Social media sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and a few others have become huge players in creating a holistic recruitment process. Most people find it convenient to hang out on social media sites online to communicate and interact with each other and a vast majority of employees use social networks to research companies and potential job opportunities. Online recruiting provides companies an opportunity to find and make connections with quality candidates, many of whom would frankly remain undiscovered through traditional sources.
Engaging people who are already connected to your brand on social media and have a demonstrated interest in your company, or the industry in general, can help portray your company positively, especially when it comes to the hiring process. Besides the passive marketing of your company, recruiters now message prospects directly, post jobs in social network groups and find talent through online connections. So let’s look at how you can leverage social media recruiting to your advantage to connect with and recruit the top talent online.
Value of Employer Branding
Think of your organization’s reputation and its presentation as an employer in all social media activity. When it comes to hiring, the brand positioning is your general workplace image that prospective employees look at when they assess your value proposition as a potential employer. You can build your employer brand influence by highlighting key success moments, company activities, testimonials and industry recognition. Make sure to stress on the benefits of working within your business. When you are able to establish yourself as an authoritative social media presence, job seekers interested in your sector will give your job priority.
Engage and Grow Followers
Build a social media footprint on social media platforms that are the best fit for your brand. Depending on the niche of your industry, focus of two or three social media platforms to create a social following and scale your efforts up. Make sure that your social media profiles are updated and share valuable and relevant content regularly. To recruit successfully on social media, you first have to find the right people. For instance, maintain an active presence in LinkedIn groups and use hashtags to get your job openings in front of more suitable candidates on Twitter. Besides posting open roles from company accounts, focus on promoting your company culture by sharing content (videos and visuals) of workplace activities to organically attract candidates and promote your recruitment efforts, etc. Brands with unique cultures gets a lot of shares and are talked about more.
Use Existing Employees to Improve Brand Awareness
Most people tend to trust what existing employees have to say about a company more than what gets promoted in brand advertising. Many more companies now successfully use current employees to improve brand value during the recruitment process. Working on improving employees’ experience by establishing a productive and friendly environment can work in your favor. Satisfied employees are happy to contribute, and be an evangelist for the company by posting good reviews, recommendations, and testimonials for the company. Encourage all current employees to spread the word about vacancies, tweet about their positive experiences at work or share positive experiences at work, etc. These are valuable long term assets for your employer brand for when interested applicants research your brand.
Select Potential Employees Through Social Media
Besides posting relevant job listings on your social media channels (LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook) and letting more people know that you’re hiring, you can use social media to gain hard proof about how good your candidates are. Just as candidates are extremely selective when it comes to choosing their potential next employer, even recruiters can be strict about their screening process too. A vast majority of employers now use social media in their selection process and you will be surprised at how much influence a candidate’s social profile has on their application. During the selection process, most companies look at the candidate’s social posts, their interests, and this does affect the hiring process. You can organize relevant tasks in online competitions through social media channels to test candidates’ expertise in your field. Candidates will be happy to participate in competitions if they are run to fill a potential vacancy in your company.
Get Hiring
Social media has vastly improved the recruiting process over the last few years as companies are now able to attract more applications from truly passionate candidates. To generate a passionate following who are keen to join your company- start promoting your employer brand.
