Social media recruiting | Missing out on the Adele of your industry?

It is critical that recruiters adopt social media recruiting.

In a 2015 pew research center survey, 54% go online to look for job information and four-fifths of jobs seekers use online resources in their job search. In addition, over a third of social media users have used multiple social media platforms to search for new jobs.

But here's the catch, it’s not as easy as it seems. You cannot add multiple jobs to your social media platforms and expect to get top quality candidates immediately. It can also be overwhelming. HR managers have great intentions in social media recruiting, but making simple mistakes can result in a loss of time, money and potential candidates.

If you are putting in a lot of effort, but not seeing the desired results, then you must ensure that you are not making the simple yet critical mistakes. We take a look at the main channels you should consider using as part of your social media recruiting strategy.

Adele was discovered through social media. If not for these channels, she might not have reached such a wide audience so quickly. Obviously, her talent would have shined through in the end, but it might have taken longer for her to become a star. So are you missing out on discovering the Adele of your industry?

It's no surprise that LinkedIn is the most used platform in social media job posting. The Global Recruitment Survey from Social Talent shows an increase from 96% in 2014 to 97% in 2015. LinkedIn has grown rapidly from 78 million to 400 million in the last 5 years. When searching for candidates, recruiters must take full advantage of not only the general search tool, but also the advanced search.

This allows you to search beyond the usual job title and company names and search for talent based on their demographic, school and nonprofit interests. After your initial list, look a little deeper. Look for other potential candidates by viewing the “people also viewed” bar on candidates pages. This allows you to find candidates which you may not have considered initially.

This is part of our Social Recruiting series

Twitter

Twitter at 37% is the second highest resourcing platform, but this number has dropped substantially by 19% from 2014. Is this drop because of recruiters' lack of knowledge in using Twitter to effectively reach potential candidates? It is crucial that your Twitter page does not look like a long list of jobs.

A company must create a reason for candidates to follow and engage with your company page. In this era, it is all about creating a fun and positive cultural image and standing out from the crowd. Do this by:

Making top jobs apparent
Sharing interesting facts about the company
Tweeting interesting and engaging content
Sharing images to increase passive candidates interest

instagram and social recruiting software

Instagram

Instagram is a growing platform for reaching candidates that have a high social media presence. The vast majority of companies stay away from Instagram due to its visual aspect; you cannot rely on descriptive jobs descriptions when it comes to Instagram.

It takes a lot of effort and time to stand out from the crowd, as well as a lot of brainstorming in relation to what will capture and entice candidates to your company profile. HR managers and recruiters must put on their thinking caps and get creative. One must think of the most compelling aspect of a job role and choose an image which portrays this in a creative way. Most importantly, the caption must be striking and inviting with a direct link to the job board instead of being a list of duties and responsibilities.

Use unique and related hashtags to reach a wider pool of candidates, research the top hashtags being used in your industry and most importantly what other companies are using to reach candidates.

snapchat and social recruiting software

Snapchat

From an emarketers study, 70% of Snapchaters are less than 34 years old. With 100 million active users, a third of millennials are using Snapchat on a regular basis. If you are not using Snapchat as a recruitment tool then get on it, you are missing out big time. Snapchat is not only being used as a sourcing tool, but it is now following behind Instagram as a way to portray a company's employer brand and company culture in a creative way.

Snapchat allows companies to portray their story and culture with the touch of a button. Nowadays, many companies use Snapchat as a way to showcase company events, employee stories and daily tasks, giving an exclusive look at new product launches, competitions etc.

Embrace the shift to find new stars

Overall, one must embrace this cultural shift to social sourcing. The increasing growth of social media gives companies an effective way to reach top talent from all over the world whether they are active or passive candidates. The most important thing is that companies use social media the right way, step away from the traditional ways of recruitment with basic job descriptions.

Recruiters must adopt this new creative way of recruitment, which is about stepping outside the box and being inventive. Using platforms such as Instagram and Snapchat allows companies to embrace their uniqueness and show another side of their company. Resistance to embrace this new way of recruitment may effect your company's ability to reach and engage the true stars.

Photo credit: Laura Dorney

Social Recruiting