Recruitment practices have undergone major changes in the last couple of years. Social recruiting has become increasingly popular, and has taken center stage, especially for industries with high competition over talent, like tech.
Marketers and HR have both been tasked with creating and boosting employer branding on social media and leveraging this branding for social recruitment. But which social recruiting tactics will get you the best results? And how can you fine-tune your social recruiting process?
We asked industry experts to give us their thoughts. Read their wisdom below:
“To engage with a broader audience and expand your network, as well as talent pool, utilizing social media is a must. Social media is a very powerful source to attract people to your brand and company (think company pages, job ads, active sourcing) and build relationships one can benefit from, not just short-term.
Therefore a successful social media recruiting strategy involves building a strong employer brand, being (pro-)active and engaging with your network. Sharing relevant content is important too; from posts to individual personalized reach outs, knowing your target audience is crucial if you want to increase the quality of outcomes.”
“For me, social media hasn’t worked for every role and every continent and you should always try to get to know the industry and culture of the talent you’re trying to build to understand where they “hang out” online and what tactics work.
In particular with creatives, top tips to find good talent:
- Remember Instagram and Facebook are often used by creative talents to showcase their work – up your game and get social savvy, finding and connecting with great artists and companies within your field.
- Good artists like to be recognized for their work, like their posts and send a personalized message about their work to catch their eye.
- Good creatives often follow people they admire. You’ll find more great talent by checking out the people they follow. Follow and connect to them too to boost your network.
- Share a creative post on your companies page and in other groups, something visual or interactive which will catch the eye of other creatives and leave a contact for them to get in touch about working together.
- Comment and post on behalf of your employee in creative groups, places good artists hangout to get their attention.
- Don’t give up! People are busy and actually are not connected to their socials 24/7 try other ways of reaching someone like through a connected contact, on another social platform, find an email address instead or make a note to try again in some weeks.”
“For me social works well when you target groups rather than individuals. Everybody knows someone who does something and will want to show that person that they care by referring them to a job or a post. This creates traction on the post so it is spread more widely to more people and they can tag and share from there. Also, I find targeting people who have just moved to Amsterdam or are in house finding groups quite helpful. Depending on the role, of course, and who you are looking for. They are generally very responsive and ready to help out!”
“At Peoplefinders we see social recruiting as a factor that is impossible to leave out when you want to set up a strong recruitment strategy. As one of the most important factors to influence your inbound traffic, we’ve integrated this as a standard part of our recruitment funnel. For example, we promote our clients’ employer brand, by ongoing, strongly targeted campaigns.
But even more important, we also set up a campaign for every individual vacancy. We create a buzz around the job ad and we set up social campaigns, based on extended research on the target group. Important things to find out before you start any kind of social recruiting or social campaigns are for instance:
- Where can you find your target group? (what media, which apps)
- What pull factors are they interested in?
- What do they value when it comes to working conditions?
This together answers your question on what kind of content you need to set up the perfect ad for your target group.
Last but not least… While setting up an ad, always think to yourself: what is my goal and who do I want the ad to be seen by? If the ad serves your goal, you will definitely benefit (big time!) from social recruiting when it comes to recruiting top talent.”
With social recruiting getting more and more traction, your potential employees will be expecting to be recruited using social media. To maximize your efforts, invest time in doing sufficient research, adjust your efforts to fit different types of candidates, and don’t lose sight of the need to be transparent!
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In need of more social recruiting inspiration? Have a look at the social recruiting playbook we’ve created, which details all the ways you can build your social media presence to attract quality candidates!
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