rate. But, remember that the most important thing is to be active. Every day. Stay on top of your followers minds, show them why you matter, show them why you care, and add value to their lives, because you get what you give. How else will you attract the best people?
To stay on top of the game download our guide to modern ways of recruitment from the link below. For questions don’t hesitate to contact us.
You may be asking “What is social recruitment?” Social recruitment is more than just using social platforms to recruit new employees. It is about moving a lot of what is involved in normal recruiting, like your brand, community, and activities onto the online space. The purpose is not necessarily to recruit, but to build online communities, networks, and relationships, which you’ll be able to tap into in the future.
All social platforms are good tools to find and attract people to your company, so you must use them wisely. Knowing how to use each of these goes a long way to ensure that your time and efforts are not wasted and to make sure you see some return on your investment.
Of all social networks, Facebook is the most used. It is also where you are most likely to find possible candidates who fall in the lower- to mid-income range of the population, including students and recent graduates. For candidates with average to higher incomes, you are most likely to find them searching for jobs on Twitter. LinkedIn, as you can probably guess, is better used as a tool to reach out to more senior candidates, around 30+ years of age and with more experience and higher incomes.
Of course there are exceptions, as with everything, so do not worry too much about these—but do keep them in mind as you go about social recruitment.
Let’s look at how you can leverage your presence in these networks to find the best people for your company, then.
LinkedIn as a Recruitment Tool
We should start with LinkedIn, since it is the most “professional” network.
LinkedIn is a great platform for social recruiting since it offers you actual tools for it. More than Facebook and Twitter, it encourages recruiters to reach out to candidates—the best of which are probably currently employed and not actively looking for anything.
There are a few things to remember about LinkedIn.
Use Search Options Effectively
LinkedIn search allows you to select most of the criteria you need. Whether it be skills required, years of experience necessary, or previous employers. It is pretty much like looking through CVs, except you’ll know these CVs all suffice at least the most basic requirements.
Make Sure Your InMails Are Personal
After you find suitable people, you will most likely contact them through InMails. Even though most of them may not be actively looking for something, few will say that they don’t want to hear about a good opportunity.
And your chances of garnering interest will be much higher if you address people on a personal basis. Use their names and a fact about themselves. If you have too many InMails to send and can’t address all semi-individually, then split your audience into groups and address people from different groups differently.
You might find suitable candidates in a group about, say, Software Engineers and in a group about Robotics—address them differently and personalize your message accordingly.
Tap Into Your Employee’s Networks
Who says that you have to find every possible candidate through a search or coincidently?
Provided you have great employees, they should know people just like them. And even if you do not have great employees, they are very likely to know people who fit the role you are trying to fill. Why not use all their networks and your employees’ own voices to find great people?
Most employers still find their best candidates through referrals. So make use of the opportunity LinkedIn offers you to find these and encourage your employees to advocate for you as well.
Track Your Success
Don’t forget to track your success. LinkedIn provides you with the tools necessary to get metrics on your efforts and data on your recruitment activities. Make sure to track it and analyse it, in order to continuously improve it.
Using LinkedIn Recruiter is better if you intend to recruit on an ongoing basis. It will provide you with the ability to track your success, personalize your messages, and find people more easily. But even without it, you should be able to attract great potential using the tips above.
Twitter as a Community
Twitter is different from LinkedIn in an important way. Twitter is a means to put your voice and thoughts out in the world on a variety of things. It is much more of a community than LinkedIn is and it must be treated as such.
Build Your Brand
Twitter is about branding. Take a moment to think of yourself. What you say, what you think, who you talk to, what you talk about—all these things define you in the eyes and mind of other people. The same thing happens with companies. What companies do and share, talk about and respond to, define their brand in their followers’ minds.
So what do you do? You share, and a lot. Build a network of followers by communicating with them, responding to them, and sharing with them. As your network grows and your brand awareness increases, you’ll notice that attracting top talent becomes much easier.
But only if you are careful with what you share with the community. Remember to keep a voice consistent with your values. If you do this, you should be able to easily convey your brand personality and pull candidates that share the same values and identity.
Learn From Others
Chances are that some of your competitors are doing it right, so don’t be afraid to learn from them. Go to their pages and see how they are interacting with their community. What makes them special? What do people say about them? What can you learn and what can you improve upon?
Remember, find the best practices and use them yourself. Each industry is different, so what works for some may not work for others, and vice-versa.
Engage Your Followers And Employees
Twitter is the platform that encourages conversation the most. So use it for that purpose.
You can probably think of several stakeholders that could benefit from more interaction with your company. However, when it comes to recruiting, there are two that you should focus on: candidates and current employees.
First, engage potential candidates by asking questions, asking for recommendations, creating polls and competitions, etc. These are good strategies for dormant candidates–those who might apply but are largely unaware that they should or want. This is good not only for candidates but also for your brand image at large.
Second, engage actively-seeking candidates by sharing stories that show why they should work for you. Show who the employee of the month is, share a quote about the perks of working for you, share the three most important things to have when applying to you. Potential candidates will see this and feel like they are having a conversation with you, and like you want them to apply.
Finally, engage your current employees. They are part of your family and, as we saw above, they know a whole sea of talent that you can’t see unless they show it to you. Ask them questions, share their accomplishments and their concerns, and show them why they should care to make you part of their social life, and as a result make you part of their networks’ social lives.
Schedule Your Tweets
Will this take a long time? No. In fact, using tools readily available on the internet you can easily schedule your social media activities, so that they come out in a specific time of the day. This is not only for tweets but also Facebook and LinkedIn. Do a little research about the best time of the day to post things in your business and schedule your posts for that time. The rest will take care of itself.
Measure Performance
As with LinkedIn, here too you can measure your performance and return on investment. You can see what type of target audience you are reaching the most, whether they are communicating with you or not, and many other helpful metrics. Even though not always applicable, in this case the old “maxim” couldn’t be more appropriate: what gets measured gets improved.
Don’t Underestimate Facebook
Facebook is the last significant platform covered. You may think that it is not a professional network, but it doesn’t mean it’s not important. Most people are on Facebook. There are about 1.6 billion people using it every month. If you’re not leveraging this network, you’re missing out on a lot.
Post Job Openings And Promote Culture
You might not have many people searching for “jobs at XYZ” on Facebook… or so you think. There are a lot of people finding jobs through Facebook—so post your vacancies, share them, and ask your employees to share them. People spend about 1 minute in every 10 of their waking lives on Facebook, so post actively.
Facebook is also an excellent place to promote your culture. Here is a space where you can reach a wide audience and share your stories with them. You can post videos, images, albums, etc. Each of these may tell its own story and you can shape it as you want. Culture is a very important deciding factor for candidates, so show them why they should go with yours. You use Twitter to communicate actively, but Facebook, and LinkedIn to an extent, to showcase your company.
Join Groups
Just like on LinkedIn, you should be joining groups. Facebook is a platform of communities. People like to show others what they listen to, what they watch, where they have been, etc. Most people are in one group or another. You can find incredible talent in groups that relate to your business. Just imagine, these great people are joining these groups on their personal online platform to be part of something they enjoy–they are not writing it down on a CV or cover letter. What better culture can you look for than one full of people who do their jobs for pleasure?
Create Careers Pages
Facebook allows you to do something else: create pages about careers in your company. And you should be doing it. These will attract people that are actively looking for jobs and much more. You’ll be able to post about a typical working day, video testimonials, interview tips, promote your culture a little more, etc. While it may not be ideal to do all these in your normal company page, in a career page these are all acceptable and encouraged.
Make Use of Facebook’s Diversity
Facebook is, almost by definition, more diverse than any other social platform. You don’t join Facebook because your group of friends is on it. You kind of… just join it. And stay there. LinkedIn targets a specific type of people and Twitter is little different. But you will find pretty much everyone on Facebook.
It makes sense, then, that you make use of this quality of the social platform to reach out to different types of audiences. Today you may post something about an employee that loves hiking, and you’ll attract people who like hiking and are happy to see that they would be encouraged to do it. Tomorrow you may post a photo of some employees watching the new Star Wars in the company lounge, and you’ll attract a different type of audience.
The point is, Facebook will allow you to communicate with a more varied audience, hear their feedback and opinions, learn about them, and ultimately allow you to recruit the best people.
The Other Social Platforms
It may be that not too far from this day we won’t be referring to these platforms as “the other social platforms.” However, for now their impact is not as large as that seen in the abovementioned ones. But that does not mean that they can’t be used. Indeed, they can and should, for they are an important complement to the ones we’ve already covered.
Snapchat
Until recently, Snapchat had been used mostly as a means of receiving creative applications from candidates. However, nowadays companies have learned to make better use of it. You should use Snapchat as a tool for storytelling.
How? Why don’t you take your followers inside for a tour of the company office? Take them backstage and let them see what they can’t see anywhere else and make them feel like they are there with you. Show them what a day at the office is like. Let them get to know the team on a more personal level. Roll out new products on Snapchat and create a buzz around them. Snapchat as a recruitment tool.
Use Instagram to show the creative side of the company, to show your followers interesting statistics and facts in the form of infographics. Let your employees take over your Instagram and post their photos and engage with the community and their friends themselves. The possibilities are endless and you can create a fantastic brand around these concepts.
Periscope
Share big moments, presentations, talks, etc., with your followers. Allow them to be there with you, in real time, and be part of the company’s most important days and occasions. These, again, will increase your brand awareness, improve its image, and ultimately make it very attractive to potential employees.
But The Most Important Thing Is…
You have now seen how you can use the several social networks to improve your social recruitment efforts. If you use these tips we offered and are generally aware of the differences in these platforms, you should see a significant increase in your success rate. But, remember that the most important thing is to be active. Every day. Stay on top of your followers minds, show them why you matter, show them why you care, and add value to their lives, because you get what you give. How else will you attract the best people?
To stay on top of the game download our guide to modern ways of recruitment from the link below. For questions don’t hesitate to contact us.
You may be asking “What is social recruitment?” Social recruitment is more than just using social platforms to recruit new employees. It is about moving a lot of what is involved in normal recruiting, like your brand, community, and activities onto the online space. The purpose is not necessarily to recruit, but to build online communities, networks, and relationships, which you’ll be able to tap into in the future.
All social platforms are good tools to find and attract people to your company, so you must use them wisely. Knowing how to use each of these goes a long way to ensure that your time and efforts are not wasted and to make sure you see some return on your investment.
Of all social networks, Facebook is the most used. It is also where you are most likely to find possible candidates who fall in the lower- to mid-income range of the population, including students and recent graduates. For candidates with average to higher incomes, you are most likely to find them searching for jobs on Twitter. LinkedIn, as you can probably guess, is better used as a tool to reach out to more senior candidates, around 30+ years of age and with more experience and higher incomes.
Of course there are exceptions, as with everything, so do not worry too much about these—but do keep them in mind as you go about social recruitment.
Let’s look at how you can leverage your presence in these networks to find the best people for your company, then.
LinkedIn as a Recruitment Tool
We should start with LinkedIn, since it is the most “professional” network.
LinkedIn is a great platform for social recruiting since it offers you actual tools for it. More than Facebook and Twitter, it encourages recruiters to reach out to candidates—the best of which are probably currently employed and not actively looking for anything.
There are a few things to remember about LinkedIn.
Use Search Options Effectively
LinkedIn search allows you to select most of the criteria you need. Whether it be skills required, years of experience necessary, or previous employers. It is pretty much like looking through CVs, except you’ll know these CVs all suffice at least the most basic requirements.
Make Sure Your InMails Are Personal
After you find suitable people, you will most likely contact them through InMails. Even though most of them may not be actively looking for something, few will say that they don’t want to hear about a good opportunity.
And your chances of garnering interest will be much higher if you address people on a personal basis. Use their names and a fact about themselves. If you have too many InMails to send and can’t address all semi-individually, then split your audience into groups and address people from different groups differently.
You might find suitable candidates in a group about, say, Software Engineers and in a group about Robotics—address them differently and personalize your message accordingly.
Tap Into Your Employee’s Networks
Who says that you have to find every possible candidate through a search or coincidently?
Provided you have great employees, they should know people just like them. And even if you do not have great employees, they are very likely to know people who fit the role you are trying to fill. Why not use all their networks and your employees’ own voices to find great people?
Most employers still find their best candidates through referrals. So make use of the opportunity LinkedIn offers you to find these and encourage your employees to advocate for you as well.
Track Your Success
Don’t forget to track your success. LinkedIn provides you with the tools necessary to get metrics on your efforts and data on your recruitment activities. Make sure to track it and analyse it, in order to continuously improve it.
Using LinkedIn Recruiter is better if you intend to recruit on an ongoing basis. It will provide you with the ability to track your success, personalize your messages, and find people more easily. But even without it, you should be able to attract great potential using the tips above.
Twitter as a Community
Twitter is different from LinkedIn in an important way. Twitter is a means to put your voice and thoughts out in the world on a variety of things. It is much more of a community than LinkedIn is and it must be treated as such.
Build Your Brand
Twitter is about branding. Take a moment to think of yourself. What you say, what you think, who you talk to, what you talk about—all these things define you in the eyes and mind of other people. The same thing happens with companies. What companies do and share, talk about and respond to, define their brand in their followers’ minds.
So what do you do? You share, and a lot. Build a network of followers by communicating with them, responding to them, and sharing with them. As your network grows and your brand awareness increases, you’ll notice that attracting top talent becomes much easier.
But only if you are careful with what you share with the community. Remember to keep a voice consistent with your values. If you do this, you should be able to easily convey your brand personality and pull candidates that share the same values and identity.
Learn From Others
Chances are that some of your competitors are doing it right, so don’t be afraid to learn from them. Go to their pages and see how they are interacting with their community. What makes them special? What do people say about them? What can you learn and what can you improve upon?
Remember, find the best practices and use them yourself. Each industry is different, so what works for some may not work for others, and vice-versa.
Engage Your Followers And Employees
Twitter is the platform that encourages conversation the most. So use it for that purpose.
You can probably think of several stakeholders that could benefit from more interaction with your company. However, when it comes to recruiting, there are two that you should focus on: candidates and current employees.
First, engage potential candidates by asking questions, asking for recommendations, creating polls and competitions, etc. These are good strategies for dormant candidates–those who might apply but are largely unaware that they should or want. This is good not only for candidates but also for your brand image at large.
Second, engage actively-seeking candidates by sharing stories that show why they should work for you. Show who the employee of the month is, share a quote about the perks of working for you, share the three most important things to have when applying to you. Potential candidates will see this and feel like they are having a conversation with you, and like you want them to apply.
Finally, engage your current employees. They are part of your family and, as we saw above, they know a whole sea of talent that you can’t see unless they show it to you. Ask them questions, share their accomplishments and their concerns, and show them why they should care to make you part of their social life, and as a result make you part of their networks’ social lives.
Schedule Your Tweets
Will this take a long time? No. In fact, using tools readily available on the internet you can easily schedule your social media activities, so that they come out in a specific time of the day. This is not only for tweets but also Facebook and LinkedIn. Do a little research about the best time of the day to post things in your business and schedule your posts for that time. The rest will take care of itself.
Measure Performance
As with LinkedIn, here too you can measure your performance and return on investment. You can see what type of target audience you are reaching the most, whether they are communicating with you or not, and many other helpful metrics. Even though not always applicable, in this case the old “maxim” couldn’t be more appropriate: what gets measured gets improved.
Don’t Underestimate Facebook
Facebook is the last significant platform covered. You may think that it is not a professional network, but it doesn’t mean it’s not important. Most people are on Facebook. There are about 1.6 billion people using it every month. If you’re not leveraging this network, you’re missing out on a lot.
Post Job Openings And Promote Culture
You might not have many people searching for “jobs at XYZ” on Facebook… or so you think. There are a lot of people finding jobs through Facebook—so post your vacancies, share them, and ask your employees to share them. People spend about 1 minute in every 10 of their waking lives on Facebook, so post actively.
Facebook is also an excellent place to promote your culture. Here is a space where you can reach a wide audience and share your stories with them. You can post videos, images, albums, etc. Each of these may tell its own story and you can shape it as you want. Culture is a very important deciding factor for candidates, so show them why they should go with yours. You use Twitter to communicate actively, but Facebook, and LinkedIn to an extent, to showcase your company.
Join Groups
Just like on LinkedIn, you should be joining groups. Facebook is a platform of communities. People like to show others what they listen to, what they watch, where they have been, etc. Most people are in one group or another. You can find incredible talent in groups that relate to your business. Just imagine, these great people are joining these groups on their personal online platform to be part of something they enjoy–they are not writing it down on a CV or cover letter. What better culture can you look for than one full of people who do their jobs for pleasure?
Create Careers Pages
Facebook allows you to do something else: create pages about careers in your company. And you should be doing it. These will attract people that are actively looking for jobs and much more. You’ll be able to post about a typical working day, video testimonials, interview tips, promote your culture a little more, etc. While it may not be ideal to do all these in your normal company page, in a career page these are all acceptable and encouraged.
Make Use of Facebook’s Diversity
Facebook is, almost by definition, more diverse than any other social platform. You don’t join Facebook because your group of friends is on it. You kind of… just join it. And stay there. LinkedIn targets a specific type of people and Twitter is little different. But you will find pretty much everyone on Facebook.
It makes sense, then, that you make use of this quality of the social platform to reach out to different types of audiences. Today you may post something about an employee that loves hiking, and you’ll attract people who like hiking and are happy to see that they would be encouraged to do it. Tomorrow you may post a photo of some employees watching the new Star Wars in the company lounge, and you’ll attract a different type of audience.
The point is, Facebook will allow you to communicate with a more varied audience, hear their feedback and opinions, learn about them, and ultimately allow you to recruit the best people.
The Other Social Platforms
It may be that not too far from this day we won’t be referring to these platforms as “the other social platforms.” However, for now their impact is not as large as that seen in the abovementioned ones. But that does not mean that they can’t be used. Indeed, they can and should, for they are an important complement to the ones we’ve already covered.
Snapchat
Until recently, Snapchat had been used mostly as a means of receiving creative applications from candidates. However, nowadays companies have learned to make better use of it. You should use Snapchat as a tool for storytelling.
How? Why don’t you take your followers inside for a tour of the company office? Take them backstage and let them see what they can’t see anywhere else and make them feel like they are there with you. Show them what a day at the office is like. Let them get to know the team on a more personal level. Roll out new products on Snapchat and create a buzz around them. Snapchat as a recruitment tool.
Use Instagram to show the creative side of the company, to show your followers interesting statistics and facts in the form of infographics. Let your employees take over your Instagram and post their photos and engage with the community and their friends themselves. The possibilities are endless and you can create a fantastic brand around these concepts.
Periscope
Share big moments, presentations, talks, etc., with your followers. Allow them to be there with you, in real time, and be part of the company’s most important days and occasions. These, again, will increase your brand awareness, improve its image, and ultimately make it very attractive to potential employees.
But The Most Important Thing Is…
You have now seen how you can use the several social networks to improve your social recruitment efforts. If you use these tips we offered and are generally aware of the differences in these platforms, you should see a significant increase in your success rate. But, remember that the most important thing is to be active. Every day. Stay on top of your followers minds, show them why you matter, show them why you care, and add value to their lives, because you get what you give. How else will you attract the best people?
To stay on top of the game download our guide to modern ways of recruitment from the link below. For questions don’t hesitate to contact us.