Social media recruitment is beyond the use of social media platforms to gather candidates. Recruiting on social media allows you to reach potential employees, both active and passive, by providing a job-hunting experience at a more personal level. This is because social media is now a big part of everyone’s lives, and you, as a recruiter, can harness this connection. With every netizen having at least one active social media account, you must have considered social media recruitment as a strategy by now.
Since the recruitment firm’s brand reputation is also on the line here, it’s imperative that you boost your online presence as well. Using social media to improve the chances of gathering candidates won’t work as much if your employer brand and recruiter brand fall at the not-so-favorable end of the spectrum. Here are some valuable inputs on why employing social media recruitment should go side-by-side with improving brand reputation.
Start with a good online reputation.
Consumers look for online reviews before buying certain products or go straight to review sites to rant about poor customer service. Similarly, former candidates and potential employees do the same for companies they’ve been to.
Disgruntled candidates may say something about how their application was handled, and these occurrences may tarnish your recruitment firm’s reputation. They may not only shoo away future candidates but potential company clients, too.
Before you start recruiting on social media, make sure that the first thing candidates will see online is your firm’s best foot forward. While a perfect brand reputation may sound like shooting the moon, a generally good reputation is still highly desirable for candidates and clients alike.
1. Choose the best social media sites for your firm.
It seems the easiest way to go about this is to set up accounts on the three big social media sites: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn. This sounds good, but some research and planning are key if you want to reach the right demographic with the right channel.
For example, Facebook now has a Job Search function, so this might be easier to link to your recruitment firm’s page. Also, you can contact many interest groups on Facebook, particularly job seekers’ groups and communities that provide employment support.
Twitter might be reliable for quick information or posting links to job openings or information about the clients you help with recruitment. Instagram is a fantastic visual platform, so you can use photos and videos as a means to capture potential candidates. LinkedIn, on the other hand, is an ideal network to find professionals who might also be on the lookout for jobs that you are hiring for.
2. Don’t forget about professional social media sites, too.
While the usual view of social media is one full of fun and entertainment, your recruitment firm must join sites dedicated to employment and career advancement as well. In these sites, serious job hunters are everywhere, so take advantage of this. Also, it’s possible to leave testimonies about specific individuals and companies, which can boost brand reputation.
3. Talk about victories online.
As the cliche goes, never let them see you sweat. For milestones your recruitment firm has accomplished, make sure to talk about them on your company website or social media handles as a means to promote your recruiter brand.
If you have successful candidates who attribute their success to your firm’s superb handling of the application process, ask for a review from them and get permission to publish it online.
You may also request client inputs on why they chose to go with your recruitment firm and what their employees are saying about being recruited through you. Gathering all these positive words will surely bring your brand reputation towards improvement.
Find out how you can create the best candidate and client experience with Great Recruiters.
Now, let social media recruitment commence.
As mentioned, social media is such a personal experience for those who use it. As a recruiter, you can tap into how often people are online nowadays and reach out to everyone as if they are all potential candidates. With social media accounts on hand, there are now numerous ways to showcase what job openings you have and use additional means to invite prospective applicants.
The key to social media recruitment is engagement. Gone are the days when a simple list of requirements is all that’s needed to decide if one will apply for the job post. Through social media recruitment, you can answer candidate questions even before they are asked: What is the company like? What’s in it for me if I apply now? Am I a culture fit for the company?
As a recruiter, you can paint a picture of what it will be like for the individual if they do pass your recruitment process. This level of engagement through experience management is now possible, thanks to social media.
To attract job hunters through social media, consider the following:
1. Send a direct message or DM.
What’s good about social media is that you get to know the person on the surface. Accounts on professional social media websites pretty much sum up who they are in the workplace, or at least what is their career path. You didn’t have to ask for a resume to know if a person is qualified; social media accounts are even more well-summarized than an extensive CV. It’s enough for you to decide if the person is a fit for the company or not.
Reach out to potential candidates, whether they’re job hunting or not, through a direct message. Explain why you feel they are a good fit for the role and what is in store for them if they pass recruitment. While potential yet inactive job seekers may turn down the invitation, your direct message has embedded in them that they were considered for a specific company and may look into applying in the future.
For active applicants who received your DM, this sends a good sign to them that they have been headhunted and will be even more enthusiastic about taking a chance to be hired. Keep an eye for applicants like these, as they can be asked to share recruiter feedback. Their good experience in the hiring process would mean positive reviews for the firm, and the optimism they have coming in is already a good sign.
2. Use videos more often.
It will be necessary for you to maintain the content of your social media accounts as often as possible, hopefully on a daily basis. While text and pictures are already part of the equation, you might want to use videos in your social media accounts.
Videos allow your potential hires to be engaged because of the combined stimulus of sight and sound. You may harness videos to tap into the emotions of your viewers. Since many people nowadays link their experiences to how they feel, videos are a magnificent way to tap into potential hires on why they should consider this particular company.
Request your company clients to produce videos that introduce their organization. An office tour is a good idea to lure applicants in because it’s a glimpse of where they will be working daily. Live videos are also all the rage on social media. Online events like Q&A’s about the company allow viewers to send in their questions and get an answer in real-time. Those who are watching could be interested job hunters who want to know more about who they might be applying for. The live video could be the key to the knowledge they seek.
3. Ask employees to post on social media, too.
The employees of your client companies may have a lot to say about where they are working currently. You can approach your current and former clients to post on social media about their work experience and what they find great about where they are working. Your recruitment firm can ask permission to repost this content onto your social media handles so that potential hires can get an idea of the company they’re applying to.
Keep your social media image at its best.
Social media recruitment is a modern means to improve how your recruitment firm can rake in more job hires. Your company clients will appreciate the additional effort your agency is making to fill in their employee roster. But making an extra effort to hunt candidates online means exposing your firm’s name online as well.
While efforts to make your recruitment firm’s brand reputation have been suggested above, gathering more positive input would be very helpful to promote the recruiter brand so that your social media handles become collections of praises from past candidates. The Great Recruiters reputation management tool can surely help you with this.
Great Recruiters’ reputation and experience management tool is a systematic way for you to monitor reviews in real-time and identify which ones you can post in your social media accounts. Also, review requests are given right away to the applicants fresh from the recruitment process so that they can speak about their recent experience.
With reviews coming as soon as the candidates are finished with recruitment, you can trust that the information you gather is up-to-date and verified, ready to be published through social media.
Do you want a trusted tool to assist you with elevating your social media recruitment?
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