What Is Social Recruiting?

If so, social recruiting may be the answer.

“Social recruiting (social hiring or social media recruitment) is recruiting candidates by using social platforms as talent databases or for advertising. Social recruiting uses social media profiles, blogs, and other Internet sites to find information on candidates.” (Wikipedia)

With over 79% of people using social media to search for jobs – it’s where you need to be to attract them. Not only that but a recent report by LinkedIn, 64% of professionals on the network are not actively looking for a job but would be open to the right opportunity if it came along.

73% of 18-34-year-olds found their last job through social media. (Capterra)

Promoting your open roles on social media is a simple and highly effective way to get your message in front of those people.

By creating an authentic and powerful Employer Brand that clearly demonstrates your values in action and delivers your Employee Value Proposition (EVP) you then have a story to share to help create awareness of you as a potential employer to both active and passive candidates.

We’ve written before about the sort of content you should use and how to create a solid Employee Advocacy strategy for your business. These blogs are all a great way to help understand the size of a social media recruiting strategy and will give you more insight into how to make it work for you –

How To Use Social Media Marketing for Recruitment

How to Fix Your Poor Glassdoor Rating in 6 Steps

Effective Strategies to Manage Social Media

But what if you have already developed a superb careers page that showcases your culture, you’ve got a social media presence and post your vacancies on Facebook and Twitter, but you are still not getting results. This happens – don’t assume that just because you have all of this in place that it will get in front of the right people.

You need to have a robust content plan so that you can post regular, fresh content to your careers website and your social media channels. Consider looking into keyword research to find out what keywords your target market is using and responding to and embed these into your content plan. You’ll be amazed at how quickly a carefully planned SEO content strategy can really increase your careers website visits and engagement. Done well, you will start appearing in Google results without having to pay for PPC.

A word of warning though – this does need to be constantly monitored and insights gained to make any tweaks to the content plan along the way. If you are just starting out, we would always advise that you perform A/B testing to begin with to see which formats, wording and calls to action (CTA’s) get the best results.

But how else can you make sure that your content is getting in front of the right people at the right time?

There are many social platforms for you to consider when creating your social recruiting strategy. Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are the most obvious choices, but what about Instagram and YouTube? With a little research, you should be able to have a clear idea as to where your target market spends their time online and when. The next step is to decide on a budget to targeted advertising.

For this blog, we will focus on Facebook, but similar targeting options are available across most platforms. Facebook is the most popular network for job seekers – not LinkedIn, which may surprise you!

Recruiters prefer LinkedIn, whereas 83% of job seekers prefer Facebook. (JobVite).

While 94% of recruiters use social media for their jobs, only 39% of all employers use social media for recruiting and hiring—up 37% from the year before. (CareerBuilder)

Facebook has a functionality that allows you to build an audience and there are ways to do this to build the perfect list. You can choose from a huge list of criteria, including where they live, what work they do, who they work for, the qualifications they hold and even their interests. So not only can you get your message in front of the people with the right experience, but also those that will fit with your culture and values. By using the additional insight across social media, you can attract the right people and increase your retention rates. Hiring people who have interests outside of work that tie in with your values will mean that they are likely to be more engaged and stay with you for longer.

21% of candidates said they found their dream job through social media. (Jobvite)

59% of recruiters rated candidates sourced through social media as “highest quality.” (Jobvite)
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89% of recruiters say they have hired someone off of LinkedIn. (Social Meep)

With the recruitment market as it is in 2018, it is pivotal to start looking at a non-linear approach to attracting talent into your organisation. To do this effectively you really should have a social recruiting strategy in place. Showcase your brand and get your message in front of the right people, at the right time, in the right format and you will end up building a solid talent pool of future talent. Goodbye talent shortage – Hello improved bottom line!

JobHoller are experts at social recruiting.  If you would like advice on developing a social recruiting strategy for your business, get in touch today –  01244 567 967