5 Tips for Recruiting Through Social Media

Using social media creatively boosts your chances of hiring the talent needed to lead, and grow, your company.

Despite the rumor, there is no shortage of talent. But there is a lot of competition for the talent on the market. How do you drive interest toward your brand?

Most companies work with several job boards. Distribute your position to these boards and you generally receive a lot of responses. In addition, well-designed recruiting software helps focus your search results.

How does social media come into play? There are multiple social media channels to aid your search for top talent. While predictive software parses candidates once their resume arrives, social media helps you build a company presence, structure your message--and cultivate interest when you have a job opening.

Building buzz for your recruiting cycle

Consider these points when you want to use social media to compete for top talent in your field:

1. How is your website? Job positions do not exist in a vacuum. You may have frequent job openings, you may have few. When a position is posted, interested candidates check out your website first. Does your website do a great job of promoting your brand and company culture?

Keep applicants in your ecosystem through a Careers page on your website. Promote your company, provide history, and streamline your application process to make it easy to upload a resume and go. Use your website Career page to collect resumes and create a standing resume pool. Check that database first when seeking new applicants--you may find the talent you want has already applied to your company in the past.

We talked earlier about integrating video into your recruiting process. Be proactive with your message. Create and post videos about working at your company on your Career page, LinkedIn, and YouTube. Use the video to explain your business, and what you have to offer an interested applicant. A professional, and catchy, video also tells applicants you are interested in engaging them through means other than a paper (or electronic) resume.

Be sure to align your website Careers page with your Facebook page to capture interest--and applications--from candidates using Facebook.

2. Use all channels: Utilize different social media channels to target the talent you want. Job boards work--but given the cost of recruiting and onboarding, you benefit from tighter focus

Cultivate industry associations to link to your website, or post your open positions. If you are in a specialty field, you already know where you look for information--post your positions, and website links. Guest blog on forums that interest the talent you want to attract. Build your brand up elsewhere, and pave the road back to your company--and your job opening. The more deeply you integrate into the interest area of your talent, the more likely they are to notice the effort, and check out your company.

You may already use LinkedIn to check or harvest information on the credentials of applicants. Join or create LinkedIn groups that attract the talent you seek. Build buzz around your company--even if you do not have a current open position. When you have openings, your company has a presence--and an edge with candidates already familiar with what you offer.

Use Google+, Facebook, and Twitter to get the word out when you have an opening. One report states 58 percent of job seekers are looking on Twitter. If you have resources to keep your content fresh, establish a presence on these channels as part of your overall content marketing plan. When you have an available position, you gain through the advance work.

3. Save yourself time and money by using your talent to get the word on the wire. Seek referrals from employees of your company, and encourage them to post the opening to qualified candidates on their social media. The best recruiters in your company are engaged, satisfied employees.

4. SEO is the way to go. Wherever you decide to post your open positions, write concise, focused job descriptions. Stick with your actual company needs and position--resist the urge to create burdensome laundry lists of preferred capabilities. For your job postings, website, and social media accounts--be sure to optimize with keywords to increase the chances candidates can find your job.

5. Mind your manners. Be sure to keep your content fresh, and your job postings up to date. If your job opening is filled, take it down, or ensure the position expires on job boards. Be sure your company, or your ATS, generates appropriate, timely correspondence to applicants not chosen for interview. That candidate, or someone they know, may be the top talent for your next opening--be sure to create a high quality application journey.

The talent you are trying to attract is out there--and so is your competition. Integrate your brand, and your job openings, on social media where they are most likely to be seen by the people you want to hire.