Social media is a powerful tool for recruitment. Platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram & TikTok have millions of users who can see and share your job postings. This increases the visibility and reach of your vacancies, and helps attract more applicants from different backgrounds, locations, and industries. According to the Digital 2023 Global Overview Report (produced in partnership with Meltwater and We Are Social), in January of this year there were 57.1 million social media users in the UK. That accounts for a staggering 86.4% of the UK’s total internet user base (or, 92.4% if you only include those aged 18+).
Social media allows recruiters to tailor their messages and ads to specific groups of people, based on their interests, skills, experience, and preferences. This helps to find the best fit for the role, and to reduce the number of irrelevant or unqualified candidates.
You don’t just have to post your vacancies either. Social media is a great way to showcase the company’s values, vision, mission, and culture, and to engage with potential employees. By posting relevant content, such as photos, videos, testimonials, and stories, recruiters can highlight the benefits and perks of working for the company and create a positive impression on your potential candidates. So, you can get a prospective future employee engaged with your company well before they actually see a position that is relevant for their skills & experience.
I’m old enough to remember the typical Fridays in a recruitment office when a dozen or so newspapers were bought so we could all scour the extensive recruitment supplements and see which businesses were recruiting. Those days are past now and, in the past, they shall remain as the more cost-effective option of social media advertising has taken over. It wasn’t cheap to publish an advert in one of those recruitment supplements and, if your ideal candidate didn’t happen to buy a newspaper that day, that was it. They would never see that advert. Your social media video or advert can be posted multiple times for free, it can be shared by your followers, and it can be found through simple searches. In a nutshell, it can be seen by thousands (or millions) of potential candidates….and for FREE!
However, there are also ‘paid for’ options available. Due to the amount of data that certain platforms hold about their user demographic, it can be relatively straightforward to target your adverts at the type of person that you are looking to recruit. Whether that is geographic location, skills or experience, your advert can show up on the timeline of a potentially suitable hire, whether they are actively job hunting or not. And that’s the beauty of it. As mentioned above, the ‘old skool’ newspaper advert relied on active job seekers buying the newspaper in the first place. Social Media opens up your opportunities to passive candidates whose interest may just get piqued by an interesting video about your company culture.
Building a strong employer brand is essential for using social media effectively for recruitment. Here are some important steps to follow:
Brand Identity: Define your organisation’s culture, mission, and values clearly. Create an employer value proposition (EVP) that distinguishes you from other employers and appeals to your ideal candidates.
Brand Consistency: Maintain a consistent tone, style, and message across all your social media platforms. This helps to create a unified and recognisable brand image.
Brand Content: Create and share content that reflects your company’s work environment, employee stories, achievements, and industry knowledge. Use different formats, such as text, photos, videos, and infographics, to attract and engage your audience.
Employee Promotion: Motivate your employees to spread the word about your organisation and interact with your social media profiles. Brand advocacy boosts your brand reach and credibility.
Finally, once your posts are live, to make the most of social media recruitment, interact with prospective candidates. If you do not maintain visibility or promptness, candidates will soon forget about you and your social posts – or worse, they might remember that you didn’t reply!
So, in summary, decide on a strategy and brand identity, choose your platforms and build an audience through your great content. Happy hiring!