Recession Recovery and What it Means to Social Recruiting

By Cheryl Morgan

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Most recruiters expect hiring to trend upward in 2015.

Hiring has been gradually gathering steam since the end of the recession, and is expected to increase further in 2015 with higher budgets and larger hiring volumes being reported across industries. More than two-thirds of recruiters expect increased hiring competition in 2015 and as a result, nearly three-quarters plan to invest more in social recruiting in the upcoming year, according to the 2014 Social Recruiting Survey by Jobvite.

Coming up with a strategy for competing effectively for talent requires knowing about the latest relevant talent pool data, such as where your target hires are geographically located, which social media sites they participate in, and how to tailor messages to inspire interest in available jobs. Social media is vast, and becoming more so, and your brand can't be everywhere all at once. Your social recruiting strategy starts with researching your target audience, and becoming active on the same social channels they are.
 

An Emerging Top Source of Quality Hires

Over only the past four years, social professional networks have become a top source for finding outstanding job candidates. These highly targeted sources, when used with skill backed by a smart strategy, can streamline hiring and help companies make wiser hiring decisions. General social media (like Facebook) and professional social networks (like LinkedIn) have become preferred channels for sourcing talent, with 47% of hiring managers and recruiters turning to general social channels in their search for job candidates, and even more turning to professional social networks. These numbers make it clear that recruiting leaders must ensure their teams have up-to-date skills and strategies on social recruiting.

 

The Increasing Importance of Passive Job Candidate

Along with the prominence of social media has risen the prominence of the passive job candidate - someone who is employed, but might be tempted away by the right opportunity. Up to an astonishing 85% of the workforce could be considered as "passive job candidates," and 46% to 61% of companies take some action toward recruiting passive candidates. Social recruiting and passive candidate sourcing go hand in hand, because passive job candidates spend time on social media sites just like everyone else. If you provide a steady stream of fresh brand content that includes the occasional career opportunity, those opportunities will reach any passive candidates that have shown interest in your brand, by liking it on Facebook, for example.

 

Developing a "Talent Brand" Using Social Media


Social recruiting
Building a "talent brand" on social media requires a plan and consistent execution.

Most recruiting leaders know that building a talent brand as a key component of social recruiting is important, but they may not develop a strong plan to promote and measure it. However, it's important to benchmark and regularly test your talent brand on social sites, using analytics and discerning trends so that the strategy can be altered or fine-tuned if necessary. Setting up accounts on social media may be free or low-cost, but making it pay off requires dedication and directed effort. Social media presence can be tied in with your company career websites for promoting talent brand, and of course digital "word of mouth" through social sharing can bolster talent brand building efforts.

 

How Employers Use the Three Top Social Networks

The Jobvite social recruiting survey referenced above reports that employers use the top three social media properties, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter differently. LinkedIn is primarily used for searching for candidates, while Facebook and Twitter are primarily used to showcase their employer brand. Other top uses for Facebook and Twitter include generating employee referrals and posting job listings. When it comes to vetting candidates before setting up interviews, more employers use LinkedIn than Facebook and Twitter combined. In general, LinkedIn is the leader for straight up candidate searches, while Facebook and Twitter lead as platforms for showcasing employer brand.

 

Conclusion

Job markets are improving in 2015, with more companies offering new opportunities for job seekers. As the competition to recruit outstanding talent heats up, the importance of social recruiting is growing. Developing, executing, analysing, and fine-tuning a social recruiting strategy is more important than ever for employers that want their pick of the best job candidates.

At Social-Hire, we help companies just like yours make the absolute most of their social recruiting strategies. If you're ready to make social recruiting deliver for your company in 2015, we invite you to check out our monthly social media recruiting plans.

Your Social Outsource Team

We won't just do social media strategies. Social Hire will work collaboratively with your team to ensure your business gets genuine value from us and that your team gets the most out of the service. Our experienced social media managers are motivated to make a enhancements to your social media marketing and reaching targets in a way that realistically makes a difference to your business goals.

Our digital marketing managers are the wizards that can give you the insight you need to develop your business. Have you had enough of making complex personnel choices that don't work well for your digital presence?

Our team of managers are a team that assists our partners improve their digital presence by producing online marketing services on a regular basis. Our service is transparent and economical, which ensures that you get a great service and results that make a difference when you utilise our services. We arrange many different marketing services for enterprises from small businesses to large corporations to help make the most of of your company's social media marketing.

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