Jobhop Jobhop's blog : Want To Recruit Using Social Media?

Many companies want to recruit using social media, however I'm concerned.

I’m concerned by how some companies think social media is a magic pill, they’re looking for an instant cure to their ever rising recruitment costs.

When asked about their social recruitment strategy answers vary but are usually something like “ We’ve tried job boards and would now like to use Twitter”

The sad news is it isn’t instant, like anything worth attaining in life you have to put some effort into it.

“Fail to plan, plan to fail”

Want to recruit using social media? Then you can't just tweet and pray.

Tweeting and praying will get you nowhere, there has to be a social recruiting strategy.

If you want to recruit using social media my advice would be to start with the question “what do you want to achieve?” Could it be that you’re looking for a new project manager for a five year expansion plan or perhaps a graphic designer to work alongside the web developers. Would you look for a graphic designer in the same place as the project manager? probably not. Once you know what it is you want to achieve then you can get clear on the tactics to use to achieve it.

Profile your ideal candidate

Each social media platform is different, the likes who hang out on Linkedin may not hang out on Facebook, some may tweet others wont, designers may hang out more on designsnack and deviantart whilst web developers will probably prefer Github & Biscuilts.

Who is your ideal candidate? Once you know that then you’ll get closer to knowing where they hang out.

Why should they work for you?

Now you know who it is you’d like to work for your company, ask yourself the important question “Why should they work for you?”

Has your company got a great culture? What’s the vision of your company? What do your employees say about working there? What’s a typical day like? Is it an ethical company? What does your company do for the community?

You’re ideal candidate will ask “Why should they work there?” then they’ll go online and research. If what they find is negative they’ll probably go and work for your competitor, if you have no presence it will tell your candidate you don’t move with the times, you may even have something to hide, however if they find positive comments from your employees, great informative content and engaging chat across the platforms it will go in your favour.

Attract and Source your candidate

Now you’ve profiled your ideal candidate and know what type of platform they’d hang out on, source them within the groups. Look at using your content to attract them, put out good regular content within the groups and get known. Use your company website to attract, have a careers page with videos of your employees, company benefits, the beautiful location, employee blog posts and even the recruitment process.

Build a community

Once you find potential candidates you should keep engaging with them, keep them informed on the goings on in your company, find out more about them, invite them to join your Fb page, your Twitter chat, your G+ community, your Linkedin group or wherever it is you’d like to engage with them more. The art is not to lose engagement with good talent, to keep them in a community and when the time is right you have your potential candidates in one place.

Include your employees

Tell your employees about your plans to use social media to recruit and have them be your ambassadors online as well as offline. A great company internal brand gives your employees the chat for the social networking the platforms, why do they love to work there, that’s what potential candidates want to find out.

The above is a small part of using social media to recruit, so forget any ideas of a quick solution. Using social media to recruit is highly effective when planned properly over a course of time. Execute the plan properly and it will help your company attract top talent, retain top talent, increase employee referrals and give your company a competitive advantage, as well as cutting your recruitment costs.

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Julie Bishop Jobhop.co.uk

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