Using Social Media for Recruiting

Using Social Media for Recruiting

Social media has expanded in ways we would not have thought possible a decade ago. One would have never imagined that job seekers and employers could so easily connect & get involved in the recruitment process without investing in expensive firms. The role of social media has expanded massively from a mere communicating platform to one that is a lucrative business platform, a customer service platform, and now a recruitment platform. Infact, according to Jobvite for the past six years, “94% of recruiters use or plan to use social media for recruiting.”The numbers show that employers, recruitment agencies and HR companies are taking social media quite seriously for recruiting quality candidates – from world over! Yes, with social media, job opportunities become global instead of local and candidates easily apply via social networks and get their initial interviews done via Skype. This flexibility in communication has helped literally thousands of candidates world over to secure high profile jobs from multinational companies which earlier would have been quite an impossible feat.

So if you are on the hunt for a quality candidate, stop wasting money over newspaper ads or hiring expensive recruitment firms. All you have to do is make use of social media and harness it’s powers for getting you connected with valuable human and business resources.  Now how do you go about it and what do you need to do to get things started? Some important tips.Of course, the first step is to connect with people. Now here, there are several options that needs to be considered as that will directly impact the hiring process. If you’d like to connect to people as the CEO of a company, great. This usually works when you have a small business or an online venture where you need people to know you to want to work with you. If however, you have a large firm, then your HR folks will be connecting with people. If they haven’t yet done so (which they ideally should), you could discuss this in detail.

Considering, you are a one-man army, start by building connections. And LinkedIn is the perfect network to do this. Scout for people who you think can fit the various roles of your company and add them up. Don’t just limit yourself with a company page because these don’t work if people don’t know who you are. So, start connecting and don’t just focus on building business relations, but rather have a pool of valuable human resources available with you as later that will come in handy when you need to go on a hiring spree. 49% of recruiters claim that they actually had a higher quality score on candidates hired through social media rather than from traditional recruitment practices. Job openings should be posted on all social channels instead of just one. However, merely posting on your business page or profile is not enough (unless you have more than 1K “real” followers). Make use of groups on Facebook and LinkedIn. There are several groups on careers and job opportunities that you can join, share industry insights and recruit great folks. The best thing with these groups is, your posts go viral, as people love sharing job opportunities.

We recommend that don’t waste too much time on Facebook or Twitter for recruitment as they are not recruitment platforms. They are good for sharing information or news, but never the place to seriously consider candidates unless you’re looking for recommendations from friends and colleagues you trust.

Your focus should be on LinkedIn and its various groups. Research shows that 89% of recruiters have found candidates through LinkedIn, while Facebook and Twitter scored only at 26 and 15% respectively.While connecting with people over these massive social networks, you may often forget your goals. You could end up posting irrelevant updates or share ridiculous posts on religion, politics or society in general. Avoid all this. Your goal is to show yourself as a professional, an expert, a leader capable of leading people to excellence in your respective industry. Therefore, your posts and updates must reflect this ideology. And don’t think this will stop just at the impression. People will talk about you and will either recommend you or go against your company depending upon what you choose to show them.

Always conduct a thorough research for interested candidates. Social media these days allows you to easily search up on anyone, but, don’t be too quick in judging them through their Facebook or Twitter accounts, unless there are glaring instances of personality issues, political or religious extremism, or any other controversial aspects. It’s quite easy to spot a serious professional though – they will bluff less and have a more credible presence. They’ll talk less of mundane issues and share more insights about the industry they belong to. However, these are just assumptuous parameters and should just form the base of your research – not the conclusion.

Social media is a great platform to attract the right candidate if you know how to use it well for your advantage and goals. When done right, not only will you get good employees, but will also be building your name as a successful brand and business.At N2Q, we have helped our clients use social media for recruiting and they have been more than happy to get some of the brightest minds in the industry to work for them. If you would like us to help you with this social media strategy, feel free to contact us at 425-233-4623 and we’ll be sure to have a detailed chat with you!