Online recruitment via social media: 7 practical tips
Today, social media are so anchored in our society that they are impossible to imagine. Business use of social media has also been on the rise for years - and still is. An interesting aspect is the use of social media in your online recruitment. Your potential candidates come together on social media and tell you, for free and for nothing, their interests, skills and the network that they take with them. Indispensable information for online recruitment marketing.
A good recruiter would respond flawlessly to that information, to address the desired candidates in the most relevant way possible. But how do you approach that in a strategic, effective way, that recruiting via social media? And if you have never done it, how do you actually start recruiting on social media? In the latter case, by the way, you belong to the last eight percent of employers who still do not use social media in recruitment, so: work on the shop!
Online recruitment with social media: 7 tips
Before we burst out with our social media tips for you online recruitment, we are happy to give you general advice for using social media. Social recruitment is just like recruitment human work. It is communication between peers. That means that you also listen as a company, and that when you make a mistake you just say sorry. Certainly if you are just starting out with social media, you can have a certain image with How it should be. Let that go, just be your professional self. Using social media is also just a matter of do, learn, adapt. Are you ready for it? Here are our seven tips for online recruitment with social media:
1. Determine your target group
Before you can even start recruiting via social media, you need to know what type of candidate you actually want to attract. That directly determines the image that you want to ventilate through your social media. Maybe your company already has an 'online identity' on social media? Then you normally agree with this, but it does not relieve you of the obligation to think about the type of employee that is needed. Often this will also be described in the vacancy text, assuming that such a text is your starting point.
2. Choose the right social media for your recruitment
Online recruiting is more complicated than scrolling profiles on LinkedIn. Of course LinkedIn is the most logical platform to launch your recruitment campaign, but nowadays it is anything but strange to recruit via Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. Which medium fits best with the type of person you are looking for? You can speak to young creative people via Instagram rather than LinkedIn, just to mention an example. Where is your target group located? Your campaign must be there.
3. Ensure that the mission and culture of your company are clearly visible online
Just as your candidates have a profile and therefore an image on a social medium, so does your company. With an unpolished profile you never recruit the perfect candidate. Take a critical look at your presence on the various social media: are the profiles and information up to date? Connect everything to your current one identity? Is this a good, appealing reflection of your company? If so, then you're all set.
4. Take an active attitude
The best candidate for your vacancy is probably not unemployed. Throwing a vacancy online and waiting for the letters is a thing of the past. You will have to take an active attitude and look for yourself to recruit that perfect candidate on social media. Use, on LinkedIn, the many filter options that allow you to create a database with candidates who have the skills, education and work experience you are looking for in no time. You get the resumes for free. Oh, and by the way: this whole process is free of charge!
5. Do your homework with social media
Don't get fooled by just a nice resume on LinkedIn. People on LinkedIn realize that employers are looking over their shoulders. Is that positively-critical, fresh young man up? Twitter and / or Facebook just as positively critical? Mapping how your - at first glance - ideal candidate presents himself online is not espionage. You can see what people share publicly online and you can therefore accept it for notification.
6. Deploy your own employees
Your company has no network - your employees have a network. Use it. If the staff of your company express themselves positively on social media and bring open vacancies to the attention in the right way, that will appear much more effective than if your corporate account had to do this on its own. So let your most committed employees do their bit - they will only love it if it turns out to be successful.
7. Be patient, be creative and listen to feedback
Just like customers, not all candidates go ice cream overnight, especially if you first have to let them go at another employer. With a couple here and there you are therefore not nearly there. Provide a continuous one campaign in which you keep reinventing yourself. Highlight different sides of your company (culture), use different media and be creative. Oh, and don't forget to stay in touch with the outside world! If your campaign stands out, you will receive continuous (free!) Feedback. Learn from it, use it, and more importantly: respond to it.
Can you then have a healthy dose of patience? Then you will find that you are slowly but surely entering into substantive discussions with the people you are looking for. In the end, that is many times more valuable than an uncomfortable job interview on the late Friday afternoon, right?
More tips about social media for online recruitment?
+ Seven tips for more followers of your LinkedIn company page
+ Six practical tips for using Facebook for recruitment
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