The Ultimate Guide To Social Recruiting

Since the pandemic first hit in 2020, it has shuttered offices and industries had to adapt on the fly to continue working remotely. The tech industry needed to throw out ancient processes and discover newer avenues, especially in the field of tech recruiting. If you guessed where I’m heading with this, then you are on the right track!

Yes, I am talking about social media, its massive reach, and one form of recruiting that has shot into the limelight – Social Recruiting. Tapping into brand new spheres of talent while adopting creative recruiting strategies is the crux of social recruiting.

Although social recruiting has been around since 2008, it has become the need of the hour and a weapon to have in your corner with the pandemic rendering everything to a remote workspace. A study by Pew Research Centre found that a whopping 72% of Americans surveyed use social media heavily. This should put into perspective the large number of promising candidates you as a recruiter are not considering by failing to source candidates through social media.

Here are our 2 cents on everything you need to know about social recruiting and how to kill it #likeapro, true social media style!

What is social recruiting?

Social recruiting or social media recruiting is a talent acquisition strategy that refers to the use of social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to source and hire candidates. You can narrow down your target audience to quickly and effectively find candidates who are the right fit for your company.

Why traditional recruiting methods will no longer cut it

The global talent, mainly Gen Z do not spend time scouring newspapers for job vacancies, rather they are busy switching between Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram on their phone. Posting job ads on social media is easy, attracts a wider, more diverse pool of candidates, and is cheaper. “Some companies use tools to post to Instagram from PC, schedule content, and complete other tasks.”

Bidding adios to the old ways of recruitment has become necessary to stay competitive in these fast-paced, digital-forward times. It has been proven multiple times that the traditional approach towards recruiting brings no diversity to the company, stagnates growth, eliminates a large pool of passive candidates, and lowers profits in the long run.

Providing relief to time-consuming, archaic hiring practices is the new age social recruiting approach that is considerably cost-effective with a greater chance of bridging the ever-widening gap between recruiters and talented job seekers.

What do the numbers look like for social recruiting?

Still not convinced to make the switch? Here are the current statistics of the social media recruiting landscape in 2021.

✔️A Career Profiles study shows that 91% of companies rely on social media when recruiting.

✔️86% of job seekers use social media in their job search, according to CareerArc.

✔️35% of employers increased their social recruiting efforts from last year to now, according to CareerArc.

✔️A report by PostBeyond shows that 82% of companies attract passive candidates via social media.

✔️49% of professionals use Linkedin to scout for job opportunities, as stated by HackerEarth Developer Survey, 2021.

Pitfalls of social media recruiting

Now that you’re sold on the awesomeness of social recruiting, there are some DON’Ts that you need to take note of before you kickstart your social hiring journey.

• Don’t jump headlong into social media without a cohesive plan in place. Nobody is interested in being bombarded with generic content across different social media platforms. Identify your goals, tailor your strategy according to each platform, and measure ROI periodically to see what is working.
• Not creating quality content to best showcase your brand, company values, workplace culture, etc., and simply posting job vacancies will never attract or engage potential candidates. Bring the personal factor to your hiring strategy, nurture relationships via your content, and maintain consistency in your efforts.
• Don’t forget to take stock of your efforts regularly. Choose key metrics like reach, engagement, and conversion to measure activity; the results should guide your way forward.

What makes for a good social media recruiting strategy?

Social recruiting takes a little work to get right, but when well executed it represents a robust advantage. Tips to kickstart your social media recruiting strategy the right way.

#1 Put together candidate personas

Speaking to the right people is of the utmost importance. It helps you narrow down who you’re looking for. Establishing candidate personas enables you to have a targeted approach on social media.

Know what kind of profiles will be a good culture-fit and balance that with the skills necessary to be successful in the role.

#2 Choose the right social media platform

The role you’re hiring for, the industry you’re in and the persona you are trying to reach out to, dictates the platform you need to use.

Some roles may require digging deep into more niche social media platforms rather than the popular ones. You may even need to use a social media management tool to keep everything organized.

#3 Track metrics to create your pipeline of candidates

Every social network has its set of metrics that need to be monitored. For example, the best time to post on Instagram may be different than on Facebook or LinkedIn. Don’t get too engrossed in the likes and follows; make sure you’re tracking suitable recruitment metrics. 

Depending on your platform and social media strategy, evaluate the given metrics monthly or quaterly to see where you stand, which platforms and strategies yield the highest quality candidates and what needs to be tweaked in your approach.

#4 Optimize your social media profiles

Most recruits consider a company based on its social media presence, which is why it is important to maintain a cohesive voice across all platforms being used. Maintain consistency in messaging that potrays the true reflection of your company’s brand and mission. Adjust settings to protect social media accounts. So you wouldn’t have to deal with the Facebook security issues or report Instagram account for getting hacked.

#5 Rope in your employees to be your ambassadors

Your existing workforce is your biggest ambassador. Leverage this at every opportunity by creating some guidelines so that employees understand the goal at hand and will create content with that in mind.

You can also create readily shareable content to make it easy for everyone to re-share, repurpose, and post on their personal social media profiles.

#6 Make use of video content

There are a lot of companies competing for top tier talent right now. The last thing you want to have happen is to get lost in the mix and lose out on a rockstar new hire.

Cut through the noise by using videos to portray the day-to-day life at your company is an effective way to reach prospective candidates.

#7 Measure how well your strategy is working

Speaking in numbers may not come naturally to recruiters but this is how you convince your stakeholders that your social hiring efforts are paying off.

Review the KPIs, goals and impacts of your social media recruiting strategy. From there, you can find your strengths and weaknesses to better adjust your resources and efforts.

We have further distilled tried and tested strategies that work for social recruiting into a cheatsheet, to simplify the process for you. Go through the step-by-step breakdown on how to approach each of the 7 tips given above to better your social media recruiting strategy. 

There is a bonus takeaway included in the guide as well that helps you tailor your strategy for popular social media channels like LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Leverage social recruiting like a pro

Social media recruiting is fast becoming the most effective hiring tactic in 2021. It enables you to showcase your company culture, reach a larger talent pool, be authentic and connect with your ideal candidates. As Gen Z and millennials make up more and more of the workforce, social media dictates the hiring strategies for recruiters to leverage upon.

Are your potential candidates on social media? Then your recruiting efforts should be, too.