5 Social Recruiting Pointers

I don’t watch soccer, but when I was looking for something exciting to do this weekend, it was hard to bet against an activity that 25.4 million people were also watching.

In much the same way, when we are looking for applicants for a job, we can post the opening on our website career pages and on job boards, but when 79 percent of job seekers use social media to find a job, and 14.4 million people used this resource to find their last job, we can’t ignore it as a viable opportunity for finding our next all-star employees.

The place we choose to promote our openings is an important part of our recruiting efforts, and will have an impact on the type of applicants we get and the volume we receive, but there are other important reasons to use social media in our recruiting efforts. Here are a few pointers:

1. It will improve your applicant pool. Using social media in your recruiting efforts will improve the way you find and vet applicants. Organizations that use social media have experienced a 33 percent decrease in their time to hire, a 49 percent increase in candidate quality, 43 percent increase in candidate quantity. That means you’re saving time and money finding the right person for your job.

2. Your job listing will be seen. Sixty-seven percent of jobseekers actively use social media at least once a week. Plus, Facebook and other forums have the ability to specifically target job offers to users with applicable experience. Since social media users are regularly adding professional information to their profiles, there’s a good chance that the perfect employee is going to see your listing if you’re using social media to promote it.

3. Use it for more than just a job listing. Job seekers want to hear what’s great about the job you are offering and the company you work for, not just what the job entails. The top perks and incentives that employees want to read about are growth opportunities, your 401K, your health plan, and your flexible work schedule. Research shows that 59 percent of job seekers will accept an offer of lower pay if the offer includes a healthy benefits package with perks like vacation hours, a flexible work schedule, or the ability to work from home. So include the attractive features of the job and your company when you’re writing it for the social media crowd.

4. Reach out to top candidates. Seventy-nine percent of college students are comfortable with employers reaching out to them directly through social media for employment opportunities. It builds a relationship with the candidate that will separate you from the competition when the applicant is trying to decide between jobs. Relationships are an important part of culture, and culture is actually pretty important when deciding where to work.

5. Don’t give up on Facebook. Seventy-nine percent of recruiters use LinkedIn to source and research candidates, while only 26 percent use Facebook. Yet 83 percent of jobseekers are on Facebook, and 48 percent of them have used Facebook to look for jobs in the last year. By leveraging both LinkedIn and Facebook (among other forums), you can receive a greater diversity and volume of applicants, plus you can get a well-rounded view of candidates by seeing both their professional and social sides.

Apart from Facebook, you can leverage other social platforms like LinkedIn to go social with your recruitment. That said, social recruiting is no easy feat so make sure to have a solid social plan in place to get the most of your social strategy.