Want to reach a huge qualified audience for your open position? Then you better be taking advantage of social media recruiting. But not just any old job post will do. Make sure that you keep the following advice in mind if you want the best candidates to apply.
This Is a Long-Term Game
Effective social media recruiting is not something that you can just tune into when you have an open position that you want to fill right away. It is something that you need to be thinking about and nurturing basically every single day.
What do I mean by this? Well, the first thing that a prospective applicant is going to do after they see your open position is to check out your social media profiles. You do not just want them to see this job posting and another one from seven months ago. Ideally, they would see an active social media presence. This includes posting articles that are relevant to your work along with any insight or commentary. You want to establish yourself as an expert in your field.
You should also be posting things that can give readers a sense of what it would be like to work at your company. Do not be afraid to show a bit of personality. This will also help interested parties decide whether they would be a good fit, leading to better qualified applicants.
Every Social Channel Is Different
You have an open position, and you have spent some time putting together a job description. It can be tempting to use the same listing on each of your social media platforms. However, you would be doing yourself a disservice. LinkedIn is different than Twitter which is different than Facebook.
Hashtags, for example, are something that you might want to use when creating your post. But the right hashtags are probably going to be different for each platform. Determining this will take a bit of legwork, but it will be worth it if you want to make sure that your job post reaches the most qualified audiences.
LinkedIn – and Facebook, to some extent – is also good for reaching out to potential candidates directly. Again, this will vary by platform. The searches you can do, and types of messages you want to send will be different. Take some time to develop strategies for each platform.
Remember the “Social” in Social Media
One of the best things about social media is that your job postings can be shared. Take advantage of your greatest resources: the star employees that you already have. Ask your team to like and share thee postings with their own personal networks – particularly if you are looking for a candidate with the same skillset as one of your existing employees. This is one of the best ways to find candidates with the right qualifications.
Ready to Post? Not So Fast
Before you hit that all-important “submit” button, take a moment to do one last check that everything is perfect. After all, this will likely be the first impression that many potential candidates have of you, and something simple like a spelling or grammar error can make you look sloppy and unprofessional. Have an employee or trusted friend read through your job posting and let you know if anything is unclear or missing. After that, you are good to go!
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