haley marketing logo
Search
Close this search box.

Social Recruiting.

You hear people talking about it all over the staffing industry, but what does it really mean?

Is it posting jobs to Facebook?

Having LinkedIn job slots?

Getting your team to share your jobs on Twitter?


Social is this...and A LOT more.

So what exactly is Social Recruiting?

According to SmartRecruiters, "the term social recruiting was coined in 2008 and is defined as leveraging social media sites and software in order to recruit and hire people."

Social recruiting is NOT just posting jobs to social media. It is about using social touch points (online and even in the real world) to attract and recruit active and passive job seekers.

The Key to Successful Social Recruiting
In a word, STRATEGY!

Social recruiting is about having a strategy to capture the attention of your ideal job candidates, getting people to engage with your company and getting them interested in your jobs (or how you can help them find a better job).

With passive job seekers, social recruiting is more about creating awareness and brand building than it is about jobs and applications. It's about connecting with people, getting them to see your company (and you recruiters) as a trusted resource, and THEN getting these people to think about new or better jobs.

With active job seekers, social recruiting is more about job advertising. It's getting these people to find your jobs, see your organization as one they want to work with, and then getting them to apply or contact you to learn more about the jobs you offer.

Tips and Tactics for Social Recruiting
For this issue of the Idea Club, we asked the team at Haley Marketing to share their favorite practical tactics for social recruiting. Here's what they shared:

  1. Focus on passive job seekers - share content that addresses the pain points of someone who's open to new opportunities, but not actively looking for a job (e.g., hate my boss, no appreciated, underpaid, bad schedule, no opportunities for advancement).
  2. Test the direct job posting features on Facebook (free) and LinkedIn (paid).
  3. Got millennials? The under 30 crowd is mostly on Instagram and Snap. Direct job posts won't typically get much response on these platforms, so rather than post jobs, create "stories" about your candidates, your culture and the cool jobs your clients offer.
  4. Check out Facebook groups. Search for groups that target your ideal job candidates. There are groups for jobs in almost every city and groups for people with specific career interests. Share your jobs in all relevant local and industry-specific Facebook Groups.
  5. Create eye-catching "Now Hiring" images to attract active job seekers.
  6. Try live Q&A on Instagram or Periscope to address common questions related to the hiring process, benefits, etc. Become a resource in your community for career advice.
  7. Show off your culture on social (e.g., employee of the Month, birthdays, office parties, etc.).
  8. Create a persona (i.e., a profile that defines common demographic characteristics, personality traits, interests, challenges and attitudes) for each type of candidate you want to recruit on social. When you take the time to define personas, you can better target your recruiting messages.
  9. Make your candidates the "heroes" of your content. Feature the stories of candidates you've placed; highlight successful temporary associates in the field.
  10. Create a custom hashtag for candidates to use to find your open jobs ex: #BuffaloJobs #FloridaNursingJobs.
  11. Use better/more fun referral incentives (e.g., Refer someone and receive a ticket in a drawing to win one big monthly prize. Or refer someone and receive one free sick day).
  12. Promote hot jobs with live video on Facebook or LinkedIn.
  13. Allow your recruiters to "take over" your social media pages for the day. Show off "A day in the life of working with XYZ Staffing."
  14. Create a scavenger hunt for your candidates and promote on social media—"Find the golden paycheck somewhere in the city and bring it in for a prize."
  15. Have your recruiters use Snapchat or Instagram stories to say what they look for on resumes, during job interviews, after the interview.
  16. Have your recruiters tag candidates they work with on job postings on Facebook, so your job posts show up in their newsfeed, and it feels like the recruiter is thinking about them.
  17. Pay to promote your content! Put some paid reach behind your social recruiting efforts to target your content to the exact audience you're trying to recruit.
  18. Leverage your ATS. Export all the candidates you have placed over the last few years and use that to build a look-alike audience you can target with your content and advertising.
  19. Create video testimonials of placed candidates talking about their experience with your staffing firm.
  20. Create short (5-7 second) snap video ads designed to appeal to younger job seekers. Use these videos to show off your culture or share interesting content.
  21. Connect with 25 people every day on LinkedIn, sorting by location, industry, or current company and direct recruit individuals for roles your sourcing.
  22. Use LinkedIn video as an opportunity to showcase expertise and build trust with your audience. Create one to three-minute educational videos once a week designed to help job seekers achieve their goals.
  23. Use the comment sections on social media platforms; encourage your followers to tag friends who are looking for jobs to create a social referral system.
  24. Share blog content relevant to passive job seekers into social media groups, giving passive job seekers an avenue to engage with your company before applying for a job.
  25. Host an AMA on Reddit.
  26. Solicit questions on Twitter from job seekers to answer on YouTube or sharing other video on Facebook or LinkedIn. Better yet, use the video in all three places!
  27. Launch a YouTube channel with career tips for job seekers (look at format of Legal Eagle and Dr. Mike for format ideas).
  28. Leverage the interests of the folks in your team to reach people. Some may gravitate towards Facebook, while others prefer LinkedIn, while others still "get" Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat. Create a social strategy and let your team implement it on the platforms where they are experts.
  29. Provide ongoing training to your team to ensure they understand your social recruiting strategy—and know how to use the tools effectively. Consider a "lunch and learn" model for cross training the folks in your company.
  30. Build a remarketing audience on Facebook through the amount of time a user watches a video. For example, if someone watches 50 percent of a video, they go into your paid advertising audience.
  31. Use social media to build private talent communities. You can do this on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube—be sure to choose the platforms that are most relevant for your ideal candidates. As your audience grows, drive people to jobs, job alerts and your company newsletter or other ongoing communication.
  32. To build followers on social media create interesting content and then sponsor your content to reach your target audience. What's interesting content? Anything the resonates with your audience! Here are few ideas:
    1. Videos that profile your clients and the interesting job assignments you offer.
    2. Videos that introduce your recruiters.
    3. Pictures that show off your culture and the how you treat candidates.
    4. Infographics that explain how to get hired with your firm.
    5. Instagram and Facebook stories that celebrate the work your temporaries do.
    6. Press releases about your community service.
    7. Blog posts that show off social value of staffing services and how you put people to work.
    8. eBooks and guides to getting promoted / getting a raise.
    9. Free training course or videos.
  33. Encourage your employees and your candidates to "Tag and Share" content, so your content will get shared with their friends...and people who are actively looking for work.
  34. Have your recruiters (and sales people) block of 10 minutes a day to like, share and comment on your company content. The more engagement you create with your own content, the more others will see your content in their feeds.
  35. Have recruiters record a series of videos interviewing people who have been placed on jobs and what their experience was like working with your agency.
  36. Prepare a plan for how you will choose to address negative comments on social media - handling these responsibly will help leave a good impression for new people learning about your services on social and can help clean up your profiles.
  37. Get proactive about reputation management. In staffing, negative reviews on Google, Indeed and Facebook are inevitable (you can't place or please everyone). To combat negative reviews, implement a proactive feedback collection program with every candidate you interview. Collect testimonials and ask for reviews from the happy ones...and provide a PRIVATE feedback look for the people who aren't so happy.

    Need help with Reputation Management? We do that! Haley Marketing's Reputation Management services make it easy to get the feedback you need!

  38. Go social with referral programs. Promote your referral incentives via social media. Use direct messaging to ask for referrals. Celebrate referrals who get placed. Show off the rewards you provide. Make sure referral program promotion is part of your monthly social marketing calendar! (You do have a content calendar, right???)
  39. Create an alumni network. Setup a group on Facebook or LinkedIn for people you've placed in the past. Nurture the group with educational content. Celebrate people's birthdays and service anniversaries. And encourage reactivations and referrals.
  40. Divide and conquer. Effective social recruiting is a lot of work. It starts with a sound strategy, and then you want to get everyone on the team involved in building your talent networks, sharing content, and maximizing your social reach.

Need help with Social Recruiting?

That's why we're here! From strategy to blogging, video, infographic and other content creation to our award-winning Social Pro service, Haley Marketing is here to help you develop...and implement...the best social recruiting strategy for your firm.

Contact us at 1.888.696.2900 or [email protected] for more information.