Attracting Employees with Social Media

Social media is a great way to reach customers and prospects–and it’s also a great way to recruit qualified employees. Conversely, just as customers will research you and your products via social media, potential employees will use social media tools to research your company.

As always, social media proves to be a two-way street, and today’s businesses need to navigate those streets effectively to compete.

How can you harness social media as a recruiting tool?

Reaching Potential Employees via Social Media

Social media is effective for reaching both active and passive prospective employees. You want to attract people in the industry as followers, whether or not they are job seeking. If they’re following you, odds are that they align with your values. When they do show up for an interview, they’ll already have a pretty clear sense of your business and culture.

Acknowledge your employees and their achievements publicly via social media. Candidates want a workplace where they’re appreciated. Use images: if a candidate can picture themselves in your workplace and among their future colleagues, they’ll take a more enthusiastic interest in the position.

Emphasize employee benefits via social media: conferences, educational opportunities, professional advancement and fun times are all worth sharing. You never know whether your monthly break-room karaoke fest or your industry awards will be just the thing to attract someone.

Participate in pertinent conversations. LinkedIn groups and hashtags can help you get your message in front of the right people, and you can also do some passive recruiting, make connections with bright stars and influencers in the industry. They might share your future job postings, or take an interest themselves.

A Social Media Presence which Attracts Candidates

Social media is a great tool for revealing company culture. Whether through words, pictures or shares, you can help curious candidates form an accurate view of what it’s like to work for you. The transparency alone is likely to score some points, and it’s imperative not to sugar-coat your workplace. For harmonious matches, be authentic. Whether you’re a beer-and-pizza-on-Friday kind of employer or strictly business-casual or better five days a week, make that clear on your feed. Likewise, a modern open workplace will appeal to some people, while traditional offices are essential to others. Candidates will self-select in or out of your applicant pool, which is exactly what you want.

Encourage employees to participate in social media. It shouldn’t stop at simply sharing job openings–they’re also valuable cultural ambassadors, and studies suggest employees have exponentially more credibility to the public than either CEOs or brand websites.

Different Channels for Recruiting Versus Marketing

You’ll want to establish different channels for reaching out to potential employees than to potential customers. Crossover will persist, and that’s fine, but focusing on your HR side will consolidate that message. For example, Disney uses #LifeAtDisney for general discussions and #disneyjobs for job postings.

Find an original hashtag you can adopt, and also use relevant hashtags used specifically by job seekers, including #job, #jobs, #jobhunt, #jobsearch, #jobopening #employment, #careers, and more.

Career-specific hashtags will help you reach an even broader audience, such as #designers, #engineers, or #manufacturing. Don’t forget a location hashtag for your city and/or state.