By Informa Connect Middle East
Recruiters are increasingly leveraging the power of social to bring awareness to their brand, post open roles, connect with potential candidates, and showcase company culture.
The recruiting landscape has changed drastically over the past decade. To work in an increasingly competitive environment, businesses are looking to grow their workforce rapidly. Hence, companies are looking for new skill sets and talents and have increased the use of virtual recruitment methods.
Today, job seekers are highly tech-savvy. As more and more Gen Z’s start to enter the workforce, social media is becoming an important source for employers to attract new talent and is quickly taking over traditional recruitment as the norm.
What is social recruiting?
Also known as social media recruiting and social hiring, it is a recruitment marketing method that uses social networks to reach qualified talent. The process enables organisations to attract and
engage passive and active talent and opens the door to a larger pool of candidates. Recruiters can leverage the power of social to bring awareness to their brand, post open roles, connect with
potential candidates, and showcase company culture.
According to a report by CareerArc, a social recruiting platform, 96% of job seekers use social media when conducting a job search. While a LinkedIn research found that 49% of professionals
follow companies on social media to stay aware of job opportunities, and nearly 40 million people search for jobs on LinkedIn each week.
Organisations recognise that only posting on job boards is not adequate. If social hiring is implemented successfully, businesses can share their brand message across different social platforms highlighting their company culture. Social media also allows recruiters to narrow the candidate pool effectively, quickly find qualified candidates and simplify the recruitment process.
Moreover, social recruiting allows for reaching out to candidates worldwide.
Building brand presence
Candidates are looking to work for companies that have strong brand value, with a company culture that has a positive online presence.
To develop a more active social media presence, brands should highlight their people, values and what sets them apart from others. By sharing employee success stories and team events
through audio or visual content, candidates get a sneak peek at what awaits them if they get hired. The image you portray on social media will impact who applies for your company. A great
way to get people excited about your company is by showing what makes it a unique place to work for.
Additionally, getting existing employees to share a job post can boost the recruiter’s ability to connect with new and diverse talent. If they have previously highlighted their achievements with
the company, it will draw a bigger audience to the recruitment drive and the company’s overall presence online. In addition to job postings, recruiters can spark conversations and share helpful
resources to create a talent pool to dive into whenever roles open up.
Another essential factor to keep in mind is that the application process should have as few steps as possible. Companies should invest in the right technologies to avoid slow application
processes or job portals that aren’t mobile-friendly.
A tailored recruitment solution will help attract a candidate with unique thinking and skillset and help centralise recruiting workflows and enable better collaboration within the organisation.
Additionally, recruiters who use social media usually spend fewer resources to hire and fill positions faster.
Which social media channels work best for recruiting?
Social media is one of the best sources to attract high-quality job candidates. However, it’s essential to know who you’re trying to attract. Think about the roles you are trying to fill and
what capabilities will help them be successful at your organisation. This will determine the content recruiters develop and the channels they can use.
One of the most straightforward strategies in social media recruiting is profile optimisation. Providing complete information on social media profiles will make it easier for candidates to find
and engage with job postings. It will also improve an organisation’s online presence.
LinkedIn: Undoubtedly, LinkedIn is the most popular platform for learning more about a candidate’s professional experience and hiring. While half of its advanced search features are
free to use, some require a LinkedIn Premium account. Still, the free advanced search provides a lot of flexibility for finding qualified individuals. Also, a LinkedIn member will usually include
a resume of past and current jobs. You can see recommendations from peers, managers, colleagues, and what groups the person has joined.
Twitter: Engaging candidates by posting company updates or relevant industry news can help them understand cultural fit. Recruiters can tweet jobs they have available and use hashtags for
the post to become instantly searchable.
Facebook: As one of the most popular social platforms, Facebook is also an effective recruiting tool. Facebook job posts appear on the business page under the jobs bookmark and alongside
regular posts. Job posts can also be boosted for a fee to appear in the target audience’s news feeds based on location, education, and work experience.
HR teams can also leverage YouTube to share videos that highlight company values. They can promote jobs with hashtags on TikTok or Instagram to show potential candidates what it’s like to
work for the company.
Also, it’s essential to keep in mind that each platform requires a slightly different approach. For example, recruiters can put out feelers on Instagram or YouTube when looking to hire a video
editor, as they are more likely to spend time on these visual channels. Therefore, recruiters need to be agile and choose the right platform for the role they are trying to recruit for.
As with any strategy, it’s important to establish metrics to understand if social recruiting provides the desired results. Recruiters should focus on traffic to see if people landing on the job post were referred from social media and keep a tab on how many applications were filled out from social referrals. They can dig deeper into the analytics to see which networks drive the most traffic to focus efforts on the best performing platform.
Future prospects
Furthermore, many people that are not currently looking for a job are still using social networks. But some of these professionals may be an excellent fit for the role recruiters are looking to fill
and might apply if they knew a vacancy was available. Even if many of these passive candidates have no current interest, recruiters can begin building relationships before they decide to look for
a new job. Using social media, recruiters significantly expand their talent pool by getting jobs in front of passive candidates.
It is important to remember that social recruitment works best when done consistently. Recruiters should post regularly and respond to comments and messages.
Social recruiting goes beyond posting career opportunities via social media channels. The social recruitment landscape is about being proactive, present, and authentic to cultivate a relationship
with job seekers. A strong employer brand sets the tone for business success.
