Social recruiting, what is it? What can I do to run an effective recruitment campaign via social networks?
In the past, companies would publish job offers in newspapers, to which candidates would reply by sending in their CVs. If the candidate was in line with the position sought, he or she was contacted for a cognitive interview on both sides. It took about a week for the response to reach the candidate, to inform him whether he had passed the selection or not.
In recent years, however, thanks to social media recruiting everything happens quickly, with advantages in terms of both communication and management costs.
In this article, I will explain how to make the best use of social networks to search for the most suitable people to fill the required roles in your company. In summary, I will talk to you about:
- what is meant by social recruiting
- what are the advantages of digital recruiting
- how to build a social media recruitment strategy
- which are the main platforms to use for recruiting professionals
- some examples of social recruiting.
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Social media recruiting is a new way of searching for personnel, exploiting the immediacy and popularity of social networks such as:
- Instagram.
The way companies look for personnel has changed a lot compared to twenty years ago. This is due to the potential of the web in passing on the news. Personnel selection processes are now different: from paper, we have moved to digital documents. Even CVs have become digitalized, with the consequence that different ways of looking for staff have been created than in the past.
Recruitment via social networks is a powerful resource that can help you search for those profiles that match your vacancies, quickly. Because the Internet is a faster communication vehicle than the means that were used until the late 2000s.
The search for personnel via social networks is spreading all over the world. Companies need to have a presence on all the main social networks to have more visibility, especially online. An important report concluded that the majority (99%) of companies have a profile on Facebook, 77% on Instagram and 63% have opened a profile on LinkedIn.
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Benefits of Social recruiting
Social recruiting is very beneficial for companies that are looking for personnel. In addition, it is characterised by a quick response from candidates who can potentially be a match for the position sought.
What are the advantages of recruiting with social networks? Let’s take a look at them together:
- Increasing the visibility of job advertisements
Candidates look at social networks every day. Consequently, their attention may also fall on advertisements posted on these platforms. If the position sought is in line with their skills, they respond immediately by showing that they are interested in finding out more. Therefore, by describing in the best possible way the activities that the person to be hired will have to do and the characteristics he or she will have to possess, you are more likely to receive responses from candidates in line with your expectations.
- Profile selection before an interview
On social platforms, recruiters and HR contact persons of companies look at the profiles of candidates and select those they think may be a good match for the roles they are looking for. If a candidate catches the recruiter’s eye, he or she can be contacted for an interview.
By looking at digital CVs, recruiters get a first idea of what the candidate might be like. It is only through an interview that the recruiter gets a sense of whether or not the candidate is up to a certain task.
- Attracting passive profiles
In social networks, there are also professionals who at a given moment are not yet looking for a job, but who might be interested in changing it. Job advertisements on social networks can therefore also attract passive candidates, thus giving your company a better chance of finding the right person for a given role.
- Reducing costs
Until twenty years ago, it was recruiters who called candidates to schedule a job interview, via the telephone. As a result, one of the biggest items of expenditure on the company budget was the telephone costs. Thanks to new technologies and online platforms, it was possible to save a lot of money, which was consequently channeled into other resources useful to the company.
- Saving time
There is a saying that ”Time is money”. Time is precious for everyone, including candidates who respond immediately if the position is of interest to them, directly on the social network. Social platforms are therefore a conduit between recruiters, looking for new staff, and candidates to be sought. They connect them quickly, without the need for intermediation.
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How can you make the best use of social networking recruiting? It would be best to be present on all social channels and to constantly maintain company profiles. Why? Prospective candidates are present on different platforms; consequently, the company must be too. Social communication is very important for a company that is looking for staff.
This, however, is not enough. Let’s look together at best practices for social recruitment. You will learn how to build a social media recruitment strategy, from the main networks to alternative solutions. Before you start, be aware that all platforms offer the possibility to post advertisements for social media recruiting for free.
In recent years, more and more companies have realized that the main social platforms have become important for making themselves known to many people. Therefore, it is crucial to be able to communicate effectively with your audience to gain visibility. This can be done, for example, through sponsored posts, which are displayed first.
A message, however, lasts very little, because there are so many posts competing with each other to capture the attention of social users. To make a good social recruiting strategy, it is vital to be consistent in communicating with your audience and to keep their attention. Users get to know the company and the brand better and, in the case of a job advertisement, may be interested in becoming an employee of the company.
If you are little known, communicating on social media is very important. It allows you to increase visibility and bring users to your site. But, what are the best channels for social recruiting?
Facebook serves companies to search for new customers, through interaction on its page. Through this platform, an avenue of communication is created between users and your company. The management of the Facebook page is usually the responsibility of the social media manager, who must be able to create dynamic and interesting editorial plans that maintain the attention and interest of the audience over time. He or she must be an expert in social media marketing, to be able to interact profitably with the public, increasing the visibility and notoriety of the brand.
It is a good rule to create a company ”Public Page” so that posts can be viewed and interacted with. If there are vacancies in your company, publish posts announcing that you are looking for staff, clearly stating the type of position open and the requirements candidates should have.
To create job advertisements on Facebook:
- search with the magnifying glass on the left-hand side for ”job advertisements”;
- click on ”Applications” and then on the blue button in the centre ”Create Job Offer”;
- fill in the ”Job Offer” form with the characteristics that the candidate to be sought must have;
- click on ”Next” and continue to complete the form;
- when everything is ready click on ”Publish”.
It is a social network focused on the world of work and business and offers many opportunities for job seekers.
In the ”Jobs” section one can write an advertisement, with the most important details about the vacant position. Candidates can respond immediately by submitting their application directly on the platform. In this way, the recruiter sees the candidate’s profile, examines it and then, if suitable, contacts them to arrange a job interview.
How to create a job advertisement on LinkedIn:
- click on the ”Post free job offer” box;
- fill in the form with all the candidate’s characteristics;
- click on the blue ”Start for free” button.
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Twitter is a microblogging platform, useful for companies to send users to their website pages, blogs and any other corporate resource on the web. The typical structure of a tweet is a very short text accompanied by hashtags and a link to a web page.
Twitter can be used both for marketing, e.g. to launch a product and to search for staff.
Like every platform, Twitter also has its rules. It is not possible to send advertisements longer than 280 characters, but links can be used to direct users to the company website, and to the page where they can write their application details.
One can insert an elaborate photo with the advertisement of the open position and, on the copy, refer to the details via the link on the page with the advertisement.
Many candidates use Instagram to communicate, but mainly to share photos taken with their mobile phones. Instagram is a social networking site that focuses on photos and visual content. Use it to announce that you are looking for staff and that there are still positions open on the inside.
You could also use Instagram Reel, with a short video summarising the requirements of the person you are looking for.
Use social media to build your social recruiting strategy. Communicate effectively on each channel and be found by the professionals of your interest
Besides the main social networks, there are also other alternative ways of recruiting new staff that are equally useful and strategic. Let us see what they are.
YouTube
YouTube is also a channel used for social recruiting. It is a tool that is used to share videos. One could share videos, putting the references for the application in the description. Or you could record a video in which a person appears, who could be the recruiter himself, summarising in a few words who the ideal candidate could be.
You can record a video in which you announce that you are looking for personnel, briefly describing your company, and saying what it does. The purpose of the video is to create engagement with potential candidates, inviting them to send in their CVs for consideration.
The video is a great way to show the outside what the company is like and how you work. It is also a good way to make yourself known to candidates. A good tool for editing short videos is Shot Cut, a free tool you can download and install on your computer.
Blog
Maintaining a blog is very important for your company to make itself known to the public. If you write interesting content, the user can search for you to learn about your company. It is very important to keep your company blog up-to-date, either by making new articles or by updating and correcting old ones, if they do not generate as much organic traffic. Another use you can make of the blog is to introduce the various employees to your audience by having them explain directly what they are about.
In addition, you can use the blog to describe some of the company’s flagship products or services in great detail. This type of content also attracts the curiosity of readers, who may become both future customers and potential candidates. Getting everyone to know you well is part of both your marketing and social recruiting strategy.
Digital PR
It is a good thing to also get help from a Digital PR, to keep your company’s online reputation at a good level (and thus be more attractive in the eyes of potential candidates). Digital PR is a strategic figure, important for both large companies and small ones that are still little known. They cultivate relationships with industry influencers and use specific online tools to build, monitor and safeguard your company’s online reputation.
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Measuring results
Before measuring achievements, objectives must be set. These two aspects are very important and interrelated. How can you achieve results if you are not clear about what the goals are? They must be traceable and quantifiable goals, such as the metrics that each platform gives the possibility to collect and analyze.
Even in social recruiting strategy, you can establish KPIs (an acronym for Key Performance Indicators), i.e. those parameters that tell whether your recruitment campaign is performing well.
The key data to be monitored are:
- how many people responded to your advertisements, about visitors,
- how many people visited the open positions section of your site,
- how many candidates have the right profile concerning your needs,
- visitors’ interactions with advertisements.
Each platform has metrics with different names. For example: for Facebook, a typical interaction is the ”Like”, and for LinkedIn the ”Recommend”.
In this way, you can see how many people have read the advertisement, and how many applications you receive, with also the answers of those who are interested in an interview.
To give you a better understanding of how to do good social recruiting, let me give you the example of a large insurance company: Generali.
On its website, Generali has set up a digital recruitment project, using a series of tests in which candidates have to answer quizzes that make recruiters realize what their potential would be. The more a candidate shows a high score in the various tests proposed, the more likely he will be contacted by the recruiter to meet him personally.
The advantage of this form of personnel selection is the involvement of the candidate, who faces this series of tests as fun games. This method encourages those who interact with the quiz game to show the company, especially those who are recruiting staff, their talent. It is not like the classic advertisement you see on social networks, where there are only words and descriptions of both the job and the company itself. To get an idea of what it is about, go to ”Generali – Job Talent”.
Other examples of advertisements for social recruiting can easily be found under ”Job Offers” on LinkedIn or ”Job Listings” on Facebook. A good advertisement must engage the potential candidate, making them realize how great it is to work for the company.
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Conclusions and free strategic advice
In this article I have given you some tips for doing social recruiting effectively, suggesting a good strategy to make the most of this form of recruitment.
Surely, a professional figure such as a Social Media Manager will help you to better manage this way of recruiting new professionals by suggesting the most relevant social media for your business.
Contact an expert to know more about where to start to implement an effective social recruiting strategy
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