The job market is shifting. Not only are companies searching for new skill sets and talents, but the way that businesses find their ideal candidates has turned on its head. In order to attract top talent, social recruiting strategies are pivotal.

Social recruiting is the process of advertising jobs, recruiting candidates and connecting with potential employees through social media platforms. It is also commonly referred to as social hiring or social media recruiting.

Social recruiting can be done in both a passive and active manner. It is important to formulate a concrete plan before posting job openings on social media. Below are some social recruiting strategies to get you started.

Set your goals

The path to success always starts by creating a solid foundation. You know who and where, now you need to establish measurable goals to benchmark and optimize your recruitment strategy over time. Figure out exactly what you want to accomplish with your social media recruiting strategy that you haven’t been able to do with traditional tactics.

Determine Metrics

Make sure that you’re also tracking recruitment metrics along with the likes and follows for the job post. This will help you determine which platforms and strategies yield the highest quality candidates in the shortest time frame. Choose metrics that help you measure those goals, then look at how your current recruiting strategy measures up. Some popular social recruiting KPIs include:

• Time spent per applicant
• Cost per hire
• Social media engagement
• Employee referral rate
• Clicks from social media to your hiring page
• Offer acceptance rate

Set the ideal candidate profile

You can better target through social recruiting if you know what experience and skills are required for the ideal candidate for a role. Social recruiting is a great way to see if a candidate is a great fit for your company culture because you can see how they live out their values and represent themselves online.

Checkout your competitors

Figure out what platforms are most popular among your competitors; pinpoint the type of content they create for each platform and how that correlate to engagement.

You don’t need to be everywhere that your competitors are. But if they have quality engagement with their social recruiting posts, knowing where they post can help you figure out what you’re up against. On the other hand, if their social recruiting doesn’t seem to get engagement, you can learn what not to do, or identify gaps where your posts will stand out.

Choose the right platform

It is important to research your ideal candidate profile and consider where they’re most likely to spend their time on social. For instance, a graphic designer might spend more of their time on visual channels like Instagram or Pinterest, while video editors might be engaged on YouTube and TikTok.

As a result, recruiters must be sure about where they plant their flag to find the most talented and qualified candidates. Finding high-quality employees means tapping into the right platform for the role you are trying to fill.

Show off the employer brand

Build your brand up and be the company that everyone knows about and wants to work for. Millennials are looking to establish an emotional connection with the right company, so give them something to be passionate about. Share content that shows your company in a great light, that it’s a great place to work, which organically attract candidates.

Bring in employee advocacy

Promoting company values and culture is key to attracting top talent. Creating an employee advocacy program and leveraging your employees’ networks can boost your employer brand and reach a wider audience.

True employee advocates will organically spread the word about your company culture and use their own social networks to help fuel your candidate pipeline. If your employees are posting and Tweeting about how amazing it is to work for you, it will naturally draw a bigger audience to not only your recruitment efforts but also your overall presence online.

Potential candidates want proof that people enjoy working for you. Your employees are the only ones who can do that.

Simple Submission process

One particularly important factor to keep in mind is that your application process should be as intuitive as possible, with as few steps from the social recruiting post to submission as necessary. Always ensure that the application portal for submission is simple, fast and error free; and of course, mobile compatible too.

Consistent engagement

Once you’ve established your presence on your chosen social media channels, you want to take your relationship to the next level, you have to engage with them.

You will need to keep publishing new content in order to remain visible. Create a detailed editorial plan for your use of social media recruiting tools. The content and frequency of your postings needs to suit the respective platform and target group – you should be posting photos or videos several times a day on media such as Instagram!

Repeat and be active

Once you establish your brand as a social media recruitment reliant, people will be eager to see more openings. Teach your social media followers to be on the lookout for potential employment by paying close attention to your posts. You will gradually create an organic follower base which you can use to promote not only your openings but products and other related news as well.

Companies have discovered that using social media for recruiting isn’t just a useful way to expand the applicant pool; it is also an excellent way to find great candidates. Social media recruiting lets you showcase your company culture, reach a larger talent pool and connect with your ideal candidates.

For most businesses, social recruiting and employee advocacy are programs that go hand-in-hand. When you focus on building a positive company culture where employees can share their thoughts and feelings about their careers in a focused and productive way, you attract referrals who are more likely to be a perfect fit for your work environment.

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