Use Of Social Media As A Recruiting Tool In The Digital Age

Social media is one of the hottest and most discussed recruiting tools in the industry. There are millions of people using social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter etc. In this competitive market, most of the companies started targeting the potential candidate and building talks to know more about a candidate's interests by using these apps. If you want to target the most qualified, talented and largest pool of applicants, then you need to leverage social media.

These social media tools are very effective when you want to reach passive candidates, and particularly important when recruiting for niche roles. Also, this helps to showcase your company culture and your company website.

Career sites are the ideal place to shout about your values and how great you are as an employer. When you share this kind of content on your social media accounts, it will reach people who are already following your company.

Most of the Social Media websites are free to use. However, there are some features on some social media sites that do cost money, such as LinkedIn job posts and job slots come at a price on a recruiter license. Interestingly, it costs nothing to share vacancies on your LinkedIn company page or on Twitter or Facebook. So, why not take advantage of your social media accounts! Just remember to track the report on your success to see which platform is the most effective.

If you feel that you don’t have the time to share your vacancies on social media, just talk to your marketing team and work alongside them.

These millions of social media users equal a lot of potential talent for your company. But to find out the right talent for available jobs, we need to understand how to use these apps. To post any job, you should be familiar with LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.

Here is the use of each social media as a recruiting tool to attract quality applicants:

Using social media such as LinkedIn to target potential candidates can be useful, even if the candidate is not currently interested in the offered job. A good way to approach this is by sending a message to the candidate with a link to your company website.

LinkedIn has different set of plans on price that can be used based on need. It also provides free of cost features that can target a limited audience. If you have good number of individual connections and groups, and have good amount of time to fulfill your hiring needs, then you don’t need to price it for other plans.

If you are recruiting for a particular job sector, try sharing your vacancies within LinkedIn Groups. There are thousands of professional groups for software professionals, Finance professionals, HR workers etc.

However, be careful not to spam the group. Just remember, you want to attract these potential candidates, not annoy them.

Refer the below link to learn posting a job on LinkedIn “https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/166/posting-a-job-on-linkedin?lang=en”

Twitter has become one of the best platforms these days to express the thought process and the information one has about anything in the world. This is being used as a basic fundamental right which is freedom of speech, but in the case of Twitter we say "right to post". Here, one can post anything about technology, current affairs, job openings and many more things. This is a platform or a stage to showcase your knowledge to the world and get suggestions. These days, Twitter has emerged as multi-purpose social networking king where you can follow and get followed by millions of people all around the world, discuss about forums, blogs, learn, teach and almost everything. The following example may give you an idea how Twitter can help job seekers to get to know about current openings in any company.

Here are the easy to use steps to market the job on Twitter.

1. Prepare the job posting on your business website. Get the link of the job posting page and paste it on your company's Twitter home page. Once the seeker clicks on the link, the link will be redirected to the job posting.
2. Create a Twitter account and sign in to your Twitter account. Then, click the “Compose New Tweet” field to expand it.
3. Draft the job description and basic contact details which draw attention of the seekers to make them click the link and apply to the posting. This should include your company name, the job type, job title, location, starting date and method that job seekers can use to request additional information or apply.
4. Add a hashtag "#" symbol before keywords in the tweet so that job seekers find it easy enough to search the post using those keywords. For example: “#.netdeveloperrole #Microsoft #Hyderabadlocation #july1ststartdate and if needed, more specified technical stuff like- For more info “direct message me”. You can add your contact email address or phone number too.
   
5. Click on the “Tweet” button to share the job broadcast.
6. You can also “Retweet” with providing additional information if you have missed anything while tweeting the first tweet and request that your followers and anyone who reads the announcement help you pass the message by retweeting it.

The world's most popular social network is not a job website and there is no "Post a Job" feature on Facebook yet. But there are billions of people active on Facebook every day. Your dream candidate may not be actively looking for jobs on job portals but there is a good chance to get in touch if they have got a Facebook account. As there is no specific page to advertise jobs on Facebook, so here I am going to show the way how your stuff can be noticed.

If you’re looking for qualified candidates with a limited timeline, try a sponsored post on Facebook. And there is an available category for you to turn any Facebook post into a sponsored post. You can go beyond your Facebook business page and explore more sharing options; including,

1. Use your personal timeline
   The job advertisement will appear on your Facebook feed, so that all your friends will get to know about the open role. And company’s employees can share that role too on their own personal Facebook walls.
   
   
2. Target a group
   If you’re a part of a professional Facebook group (Ex-Microsoft), or know people in a social group who might be interested in this position, share your job ad with their members.
   
   
3. Create a Job specific career page
   If you create Facebook Careers page to manage social recruiting, it could be useful to share your advertisement on other pages as well. In this way, you can interact with people who aren’t actively looking for a job but could be tempted for future availability.
   
   
4. Inbox your friend
   If you think some of your contacts would be a good fit for a certain position, check their interest with a private message.

Conclusion

Social Media sites have a different audience and a different set of social norms. So, treat each media channel differently and design a different strategy for each. And remember quality over quantity when it comes to your followers.

Hope you liked the post. Look forward to your comments / suggestions.