Social media can be a powerful weapon when it comes to advertising jobs online, however there are some important considerations to making the most out of this platform. In this article, we will look further into these steps and give you tips on how and where to promote your job descriptions.

The Benefits Of Recruiting Via Social Media

• Its’s free: Yes that’s absolutely right, unless you’re running a paid campaign, in which case you set the management & ad spend costs.
• Owned platform: Your page is your property, meaning you have complete control when showing applicants who you are and what you do.
• Extended Reach: If you have a large following, you can advertise to many people for free.
• Interested audience: You will be promoting a role to an audience that already follows you and could generate some serious applicants.
• Shares & PR:  Followers, partners and publishers can easily share posts to their friends and audiences, earning you free PR. If your post gets shared within a relevant private group, the quality of applicants could increase.
• Increases chances: When more people see your job advert, the chances of you finding the best candidate increases.
• Candidate insight: You can also use this tool to learn more about applicants. Not only their history and temperament, but you can also see mutual contacts who can give you more information about this person.

What To Be Aware Of When Using Social Media For Recruitment

Paid for services could be much more effective. Although it is a free tool, you also need to consider the cost of the time it takes employees to fill the role.

Job advertising on social media increases the number of applicants of both high and low quality. In some cases, it could be more cost-effective to use job board advertising to ease the workload. Their systems and personnel can vet an applicant for required skills, qualifications and experience.

There may be instances where you don’t want recruiters or employees to find out about a job you are advertising. Putting this on social media removes the possibility of advertising discreetly.

Take caution when checking out potential candidates on social media. Profiles can give away information that employers should not be using in the selection process. This could land you in hot water.

If you have a bad reputation, a poor culture or unhappy staff, then be wary of using social media. If your company is not a good place to work, social media won’t change that – but it will give current and past employees a reason to jump on the social bandwagon and create a trend you don’t want.

Be prepared for negative comments and complaints. It is important when using social media to remain transparent, so respond to negative comments instead of deleting them. If you delete comments, you may find users will move to other platforms where the situation cannot be easily managed.

Learning to use social media tools is not complicated but does take time and experimentation. What works for one company won’t always work for another, so talk to individuals, not the masses.

 “Having conversations in the digital space is like having conversations in the real world. The only difference is that online conversations are searchable, archived and can come back to haunt you. Always bear this in mind. The positive of this is that it makes the conversations findable so people can join in. These people could be your future employees”

Sam Rice Applause IT Recruitment

Indeed, the outcome of these conversations is to build a pool of candidates who want to engage with you, and more importantly, work for you before you have even told them there are jobs available.

You can investigate these topics by reading our articles Creating A Talent Pool and Social Media Hiring Strategies For SMEs.

How To Have An Online Conversation

The most difficult part of social recruiting is deciding what to talk about. Forget the fact that you are online, talk as you would talk in the real world.

• Ask a lot of questions – listen to the responses and expand further
• Tell great stories – people like hearing about people
• Share interesting and useful insights
• Show videos, images and documents that help tell the story, and
• Don’t just talk about yourself.

Think about the person you like to chat to the most, what do they talk about? They probably engage with you by asking lots of questions, sharing information about other people, places and experiences, and are approachable, funny and personable.

What Can You Talk About?

Try to create and share content that is interesting, funny, informative and relevant as you want people to pass it on.

Insider info: Offer insights into the culture of your company. What is unique about you? Do you offer great training or strong career progression? Is it a fun place to work? What do employees do?

Community news: Are you working in the local community? Do you work with local charities? Use this information to demonstrate the values and culture within your company.

How to guides: These are useful information pieces on the company, the roles within the company. Mix up words, images and video. Infographics are a great way to do this.

Diary: A day in the life of different job roles within your company. Show the work involved, the people candidates would be working with, the building and department, give people a real flavour of what it would be like to work with you and bring your company to life.

Ask questions: Ask for other people’s tips and stories, encourage candidates to share experiences, ask current employees to comment or share their experiences.

Jobs: Obviously the whole idea is to recruit people, so don’t forget to post jobs to this newly engaged audience all hoping to now work for you!

Bring Out The Humans

People don’t want to engage and interact with a company, they want to engage with the people who make it happen. So, don’t talk like a corporate press release, talk like a person, as you would in a face to face chat.

Next, read A Guide On How To Hire Employees.

Source:  Bdaily

URL: https://bdaily.co.uk/advice/05-08-2014/guide-to-recruiting-with-social-media/