5 Signs Your Recruiting Team Is Drowning in Social

By Tony Restell

Social media seems so straightforward - and it follows that recruiting via social media ought to be straightforward too. Unfortunately, nothing is further from the truth. There is great competitive advantage to be had from mastering social recruiting approaches, but many recruiting teams are simply drowning when it comes to having social media produce genuine recruiting results.

Here are 5 tell-tale signs to help you determine if your company's recruitment team is drowning in social:

1) There's no clear candidate targeting. What types of candidates are you trying to reach? Passive? Active? What are their job titles? Which competitors are you eager to target? Which types of roles are you best placed to fill via social media? If this hasn't been clearly documented and communicated to all your recruiting team, how can you expect everyone to be pulling in the same direction on social?

2) There's no coherent message. What makes people choose to work for your company rather than your competitors? What types of people does that suggest you need to be appealing to? Has your messaging been optimised to consistently appeal to this demographic? Most importantly, has this been communicated to all your recruiting team so that everyone's updates reinforce the wider company message you want potential candidates to see in the marketplace?

3) There's no conversion strategy. Once you're winning followers and interacting with the types of candidates you'd like to hire, what conversion process have you put in place to turn possible interest into concrete actions that candidates take to bring them into your hiring funnel? (P.S. simply sharing your latest jobs with them falls way short of what's needed).

4) There's no test, learn, test process. From the content you share... to the messaging you use... to the social media advertising you pay for - every element of social recruiting can be tested and perfected. Getting consistently better results means you have to be constantly testing out new approaches, new messages, new conversion strategies - and then adjusting your social approach based on what's working best.

5) There's no dedicated resource. Are there people in your business dedicated to mastering each social site and whose time is allocated to building your social recruiting capability? If not, this is a sure-fire way to have your team drown in social. It's commonplace that recruiters are tasked with developing a social recruiting brand presence and trying out social approaches alongside their regular day job.

The problem is, these side responsibilities are always the first things to be sacrificed and so the company never really builds any momentum or generates the necessary degree of expertise in social recruiting. You simply must have some dedicated resource - either in-house or by buying it in from external social media experts.

If your conclusion is that your organisation is drowning in social, we can help by providing an outsourced service to build your social media recruitment presence. Or if it's immediate candidate applications you need, you'll want to master the challenge of advertising your vacancies to candidates on social media in the most effective manner. Please do reach out any time we can help - just book in a call time to get started.
 

Tony Restell is the Founder of Social-Hire.com and helps candidates and recruiters leverage social media. A published author and Cambridge graduate, you’re welcome to reach out to Tony on @tonyrestell