This Social Media Recruiting Strategy Can Simplify Recruitment Challenges

By Cheryl Morgan

Social media is the savvy recruiter's favourite tool. Recruiters now have greater access to top candidates, making it easier than ever to find the right person for the job. The use of various social networks has helped businesses streamline the way they recruit, vet and hire candidates. In fact, social recruiting helped companies find 42 percent of their applicants and 14 percent of their hires last year.

But recruiting via social media requires more than posting a job opening, and without guidance from an experienced social media agency, your social recruiting efforts may be in vain. Here are some common hurdles you need to overcome to make recruiting via social media work for you.
 

Go where the conversations are for your industry to find top candidates.

1. Finding the top candidates in your industry

In order to find the best candidates, you have to go where the conversation is. And while LinkedIn is the clear favourite for employers (favoured by 93 percent of businesses), Facebook and Twitter are gaining ground, too. Creative businesses can't rule out Pinterest, and Google+, since these platforms are getting traction, too. Industry-specific social networks can also be an excellent source of candidates.

2. Being transparent about what it's like to work for your company

Millennials favour transparency, so you can't create social profiles for the sole purpose of recruiting candidates. Today's job seekers want to know what it's like to work for your company, but they don't want the glossed-over version. They want an inside peek at your company culture, what's going on behind the scenes and what it's like to be an employee on an average day. They want to interact with you, to see what you have to say. Transparency, honesty and a little bit of humor are required in the social arena.

3. Growing your networks

One of the most difficult challenges to overcome is growing your social networks. It may be tempting to hire people that promise thousands of followers for a small price, but growing your network too quickly can do more harm than good. First, many of those followers will be useless; they'll have no interest in your company or the jobs for which you're recruiting. Second, you'll look like a spammer when your following is disproportionate to your social activity. Slow and steady growth will serve you well, because those who follow you organically are the people who want to hear what you have to say.

Grow your networks organically to gain the trust of your followers.

4. Trying to do everything yourself

By far, the most common mistake a recruiter can make is trying to manage social media accounts alone. To find out which channel works best for bringing in top talent, you need to try them all - LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and the up-and-coming networks within your industry. Sourcing content and engaging on all those networks requires a significant investment of time, the one thing that recruiters are short on. Handing off the day-to-day content and engagement activities to a social media agency that understands the recruitment industry saves time and can help you attract the talent you want.

When working with a top-notch social media agency, you'll easily be able to clear the associated hurdles and challenges. Social experts know where top prospects are talking and know how to create a social image that attracts those candidates. 

Take a look at Social-Hire's packages to see how we could help manage your social media activity