To attract candidates, recruiters must always keep an eye on the latest trends and continuously modernize their recruiting strategies. According to SourceMob, 94% of companies in use social media for recruiting and job postings for direct approach or for employer branding. The reasons are obvious: low cost, easy access, clarity. We have compiled 6 tips that will help you to be even more successful in social media recruiting.
What is Social Media Recruiting?
Social media recruiting is defined as various measures in personnel marketing. Basically, it describes the search for applicants via social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and similar. Social media recruiting means being where the target group is. This is especially true for target groups from Generation Y and Z. The breadth of the platforms is used to reach as many potential applicants as possible.
Social media recruiting differs from classic job boards primarily through direct contact with applicants and mutual interaction. This means that an interested party can respond to a job ad immediately and, for example, ask questions. Recruiters can respond to questions quickly and easily, creating an initial connection in the application process.
Social media recruiting is more than just posting job offers
The days of posting a job ad and waiting for a response are long gone. In the not too distant past qualified applicants came to companies as if through the simple task of posting a job. Today the shortage of diverse early-in-career talent and the existing skills gap means that, unless your company is a household name, your opportunity is quickly getting lost in the crowd of postings. It is therefore necessary to actively search for personnel.
Active sourcing is a matter of course for personnel service providers. For companies, however, it is often unfamiliar. In some cases, new hires are being recruited through existing employment relationships. These individuals are usually not actively looking for a job, but are often open to offers. In this case, it is important to get the candidate out of his or her daily routine and to create the interest and intrigue in a exploring a change. Nowadays, not only does the candidate apply to the employer, but the employer also must appeal to the candidate. See our post on recruiting P.A.S.S.I.V.E. candidates.
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With the following 6 tips, you will succeed in mastering the requirements of modern personnel marketing.
1. How much social media is enough
You don’t have to be present on all social channels. It is advisable to take a look at the user numbers and the target group of the various networks that are most relevant to your industry and required skills. To become active in new networks with social media recruiting, you either have to create new accounts or use existing ones. You decide whether to integrate the recruiting topics into your existing company channels or create your own environment. XING, LinkedIn and Facebook, for example, offer their own recruiting area for this purpose.
The requirements vary depending on the network. Whether you run a profile, a page, a group or all at the same time is up to you. While Facebook usually has company pages, Twitter may only require a special hashtag in the existing profile. With XING or LinkedIn, different rules apply again. There, personal profiles are the basis for social recruiting communication. Decide on the networks that best suit your requirements and focus on these platforms with creative content.
2. Provide attractive and creative content
Boring job offers quickly get lost in the crowd. Align your description with the benefit to and interest of the candidates. Position your company as an attractive employer. The challenge is to attract the attention of potential candidates to you job opportunities and the benefits of working for you versus other companies. Find out what is important to your target audience. Some thought-provoking topics might include:
- Job application guide
- Exciting, varied job descriptions
- Videos with insight into the company and the job responsibilities
- Attractive training opportunities
- Stories from everyday business
- Introduction to future colleagues
3. Collaboration between recruiting and marketing
Each social network has its own rules, possibilities and limitations. Factors such as the number of characters allowed for a post, the various posting formats, the use of hashtags, or the optimal publishing time differ from platform to platform.
Particularly in social media recruiting, close collaboration between the recruiting and marketing teams is recommended, as the latter have the necessary experience with social media channels. Moreover, social media is not only used for recruiting, but also for employer branding and building your corporate brand.
4. Targeted candidate approach
Achieve attention in your community via a personal address, an interesting question, or a discussion starter. Speak the language of your candidates. A technical candidate must be addressed differently than the new sales manager. An engineer speaks a different language than a psychologist. Therefore, tailor your postings, texts, images and videos to your target group.
5. No copy & paste requests
Many HR professionals, managers, and recruiters make outreach without having previously written to potential candidates via direct message. Or worse, some outreach efforts contain no text at all. Many just quickly press the contact button without any context, benefit to them, or call to action. Most people react to this with rejection, because many people find such an offensive approach generic, impolite, and pushy. No one likes to be spammed!
Instead, always personalize a request to make people feel like they’re not just one of many. The profiles of the candidates often contain clues that can be referenced during the outreach. Candidates need to feel that you are care about them as a person and not as a product. They need to clearly see the potential value and benefit to them. “Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care” – Theodore Roosevelt.
6. Save time through automation
The more platforms you want to cover with social media recruiting, the greater the time investment. So sharing a single job quickly becomes a mammoth task. Use the tools of the social media specialists for cross-promotions. Automation tools allow you to schedule and time-shift posts for different platforms in one place. If all posts are shared at the same time, chances are they will get lost in the endless stream of social media timelines.
When using automation tools, do not forget to consider the characteristics of each platform. For example, posts on LinkedIn at completely different times of the day, higher reach than posts on Facebook. When choosing the social media tool, also pay attention to the possibility of customizing your posts. Otherwise, the results will quickly become monotonous.
Here is a list of the most common Social media management and cross-posting tools.
Conclusion
Attracting potential talent has changed and recruiters have to keep finding new ways to attract diverse entry level. Social media recruiting offers many opportunities to reach new target groups and expand employer branding. With a well thought-out social media recruiting strategy, you can fill vacancies and project a positive corporate image to the outside world.
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