What is Social Recruiting And How it Works

Social media is an inescapable aspect of much of modern life. This is fast becoming more and more true of the world of recruitment. Recent surveys indicate that a whopping 92% of recruiters have now turned their attention away from traditional methods and are using social media in the hunt for their next employee.

For those among us who are not native to the world of digital recruiting, or simply struggle to navigate the sheer volume of social media options becoming readily available at their fingertips, this short guide will give you an overview of what you need to know to start squeezing the most out of social media recruitment!

Getting started: What exactly is social recruiting?

There are several purposes to social media recruitment. These include increasing awareness of your brand, catching the attention of potential employees, and generating company interest – with the ultimate goal being to find and hire the perfect candidate for your position!

There are many benefits to using social media in the recruitment process. Social media have a great impact on our lives already, it even affects how we write, read more about it here. Online recruitment cuts down on the time and logistics involved in seeking out individual candidates one by one and screening them in person. Employers can quickly and remotely check the social profiles of candidates to make sure they’re a good fit for the company.

How effective is social recruiting?

When it comes to the effectiveness of social media recruitment, the numbers speak for themselves, and this especially true when it comes to the younger generations up-and-coming in the workforce. Being digital natives, a reported 73% of millennials found their latest source of employment via a social network. This number is only poised to rise as the oncoming “generation Z” begins to constitute a significant portion of the workforce – a number set to stand at 61 million in just a few years.

Mobile technology contributes hugely to the power of social media recruitment, literally putting you into the hands of your next star employee! In fact, over 89% of job seekers deem their mobile device an invaluable tool when it comes to searching for a new job – with 45% using mobile technology at least once a day to search for employment opportunities.

So, how exactly does social recruiting work?

Recruitment via social media comes in many shapes and forms:

• Using platforms such as LinkedIn to search for potential candidate leads.
• Using Twitter and Facebook to publicize links to information on open positions.
• Sending direct messages to potential candidates via Facebook and LinkedIn.
• Encouraging employee engagement online in order to build brand image and generate excitement.
• Post links encouraging applicants to add their resumes to an online recruitment pool.
• Create and post diverse content (such as videos and infographics) across social media platforms to promote brand identity.

Running a strong social recruitment campaign

Here are the best strategies for using social media recruitment to find your ideal candidate:

• Networking

Using platforms such as LinkedIn, creating valuable recruitment networks has become easier than ever. An estimated 87% of recruiters are already using LinkedIn in order to source new talent. For comparison, 55% use Facebook and 47% use Twitter.

LinkedIn allows recruiters to hone search criteria to find candidates with specific skills and connections, as well as offering the option to form groups. This is a great way of connecting employers and candidates with similar search criteria.

• Employee engagement

Encourage your current employees to post coordinated content on social media, highlighting the benefits of working with your company, and placing emphasis on team-building. Hashtags are a great way to create a sense of cohesion amid this kind of posts and will increase overall traffic to your content

• Consistent content

Consistency is highly important when creating an online campaign. Coordinating posts, using a consistent platform, and making sure your content is cohesive in its style and targeting will greatly aid in giving momentum to any online campaign.

• Brand representation

Creating a recognizable and attractive culture surrounding your business is highly valuable when seeking to engage potential talent. This is especially true of brand-conscious millennials and “gen Zers”, who not only seek out employment opportunities, but also the chance to be part of a company’s culture. Creating recognizable branding and promoting your business’s ethos is a great way of encouraging candidates to identify with your company beyond a source of income.

• Directing traffic

Pool all relevant recruitment information into one, easily-found web location. Whether it be a company website, a Facebook page, Instagram profile, or a recruitment pool form, make sure potential candidates are all being directed to the same place.

• Demographic targeting

Creating an online recruitment campaign requires knowing exactly who your target audience is and how to target content specifically to them. Each demographic has a platform they are more and less suited to, with younger people being most reachable via Instagram, and LinkedIn being preferred by those more established in the workforce.

• Dedication to the campaign

For ongoing social media recruitment, it helps to dedicate time and resources to monitoring online trends that could be of use to a campaign. If used right, new hashtags, promotional trends, and up-and-coming social media platforms can prove invaluable tools for getting ahead of the crowd and snapping up the best potential candidates!

Final tips for squeezing the most out of social media

• Analytics: Most social media platforms offer business profiles the opportunity to access their engagement analytic data. This means you can monitor information such as the age, location, and source of those trafficked to your content. This is an invaluable resource you should use to tailor future content.
• Collaborate: Collaborating with other businesses and online presences is a great way to get boosted by social media algorithms and have your content displayed to a much wider audience.
• Video: Creating video content is one of the most proven strategies for maximizing online engagement, as it’s eye-catching, easily sharable, and information can be processed much faster than by reading. Live-streams and Q+As are just two options available to recruiters when it comes to creating video content.
• Niche networks: Don’t forget to think outside the box! Mainstream social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn are, of course, great for general recruitment. But if you have a position open that requires a specialized profile, don’t be afraid to venture into those online niche networks where you are more likely to make direct contact with your ideal candidate.
• Platform tools: Check out the tools offered by your platforms of choice. Tools such as location-tagging and post scheduling to coincide with traffic surging can really help when it comes to creating a strong and consistent campaign!

About the author

Alina Burakova is a career guidance expert. He guides up-and-coming professionals through the entire recruitment process – establishing career direction, crafting the perfect CV, writing resume service reviews and preparing for the interview process. Through his work, he makes finding that dream job a reality!