Human resource managers are no longer limited to conventional recruitment methods such as internal 
recruitment, print advertisements, employee referrals, career fairs, and internships. Social networking is becoming a huge part of the recruitment strategy. This practice has several advantages over traditional recruiting:
- First of all, it’s cost effective. There is no charge for browsing through people’s Facebook profiles.
- HR managers can explore potential candidates 24/7.
- Social media networks offer access to a great number of potential candidates.
- A recruiter can easily contact a potential candidate through convenient messaging systems.
- Social media profiles reveal tons of information about the candidates. You can become aware of their interests, capacity, and character.
There is one problem with the usage of social media for recruitment purposes: many HR managers dive in before learning enough about the proper practices. Save yourself from embarrassment. In the continuation, you will find information about the best practices for social media recruitment.
- Promoting the company’s culture on social media
The purpose of social media recruiting is not to hire just any candidate to fill in a blank position. It’s all about exploring and discovering the best worker for the job. If you have your eye on a particular social media user, then you should know you’re not the only one. People who are trained, educated, and experienced have plenty of opportunities, so they clearly want to choose the best one.
If the culture in your organization sucks, you won’t fix the damage by creating a fictional brand online. Every business owner should work on establishing top-notch organizational culture. All types of information are easily available online, so you won’t attract great employees if they are not amazed by the working environment.
When you fix that aspect, you’re left with promotion. Showcase the best employees on your social media profiles. Communicate with the audience, ask questions and don’t make everything about your business. Share insightful articles and information that everyone can benefit from. That’s the right way to attract the best candidates.
2. Invest time and effort into the search for the right candidate!
When you decide to implement social media practices into your recruitment strategy, you should know that posting an ad is not enough. Discovering the right candidate for a particular position is harder than you think. The pool of options will be incredibly large or unexpectedly limited, so you’ll face different challenges on your quest for the perfect person.
You should start the search as soon as you identify the open position. If you followed the first practice from this list, you have already established connections with few potential candidates. Check out the conversations you’ve had and see which social media users have distinguished themselves with suggestions, insightful comments and critiques.
Of course, that won’t be enough. Here is something else you can do: search with hashtags. When you locate an interesting personality on Facebook, Twitter, or another network, make sure to look at their LinkedIn profile before proceeding any further. This will give you a hint of their experience, so you’ll know how to tailor your offer.
3. Creativity is the key to success!
Social media recruitment is a two-way street. You can monitor the activity of potential candidates, but keep in mind that they are also evaluating your company’s reputation. Everyone is looking for a great place to work, so you cannot just tell them your business is awesome. What’s the best way to prove that fact?
The standard procedure of posting ads and interviewing candidates does not work for the social media environment. This space has tons of active and passive job seekers, so your message has to stand out if you want to reach out to the right people. Craft awesome articles, infographics, promotional material, and everything else you can think of. Start a cool hashtag and invite everyone to join the fun. Organize contests and offer prizes for the best participants!
Keep this in mind: uniqueness always pays off in human resource management!
Joan Gilbert
Latest posts by Joan Gilbert (see all)
- Best Practice from Social Media Recruitment - September 15, 2015
