Sourcing and Attracting Candidates Through Social Media Recruiting

I’ll get this straight. In today’s time, if you want to find the most talented, qualified, and the largest pool of applicants, then social media is your place.

You may ask why. Over 3.484 billion people are using social media as of 2019.

These people are not only using social media for their social lives but are also actively looking for new job opportunities here. This is why, as a recruiter, you need to direct your hiring efforts to social media as well.

But then again, Social Media Recruitment is not a cakewalk. It requires smart planning to get started. In this article, we will discuss all the different tips that can help you get your social media recruiting strategy right.

So let’s begin.

How to Recruit Using Social Media

Every organization operates in its own unique way. Thus, the same strategy might not work for all. However, there are certain factors that lay down the groundwork for getting started on social media. Here it goes.

1. Participate in the Conversation

People on social media are continuously talking about something. They find and connect with a like-minded community and share their thoughts and ideologies. In fact, there are chances that conversations are happening about you if you are a high-profile business or have set up a robust social media presence already.

These conversations are an opportunity for you to get involved with them. When you try to engage with them, they see your company as approachable and might even encourage passive candidates to take a chance in your business.

2. Create Quality Content

When you post on social media, make sure that you aren’t seen as spam.

It is not only the place for posting open roles. It should also be about providing real value to your audience with your content. In the context of recruitment, sharing valuable content means talking about company culture, displaying correct information about your business, and much more.

The content should be able to help them visualize how it is going to be working with your company. In short, what a career with you would look like.

Besides, it’s a great platform to give an insight into your hiring process. If your hiring process seems sorted, interest candidates will actively apply for the role.

3. Involve Every Employee

You should encourage your entire employee to share job openings. People don’t wholly trust advertisements today. But if they hear about the company culture from the employees itself, it might create a ‘real’ impact and believe what you say.

You can create ‘behind-the-scenes’ videos, ask your staff to get involved in conversations, and much more. Furthermore, you can make them talk about the work experiences in the company. It might help generate curiosity in the potential candidate’s mind.

4. Target the Niche Network

You will find people everywhere — on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and more.

However, if you want to attract the right candidate, you need to find them on the specific niche network and forum.

For instance, if you want to target parents, Facebook is the right place. To connect with an influencer, Instagram is the best place to be. Likewise, developers are sharing their knowledge on StackOverflow and GitHub, while marketers are sharing ideas on Warrior Forum.

That’s why you shouldn’t overlook the niche community.

Also, Read: 8 Mistakes to Avoid During Online Recruitment Approaches

How to Choose the Right Platform

Not all social media platforms are the same, and they don’t give you equal opportunity. To achieve more desirable results, you need to understand the different mechanisms of different social media platforms.

You should choose your size based on your business goals, the position open, and the type of candidates you want to attract.

Here’s an overview of some of the major social media networks.

LinkedIn is seen as the most professional social network, whereby the user profile can be considered as ready-made resumes. Seventy-seven percent of recruiters are taking advantage of the platform.

It has more than 400 million members spread over 200 countries. You can showcase your brand, develop thought leadership, and share knowledge to spark a conversation. It will help you reach a wide audience.

Moreover, LinkedIn usage ranks highest among those aged 35+ years.

Twitter is a microblogging social networking platform that allows businesses to connect with their audience in real-time.

Many recruiters have no idea about how to incorporate Twitter into their social media recruiting strategy. It can be used to quickly share business information with the users, build relationships with your audience, and also gather real-time feedback.

In fact, you can effortlessly search your targeted audience here using the hashtags and locations. Use Twitter to broadcast about any open position in your company.

Despite all the negative media hype about Facebook, it remains the largest social networking site with more than a billion users worldwide. Every day millions of images, statuses, videos, and links are shared by people to keep in touch with their friends and family.

It’s an excellent platform for recruiters to find qualified talents here. Facebook users have now expanded their usage of the channel to connect with organizations, businesses, and professional network groups.

It gives you access to the largest pool of candidates. Besides, 83% of job seekers are actively looking for opportunities on Facebook.

Despite having the highest engagement rates, recruiters are skeptical about sourcing candidates from Instagram.

With more than 100 million new users per year, it’s a platform to promote your brand. You can come out as personal and friendly, and use the platform to engage with your potential candidates.

It might help improve your brand loyalty and increase the chance of job seekers showing interest in your company.

Recruiting Apps to Make Your Hiring Process Easy

When you have a great social media recruiting strategy in place, the next step is to implement them right.

Thanks to the advancement in technology, it has made things simpler and more manageable.

There are hundreds of recruitment software that is well-tuned to help you strategize and implement your social media recruiting strategy. Not only that, but they can even provide useful analytics of data to give insights into what’s working for you and whatnot.

Here are a few features of recruitment software that can be quite useful in the whole process of sourcing and attracting the right candidates through social media.

• Social Media Post Scheduler

With the social media schedule module, you can create and schedule your posts. It could be anything — blogs, videos, images, reviews, and more. You create the draft, and that will be automatically shared across all your connected social media profiles that you choose.

It saves you a significant amount of time. Besides, when you post regularly, it can help attract potential talents.

This module can help you keep track of essential insights, including the number of profile visits and posts views. It can also help you identify where the maximum traffic is coming from so you would know which channel is performing the best.

In a nutshell, the recruitment marketing dashboard helps simplify and streamline the whole analytics process. It lets you know which strategy is working for you and how your content is performing.

Final Words

Social media is a vital channel for sourcing and hiring the right talent by promoting your company culture. Besides, social media recruiting is entirely free unless you promote the openings through paid ads/campaigns.