- October 24, 2017
- HR Services, Interesting Articles, Latest News, Recruitment
- digital marketing, digital recruiting, recruitment, social media
The role of social media in recruitment
Social media is an essential and important part of our modern life.
It digitizes and change the rhythm and ways of communication among people. We, the consultants from Horizons Bulgaria, also actively use them in our everyday work. To some extent they make it easier for us to contact and communicate with candidates and specialists. When we are looking for candidates we use social networking websites as LinkedIn, Facebook, XING, Google+, and Twitter. In Horizons Bulgaria we also use different groups categorized by industry, some are professional, and others grouped by interests with members over 500 people.
LinkedIn and Facebook are the most actively used social media platforms in our work.
There are some major differences between them. On one hand, LinkedIn is a completely professional network. This is not just about personal registrations, but also about the company’s employer branding. The corporate page provides “See Jobs” section, which facilitates the work of recruiters because users can directly apply for open positions. This way LinkedIn becomes a job search platform. On the other hand, Facebook has an informal tone of communication. It is a social media primarily for entertainment and informal information. Based on our experience, if you use this channel to search for suitable candidates, posts with photos and video content are more likely to attract the attention of the audience.
Usually we follow the next steps when posting job advertisements in social networks:
- Post the ad on the official website of Horizons Bulgaria.
- Share the post in our corporate pages in social network websites and in the relevant groups as well. Our post goes together with a link to our page enclosing a photo and a summary of the post/position information.
- Our consultants directly target and contact specialists through their personal professional profiles. They also share posts with job advertisements from their profiles.
And do not forget that it is correct and ethical to answer to all the candidates who contact you. Even if they are not suitable for the position.
Of course, there are risks behind the virtual communication in social networks. Some of them that we encounter in our work are the following:
- One major disadvantage is that the shared information is out of control after posting it and we cannot filter the audience that will see it.
- Sometimes the job ad reaches too many people who do not meet the requirements, but decide to apply. It could be very time-consuming for our specialists to handle all of them.
- There are also cases in our practice when candidates are contacting us regarding a position that is no longer up to date (published several months ago). That is why it’s important to keep track of our channels and to provide systematic and regular information. People often see the job title, but not the date when the message was published.
Here are some good practices from our experience:
- Creativity and non-standard approach are a must in today’s society overwhelmed with information.
- From employer branding and marketing point of view, publications with photo and text reach a larger audience and are more likely to receive a response than the text-only ones. When we publish a post on social networking websites, we often add a short call-to-action text or phrase. We also share a link to our website for more details.
- Good working practice is also the well-known hash tag (#). They help for the better post targeting.
- If the company can afford this, we recommend hiring a digital marketing specialist who will approach professionally and will pay off in the long term. The area of online marketing is dynamic, constantly changing and requires continuous learning and updating. Therefore, such a specialist, in addition to delivering better results, will save valuable time and efforts of company’s consultants or managers.
What works for one company, doesn’t always work for another. It is a good idea to create a social media strategy that matches your recruitment vision. We share the practices that works for us and hope that they are helpful for you too.