Smart recruiters have embraced social media.
They know that an engaged social media following can yield a hugely effective pipeline of talent.
However, it takes a real commitment to get the most out of it.
It’s a three-tiered approach:
- You need to be entertaining and/or helping candidates, using relevant and interesting content.
- You need to be engaging with candidates, showing off your personality and company culture.
- You need to actually persuade them to apply for your jobs.
There are loads of tools out there that can help you to streamline your social media time, connect with communities and make sure that you’re getting the right message to the right person at the right time.
We’re discussing eight of the most important ones today…
1. Facebook Paid Advertising
You can put blood, sweat and tears into building a company Facebook page, but there’s no doubt that the Facebook overlords have put the brakes on organic reach of late.
So to make an impact on Facebook and turn it into the potent recruitment weapon it absolutely can be, then you may have to spend a little bit of money on Paid Advertising.
(It’s worth it because you can pick a target audience by location, age, interest and specialist skills!)
There are various strategies for using Facebook ads to recruit. Check them out in more detail, here.
Recruiter Pro Tip It’s really important to tie in your paid Facebook campaigns with your wider strategy. Make sure your company page is a hub of activity, with reams of interesting and helpful content. You are targeting people who actively use Facebook, so they’re (obviously) much more likely to check out your company page.
As with all other recruitment efforts, it’s important to keep an eye on your metrics and regularly assess the success and cost effectiveness.
Did it bring the right candidates to you?
2. LinkedIn Recruiter
I’m not a fan of LinkedIn Recruiter; I personally find it quite user-unfriendly and extremely expensive, however, I know many recruiters see the value in it – so it’s worth a mention!
(I like to keep as unbiased an approach as possible!)
With more than 460 million users, most of them with up-to-date job descriptions, LinkedIn is a fairly effective tool for forward-thinking recruiters who want to build a watertight pipeline of talent.
You can search for specialist skills and reach out to candidates individually or en masse and then save your searches and LinkedIn will automatically inform you of new candidates.
It has a basic CRM back-end that means you can keep your leads in order and approach your top five candidates as a position becomes available, rather than taking the best candidate who responded to your advert.
It’s definitely a proactive approach to recruitment, rather than reactive.
For some more details; check out this article: Use LinkedIn for Recruiting Employees.
3. Instagram/Pinterest Advertising
If you can produce a strong visual for the job role then you could try something a bit different with Instagram and/or Pinterest advertising.
Recruiter Pro Tip Social media posts with compelling visuals are 650% more likely to be viewed, so it’s worth going the extra mile. Consider trialing some of the following to give you a helping hand:
You’ll soon see your engagement rates increasing.
Check out this article from Social Talent to get some inspiration!
4. SnapChat
And of course, I couldn’t miss out the increasingly popular SnapChat.
If you need to target a younger audience (between 16 and 25) this is the place to be.
You can use SnapChat to introduce your team and the company on a daily basis (keeping it lighthearted and fun), interact with candidates and potential candidates and to direct them towards your job opportunities.
5. Webinar Technology
One of the best ways to engage people on social media?
Invite them to webinars.
You could do regular sessions, posting the link onto your company page or you could approach people individually to invite them to private webinars – it’s up to you.
Here are some tools you could use:
People that take the time to find out about you are potentially interested in joining your company, even if they are currently employed.
So, you can follow up with the most encouraging candidates, get more information where required and feed them into your pipeline.
You can also intermittently post your vacancies (paid and unpaid) to steer people towards applying.
In terms of content, you could do some kind of educational or fun webinar or you could do a nice little introduction to your company, other employees and the kinds of things you do.
Keep it lighthearted, fun and engaging! (No one wants to watch a boring webinar).
Check out this article, to find out more on hosting webinars to aid recruitment.
6. Jobvite
In my experience, referrals from existing members of staff do tend to provide a better cultural fit.
And now, using Jobvite, you can manage this process easily, sending internal emails and social media messages to all of your employees, asking them if they know anyone who’d suit your role.
Of course, your employees can then share these with their network.
Once candidates respond then Jobvite will apply a basic score to each and hand them over to you.
It isn’t cheap, in fact it starts at around £450 ($500)/month, but it’s quicker than trying to build your own network with Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
There are a lot of different features within the tool that you’ll have to check out for yourself, but it’s certainly a great way to boost your recruitment process.
7. Feedly
We use Feedly at Coburg Banks, because it gives us access to the best recruitment content across the web. (They have all kinds of different topics, depending on your industry).
That not only means that we can keep up to date with the latest recruitment news, but it also means that we can share that news with our followers!
And that helps us to boost our brand and employer brand – and that’s why it’s one of the most important and helpful social media tools we use.
Content curation can be a powerful way to build a community, but it’s awfully time-consuming to scan through all of the industry articles, across loads of different websites.
Feedly does that for you.
Feedly is, at its heart, an RSS reader that curates all your favourite news sources, YouTube channels and more.
If you do regularly post content via social media, I highly recommend checking this out.
8. Buffer/Hootsuite
Your social media accounts need constant love and nurturing, but sometimes, it’s hard to find the time.
That’s where scheduling tools like Buffer and Hootsuite can give you a helping hand.
They help you to plan and schedule posts in advance and manage responses effectively.
Any company that has any kind of social media strategy will find these tools dead useful.
Always keep it on message, interesting and make sure you share industry specific news and feature stories (those you find on Feedly).
Summary
Social media should be a really important part of your recruitment strategy, but it is time-consuming trying to keep up with all those followers, whilst keeping them entertained and engaged.
Hopefully the tools we’ve outlined above will help with that effort and you’ll start seeing the benefits immediately.
As I mentioned earlier, it is important to keep an eye on your recruitment metrics and results to ensure that you know exactly which kinds of tools work well for you and which don’t.
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Good luck.
