Social Recruiting Strategy Tips To Help You Identify the Ideal Candidate

By Cheryl Morgan

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Traditional methods businesses have used to find new people to hire are rapidly evolving. The rise of social media has had a major effect on recruiting in the past few years and having a social recruiting strategy is becoming standard for a lot of companies. For companies that take the time to develop a smart social recruiting strategy, finding the right people to hire can be easier and more efficient than ever. This involves knowing which social media platforms to concentrate on and learning how to target top candidates.

A good social recruiting strategy is about engaging rather than advertising to job candidates.

Unlike traditional recruitment advertising which broadcasts information about new job roles, social recruiting is interactive from the start when done correctly. Moreover, social recruiting is better for finding and reaching so-called passive job candidates - the ones that are employed, but not averse to learning about other opportunities. When well-composed and resting on a strong social media branding strategy, the call to action delivered through social media recruiting can be remarkably successful. Here are some social recruiting strategy tips for you to consider.
 

Why Social Recruiting Works

Social media platforms are versatile and they're highly-trafficked by professionals even if they are not specifically billed as "for professionals" the way LinkedIn is. In fact, employers are using most social media platforms for sourcing job candidates and they're seeing significant improvements in metrics like time to hire, quality of hires, and candidate quantities.

To put it another way, your competitors are using social recruiting to find and engage job candidates, and you should be too. Some companies have strong social media branding efforts, and a social recruiting strategy can be built on this. For companies that have fewer resources to devote to social recruiting, service providers now exist that can take on these tasks with great efficiency.

 

Hiring the Person Rather than the Job Description

A shift away from using basic job descriptions and toward defining job candidate "personas" has been a trend in social recruiting strategy since 2014. This involves creating specific candidate personas and defining traits of top performers based on the job's requirements. It's a similar approach to what company's marketing departments do when they create customer personas to help them produce branding and advertising campaigns that will resonate with the target consumer. The goal is to put a human face on a job description, and job candidates like it as much as hiring companies do. For one thing, "persona" listings stand out from among the many traditional job listings, and for another, they help companies make better matches for company culture, which is a huge factor in the success of a hire. It's another way for companies and outstanding candidates to find each other.

Social recruiting

A good company culture fit is important to successful hiring.

Reaching Passive Job Candidates With Social Media

While passive job candidates sometimes keep up with trade journals and other professional publications, they're more likely to spend time on social media. That means the passive job candidate is more likely to see an appeal for new employees on a social media site than on a trade magazine site or in a print publication, unless, perhaps, they're becoming dissatisfied with their current position.

By having a strong social media branding strategy to begin with, by including multiple social channels in your social recruiting strategy, and by ensuring that you make it easy for interested parties to initiate a dialogue (particularly with mobile devices), you maximise the chances of a passive job candidate learning about your company. You also make it easy for them to initiate contact when they're ready or when they see a plum opportunity.

 

Developing a Strategy to Maximise ROI in Social Recruiting

Social recruiting isn't simply a matter of staking out social media accounts and pumping out job listings. In fact, that strategy will usually backfire. Who wants to follow an account which posts nothing but job listings, many of which won't be relevant to the individual anyway? A great social recruiting strategy is built upon a foundation of a great social media strategy in general: posting relevant and interesting content, answering questions, commenting in communities etc.

 

Conclusion

As with your overall social media strategy, your social recruiting strategy requires a plan, and the time and effort to carry it out. But the results can be well worth it, as the increasing number of companies enjoying success with social media can attest.

Social-Hire is a leading social media marketing agency in the careers and recruitment industry. We help companies of all sizes manage their social media and develop strong and effective social media strategies. We know how to create social recruiting strategies that get the results you want. Social-Hire has a proven track record of success at helping companies build their brand and their following on social platforms, and we can help you define and meet your social recruiting goals. You can contact us today to set up an expert consultation about your social recruiting strategy. We would be delighted to hear from you.

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