Right Strategies For Social Media Recruiting

By Michael Evans

The power of social media cannot be underestimated anymore. Social media can be used as a powerful tool for socializing, networking and recruiting. It can help a company find the right employee and at the same time can help jobseekers bag their dream job. But for many employers, social media recruiting is still a largely untouched terrain. Employers are still seen dabbling with conventional methods of recruitment. The output of social media recruiting can be optimized if some recruiting strategies are formulated and directed at the potential employees. A social media recruiting agenda should be very much planned, keeping in mind the different platforms that can be used, the kind of audience one needs to target and the estimated time the target people spend on various other social platforms. Well planned strategic recruitment policies can help you find the right employee through networking, which has become synonymous with the social media culture. Apart from the social media platforms discussed below Google+, Pinterest etc can also be helpful for recruitment.

LinkedIn has been the most popular social media platform which is used by recruiters most frequently. LinkedIn provides a paid tool known as the LinkedIn Recruiter which helps recruiters keep an eye on job applications and also helps in narrowing down a list of potential job seekers based on the recent activity. LinkedIn Recruiters has proved to be quite a successful tool in social media recruiting. A company’s brand can be highlighted on various LinkedIn groups, but care should be taken about the content which is displayed because that is how your organization will be perceived by everyone in the network.

Facebook changed the scene of online social interactions. The influence it has had on the world is phenomenal. If used correctly, it can prove to be a very effective tool in social media recruiting. The search bar of Facebook can filter the results very specifically. So if you are looking for someone who works at your company and has friends in some other specific organization, type the name with the relevant terms and you are sure to find out something useful. Facebook can also be utilized by using its paid advertising feature. The advantage of paid advertising is that you can target a very niche section of its users. It is better than spending money on newspaper advertising which can lead to unnecessary load of resumes.

The culture of “#” or hashtag was brought about by Twitter which happens to be a micro-blogging website. The influence that this micro- blogging tool has on people can be very well estimated by the number of hashtags that are generated everyday and how some of those hashtags are re-tweeted almost a million times. The hashtag can be a terrific recruiting tool, provided it is used correctly. Just adding a hashtag in front of a word like job opening will not help you in any way. Try to add something more specific like the job title or the name of the city to the hashtag to ensure that it is not lost amongst hundreds of other similar hashtags.

Various tools like Tweetbinder or Hashtracking can help you track your hashtags in the most useful way possible. The existing network of employees can also help in spreading the word about recruiting via hashtags. However they should be clear about the goals of recruitment networking. The existing employees carry the brand tag of an organization and they should work in building a positive image for the organization. They should use twitter and other social media tools keeping in mind the goal of recruitment.

Lastly, another strategy would be launching your own blog and publishing informative articles on it. It will help you reach out to the targeted audience and build your brand.