Let’s just put it out there. If you’re not recruiting via social media, you may still think it’s cool to party like it’s 1999. No offense to his majesty, but times have changed.
Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Google+, Instagram, Vimeo, Pinterest. All you really have to do is pick your poison and you’ll find pools of potential candidates to suit your needs. Plenty of cool kids are already doing it. Proof (courtesy of Herd Wisdom, Jobvite and The Undercover Recruiter):
- Two-thirds of recruiters use Facebook
- 54% of recruiters use Twitter for their talent search… 15% of them have hired someone through the social media site
- 10,200 applicants (and counting) found their job on LinkedIn
If you don’t really know what you’re doing when you land on these sites though, you could be wasting a TON of time – job seekers’ and yours. Tim Sackett does a bang up job explaining this concept and has come up with a ‘mathematical’ equation to support his theory:
Social Recruiting + Infinity = Bad Recruiting
To read Sackett’s whole post, click here. The gist can be summed up in these two paragraphs he wrote:
“It’s a question most recruiters don’t even consider when they start down the social recruiting path. When your recruiting pool is ‘everyone’, it changes the way you work. That what social recruiting tends to be like. Most begin believing they have a new ‘pond’ to fish in, and find out that pond is an ocean, an ocean where you see fish everywhere, but can see the fish you want to catch…. The corollary of infinity (an endless amount of candidates) is zero (so many candidates you can’t even find one).”
So now you’re nodding your head, saying, “Yes! Yes! This is me! This is EXACTLY how I feel! What can I do about it?” Lucky for you we have some tips.
Step #1
Establish a consistent social media image, culture, policies, outreach and communication. For many folks new to your company or brand, this is their first exposure to what you’re all about. Your social media presence doesn’t have to be elaborate, blow-off-everyone’s-socks, but it should be well-maintained, offer immediate engagement with fans/customers/followers/job seekers, and be trustworthy. It should also do the basics really well: correct spelling, easy to read, nice grammar, provide the who/what/where/when/why’s and have active, accurate links (especially to your home page and employment portal).
Step #2
Build your social media presence with recruiting in mind (even if that’s not your #1 priority). Remember, it’s not just fans/customers/followers/job seekers who are checking our your pages, it’s recruiters and HR professionals. Make sure to highlight your company’s “wins” and where/how/why you excel at what you do. Finally, encourage ‘shares’ – you want this job posting to reach a variety of like-minded people so let people share it, tag it, email it, post it, etc.
Step #3
Make it easy for recruiters/candidates/job seekers to take the next step. Include as many specifics about open positions as you can. Describe your work culture and what type of employee may thrive at your workplace.
Step #4
Promote your recruiters and HR team. Ensure that all of these folks have social media profiles that are visible and follow the guidelines listed above. Encourage your recruiters and HR team to engage with people on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter – the so-called ‘Big 3’ in social media vernacular. This is especially true for Twitter. Herd Wisdom believes that users like to connect with other people more than brands, that’s why it’s important to allow your people an online presence. Remember (or learn about) those #hashtags, too! Identify your openings with industry specific tags (like #fashionjobs, #hiring, #tennispros) so potential candidates can find you with a quick search.
Step #5
Hire a background screening company like us to verify candidates’ once you’ve taken some initial hiring steps with them. We can vet their social media profiles and make sure things match up!
What are some of your tips for social media recruiting? It’s certainly a hot topic, so we’d love to hear from you. Shoot us a comment. Oh – and see our ‘share’ buttons and ‘tags’ at the top of this post? We’d love it if you could click on a few of those and tell more people about the awesome work we do at Active Screening and the Active Care Blog.