Last year, Forbes named 2013 The Year of Social HR – underlining the necessity of making online networking an integral part of your recruiting strategy. Social media has revolutionized the way people communicate and how
organizations and workplaces operate. Candidate sourcing, hiring and retention are no exception.
- 89 percent of companies use social media for recruiting, up from 83 percent a year ago.
- Last year, 14.4 million people used social media to find a job.
- Social recruitment leads to cost reductions of at least 30 percent.
As noted by one industry expert, “social recruitment is the ultimate levelling of the playing field. It allows small companies and large companies alike to go head to head on employer brand, despite budget differences.”
Social media provides:
- Broader and more targeted reach for your job postings.
- Continuous communication with your talent pool.
- Proactive searches.
Having a robust, well-strategized online presence means you can communicate exactly what you’re seeking in candidates, this optimizing efficiency and minimizing costs.
How to Make It Happen
To optimize social media as a recruitment tool, go where the candidates are. Determine where the applicants you want are sharing their information, focusing both on the larger, more well-known sites like LinkedIn and industry-specific platforms and blogs.
- Engage your current workforce. When building your online candidate network, start with your most invested resource: your current employees. Make everyone – or at least all of your top performers – a recruiter. Internal recommendations are a great way to find the best talent. Encourage them to broadcast job openings in their LinkedIn and Facebook status updates. This expands your reach to candidates not directly connected to your company. Don’t forget to offer referral bonuses as warranted.
- Strategically use LinkedIn. Keep your company and personal pages current. Build your network by connecting with current and former colleagues. LinkedIn enables you to cultivate relationships with passive and industry-specific candidates before you need to hire them.
- Strive for quality versus quantity. Continuously grow your network, but keep your strategic goals in mind. Build a network of professionals who are both qualified and interested in working for you today and in the future. Social media is a two-way street. You’re seeking great candidates and top talent is looking for their dream job. Provide job seekers with an accurate, attractive view of your organization and why they’d want to work there.
Ready or not, here it is. Social media is the wave of the present and the key to the future. So embrace it and use it to your ongoing advantage. To learn more about successful social media and related recruitment techniques, read our related posts or contact the experienced recruiters at PrideStaff Modesto today.
