Using Social Recruitment Methods to Build a Talent Pool

By Cheryl Morgan

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Employers and job candidates are flocking to social media for fulfilling career opportunities.

Success in recruiting and building a talent pool in the 21st century requires participation in social media. Why? Because that's where your job candidates are. In 2014, nearly three-quarters of employers planned to invest more heavily in using social networks for job candidate recruiting, and across industries, social recruitment is seen as an essential recruiting tool.

Employers know that brand building and recruiting efforts using traditional (Facebook, Twitter) and professional (LinkedIn) social networks can pay off in shorter time-to-hire and lower recruiting costs. Job candidates know that companies they follow often post job openings on social media. It's a new type of recruitment marketplace, and smart companies use it to build their talent pools.
 

Steps to Building a Talent Pool Through Social Recruitment

Setting up a Facebook or Twitter account and posting job openings when they occur is not a social recruitment strategy and won't do much to build your talent pool. Social recruitment requires a plan and consistent execution. Here are some tips for using social recruitment to build your talent pool.

First, educate your recruitment team about the ways they should promote your company on social media. They should put a human face on your company, and interact with people regularly and appropriately on your social accounts.

Your team should also understand that social recruitment is not like using a job board. These are social platforms, and if you use your accounts solely to post job openings, you won't attract followers. Successful social recruitment requires that most content you post be company- or career-related, contain useful information, and be media-rich.

Determine where your target audience spends time on social media and concentrate your efforts there first. Being active on social channels where your target candidates spend time maximises prospects for success.

Finally, be patient. Social recruitment is still relatively new, and is not magic. With time you'll learn to recognise great job candidates (including passive job candidates) and engage with them so when the right opportunity arises, both parties are ready to talk business.

 

How Do You Know if You Have Succeeded?


Social recruiting
That first great hire could be the start of an outstanding talent pool.


Naturally, you'll feel successful making a great hire through social recruitment, but one hire isn't a talent pool. It will take time to see where you've succeeded and where there's opportunity for improvement. Ideally you want to look back after a year or two and answer "Yes" to the following:

• Do our hires have passion for what we do?
• Do our employees stay with us longer than the average tenure in our industry?
• Do our employees become brand ambassadors, referring people for new positions?
• Do our employees discover or create opportunities for advancement in our company rather than looking externally for their next career move?

These are signs of a strong recruiting strategy, and they're just as applicable to social recruitment.

 

What's the ROI for Social Recruitment?

Calculating return on investment for social recruitment is still a new concept, since social recruiting is new. But there are several things you can do:

• Add up the number of hires and cost of hires for the year before your company was on social media.
• Compare how many applicants came to you from social media versus those who arrived via job boards or print ads once you implemented your social recruitment strategy.
• Subtract costs of setting up and maintaining social accounts versus what you spent on job board postings and print ads.
• Which channels give your company the best results for the investment?

You can further break down social recruitment ROI by comparing metrics on how many candidates came to you through various social media channels. This can tell you, for example, whether you're getting better results from Twitter or LinkedIn so you can fine-tune your social recruitment strategy.

 

Conclusion

Building a great talent pool generates tremendous forward momentum for employers. With an outstanding pool of talent, employers experience lower turnover and can cut back on the resources they must devote to recruiting over the long term. Social recruitment is considered a necessary tool for today's most competitive companies that are intent upon hiring the best talent available.

Social-Hire, a leader in social media marketing for the recruitment industry, is ready to help companies just like yours develop and implement social recruitment strategies, helping you build the talent pool that serves short and long term goals. We can help you identify and define the audience you want to address, discover where and when they spend time on social media, and help you set and fulfill goals for social recruitment. Why not contact us to set up a consultation about your social media strategy? We would be delighted to hear from you.

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