Industrial Psychologist Phiona Martin explains why social media recruiting is important and how to get it right.
The use of social media to attract and recruit candidates is no longer a question of whether a company should do it, but a matter of how well they do it. Social media recruitment is making use of social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Linkedin to advertise vacancies, search and engage with potential candidates and brand the company as an employer of choice.
Organisations that are not quickly acclimatising to actively using social media as part of their recruitment strategy are likely to lose out on great candidates in the perpetual war for talent.
Why social media is a recruitment gold mine
The primary reason for the efficacy of using this method for talent acquisition and attraction is the ease of access to candidates. Linkedin, the world's largest professional network, has more than 546 million users in more than 200 countries, Facebook boasts just over 2 billion users, Twitter 330 million, and Instagram 800 million. Given the appropriate targeting strategies, the social media landscape is the recruiter's oyster, meaning that the great candidate you are looking for can literally be a few clicks away. Most of the platforms, like LinkedIn in particular, allow employers the ability to view a potential candidate's details before even asking them to submit their CV.
Cost, often one of the big determinants when weighing any business options, is also a factor in social media recruitment. One can arguably make great use of social media to recruit outside of the “paid” or premium options, which of course come with enhanced benefits. Even when opting for the use of paid or promoted adverts, many social media platforms allow flexible costing that can be catered to one's budget.
Previously, accessing and attracting candidates en mass was almost exclusively done on job portals, which required subscription and payment to access candidates or post your company adverts. Social media allows companies to be on public platforms reaching potential candidates and advertising jobs practically for free (outside of promoted adverts).
Another reason to use social media as part of your recruitment strategy is the ability to quickly do background checks on candidates. Searching a candidate's social media presence can help recruiters easily compare information provided in their application or interview with what they have online, for example, on LinkedIn. This includes quickly verifying if there are any major inconsistencies or omissions in the information they provided.
A few basic best practices
How does an organisation ensure optimal reach and attraction of candidates using the various social media platforms? Here are tips on ensuring your social media strategy yields results. As a precursor to any social media activities, ensure that your respective social media profiles are completed in the “about” sections and profile pictures are aligned with your company brand and colours.
1 Engage, don’t tell. As much as the primary purpose of social media recruitment is to attract candidates and market your vacancies, your social media presence needs to have colour and should not be a monotone of endless job adverts or endless information about your company. One of the benefits of social media recruiting is the ability to attract passive candidates. So, if your page exclusively has recruitment as its theme, a person who is not in the job market will unlikely engage with you as they will feel it is only relevant to job seekers. In this regard, besides posting your adverts, you also need to share interesting information that is relevant to your industry that even a non-jobseeker will appreciate. Similarly, participate in relevant conversations and ensure you are posting a mix of content from your own posts to sharing other relevant links, asking thought-provoking questions and starting topical discussions.
2 Be Consistent. Going to a company’s social media page and finding haphazard levels of engagements or intermittent activity is a big turnoff. If a potential candidate goes on your page and sees that the last time you posted was two weeks ago, they will likely wonder how active the page is and if it's worth their while taking it seriously. That is why it is important to ensure that part of your weekly plan includes a content calendar and apps that schedule everything ahead of time at consistent rhythms. Being consistent with your posts also builds confidence and engagement with your followers, as it gives them an indication of how regularly they can expect to see material from you. Being consistent also helps to keep you top of mind with your audience. You can easily be forgotten if they are only hearing from you once every three weeks or at irregular intervals, with long periods of inactivity in between.
3 Enlist some help from employees. Do not limit the use of your social media strategy to the recruitment department. Enlist help from across the organisation and let your employees be some of your biggest evangelists. Networks are key in expanding your reach on social media and that is why it helps to ask your employees to share some of the company’s posts on their personal accounts. People are often connected with people similar to themselves on social media and enlisting the help of your employees in sharing posts will help you reach a demographic similar to the calibre of your employees.
4 Leverage the power of people and stories. People connect with people more than they do with faceless brands. In addition, storytelling is a powerful way to engage your audience. Sharing stories from some of your employees will help humanise your brand, make you relatable and add ‘colour’ to what may otherwise be dull or boring information. Have staff members share some of their personal testimonials, milestones and success stories of working in your company. This is an effective way to promote certain elements of your company brand and culture. People also remember stories better than other types of information such as graphs, facts and statistics. Eliciting emotions through various employee stories will help make your brand stand out as more authentic than mere informative advertising. Your message should try and evoke an emotional response. Developing your company brand through stories has long-term benefits in attracting candidates and positioning your company as an employer of choice.
Final thoughts
The digital age seems to have only intensified the war for top talent. That is why using social media platforms, where many great candidates are already “hanging out”, is a great way to create an additional stream to attract talent. The ability to access millions of potential candidates with just a few clicks with minimal cost is a benefit that can easily support the business case for social media recruitment. To ensure that your social media strategy is yielding great results and quality candidates, you need to be able to stand out among millions of other content out there. In this regard, engage with your audience rather than merely churning out information, be consistent with your social media activity, let your employees assist in evangelising your company brand and use stories to add a human element to your employer brand.