How to effectively implement social media into your recruitment strategy.
Top talent can be difficult to find, and most recruiters have plenty of horror stories to tell when it comes to interviewing job candidates.
According to JobVite’s 2017 Recruiter Nation Report, 54 per cent of recruiters have interviewed a candidate who didn’t know what company they were interviewing for, 32 per cent have heard sexist attitudes expressed during an interview, and 27 per cent have witnessed a candidate burst into tears.
That paints a pretty dire picture of the employment market as recruiters are left to search the candidate haystack for that single needle of talent. It also explains why recruiters are increasingly turning away from advertising job vacancies in the mass media. Instead, they’re looking to social media to source top talent.
Social networks rank third behind employee referrals and internal hires as the top recruitment sources. In fact, recruiters place social networks well ahead of job boards, direct applications and recruiting agencies as the best hunting ground for quality candidates.
However, sourcing talent on social media platforms requires a more nuanced approach than simply tweeting out your latest vacancies. So, what’s a recruiter to do?
Get familiar with discussion groups
In my experience, LinkedIn has proven to be a wonderful resource for drawing top talent into middle and senior management roles. There are around 4.2 million monthly active Australian users on LinkedIn, and browsing discussion groups that are related to your industry can quickly reveal the active thought leaders you will want to target.
Reading their posts and comments gives you the opportunity to assess their industry perspectives and get a sense of whether they are a good cultural fit for your organisation. And thanks to LinkedIn messaging, you can contact them privately with potential job offers without having to open the floodgates with a poorly targeted “position vacant” advertisement.
Build buzz around your brand
If you build it, they will come. Use social media to build the right buzz around your brand and you’ll no longer need to search for talent – it will come to you. Social networks like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter can be used to offer insight into what it’s like to work for your company – like a shot of your team having fun at an industry event. But don’t forget to include hashtags that tie back into your recruitment drive.
Tech startup Reddit is among the many brands that use Instagram to attract talent. For example, the company posted a photo of its CEO with a Hollywood director when the filmmaker stopped by to offer the Reddit team a private screening of his new movie. The post was subtly tagged with the #perksofworkingatreddit and #werehiring hashtags.
Become a content creator
LinkedIn gives you a platform to publish company-authored articles that you can use to fish for engaged talent. For example, when customer experience management platform Falcon.io needed to fill several positions, the company’s customer experience manager wrote an article for LinkedIn that shone a spotlight on the growing company’s vibrant culture.
Articles like this will help you connect with engaged talent that is attracted to your company’s values. These will be motivated people who will want to work specifically for your company, and will likely understand what you’re trying to achieve and how they can contribute.
And that means you’ll never again waste time interviewing a candidate who doesn’t know what you do or why they want to work for you beyond collecting the salary you’ve advertised.
Ruth MacKay is the managing director of OURTEL Fundraising Solutions, and a consultant, author and speaker.