What Talent Acquisition Managers/Recruiters and Hiring Managers need to know: Insight on how to use social media platforms to recruit!

First and foremost, Recruiters and TA (Talent Acquisition) needs a sound and manageable strategies to ensure a long-term employee engagement and here is how:

Before your organization can develop recruitment strategies, it needs to get recruiters, HR, and leadership on the same page with this simple question. The answer is usually more complicated than simply “to hire top talent”, because recruiting affects many parts of your organization in different ways. Your team will need to come to a unified understanding before you can find candidates that will stay in your organization while staying engaged with your organization. 

This collaboration is essential, because everyone at the recruiting table has different needs and priorities: Hiring managers have the most invested in this process. The recruitment need comes from turnover or growth, they feel the pain that comes from being short-staffed. They are concerned with finding someone who can perform the skills needed to do the job and finding them quickly. Finance departments want long-term sustainability in their staffing budgets. They want to keep labor costs to a reasonable percentage of your organization’s revenue based on your industry. Leadership wants to make sure that each department and team has enough capacity to accomplish your organization’s mission and objectives. Short-staffing on one team can affect the organization’s workflow, leading to bottlenecks that make collaboration delays worse. Leadership also wants to keep turnover from becoming a larger narrative in the organization with the risk of poor experiences spreading to other teams. And Recruiters? Recruiters want to do their jobs well by finding the right candidates with the right skills, the right salary requirements, and the right soft skills, all as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, this balancing act can lead everyone involved to overlook the most important person in the recruitment process: the candidate. Candidates always matter, but in today’s employment market, the employee experience can make all the difference in finding and keeping great people with your organization.

Did you know that job openings outnumbered available candidates for the first time in 15 years. This shift in supply and demand means that candidates can be selective about where they work, holding out for opportunities that align with their personal and career goals. To attract and keep these employees, your organization’s recruitment strategies need to shift to match the current market. With the right understanding and support, recruiters can satisfy hiring managers, finance, and leadership while doing their best to find candidates whose expectations fit with the reality of the position.

The hiring manager outlines the basics for the position in the job ad, the recruiters put it out on the market, and they end up with a great catch: we’ll call him Mike. Not only does Mike meet the basic requirements, but he grows into the role. His unique talents start to make a difference in his department and in the organization as a whole. The hiring manager for Mike's team decides that she wants another Mike. But she can’t put “basically another Mike” in the job ad no one will know what she’s talking about. So she updates the job ad and emphasizes some of Mike's unique qualifications in the picture she paints of the position. It’s not an exact picture of Mike, but it includes a lot of Mike's “nice-to-haves.” Unfortunately, candidates can’t see the underlying requirements of the job description. They only see what you post. In this example, the caricature of Mike overemphasizes the nice-to-haves at the expense of a clear outline of key qualifications for the job. Based on what she emphasized and where she posted it, this manager ended up with a completely different species of job candidate, one that won’t be happy for long in Mike's environment. The key to developing an effective job description is to start with the essential job requirements instead of a list of a current team member’s attributes or a standard description copied directly from the Internet. Identifying the specifics of job requirements takes time and Recruitment Strategies For Long-Term Employee Engagement thought. But it’s the first step to finding a candidate that fits the reality of the job.

Did you know that recruitment strategies are most effective when candidates understand as much as possible about your organization, your organization understands each candidate, and both sides have the opportunity to grow from a shared experience. As recruiting becomes an extension of your organization’s overall strategy, it becomes easier to create these experiences.

How to Recruit on Social Media:

Every company should develop its own unique social media recruiting strategy. Here are a few basic ideas your company can use to get started:

● Participate in the right conversations. The key to recruiting on social media is to cut through the noise and find the right people. Being active in LinkedIn groups and using hashtags are great ways to get your job openings in front of candidates you want to apply. For example, #devjobs or #NYChiring can help you reach the right candidates on Twitter.

● Take a soft approach and promote your culture. Social media recruiting goes beyond posting open roles from company accounts. You should also share content that shows your company is a great place to work so you can organically attract candidates. People love talking about companies with unique cultures, so this type of content often gets a lot of shares.

● Don’t overlook the niche networks. Sure, everyone and their parents are on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter these days. But you can find specific candidates by perusing niche networks and forums.

● Involve every employee. You likely have some social media power users in your workplace. Encourage your entire staff to share openings and, in general, be an evangelist for your brand on social media. Some companies have strict social media rules but allowing your employees to talk about their work experiences in a responsible manner can pique the curiosity of a potential candidate.

● Help your recruiters grow a social media presence. Corporate accounts can only accomplish so much. Individual recruiters can make person-to-person connections with candidates but should first know social media best practices and use their accounts on a regular basis.

LinkedIn Recruiting Tips:

Out of all the social media networks, LinkedIn is, of course, the best one for recruiting. Nearly everyone with an established career has a profile on the “World’s Largest Professional Network.” You can use the site to attract active candidates and connect with passive ones. Here are a few tips for getting started at LinkedIn recruiting.

● Fully complete your brand page. A completed company page shows up in LinkedIn search results and gives you the opportunity to showcase your company culture. Job searchers will find the page, see your openings and learn everything they need to know about your organization.

● Use filters to find the right candidates. Since there are so many people on LinkedIn, recruiters can use filters to find potential candidates. For example, you can search by location, current and past company, years of experience, and a number of other factors that help you zero-in on candidates who check all the boxes.

● Reach out with a personal touch. Experienced and talented people hear from a lot of recruiters on LinkedIn. Don’t copy and paste the same message to everyone you try to connect with. Instead, mention what about the candidate caught your attention and made you think they would be a good fit for your company. The Benefits of Social Media Recruiting The idea businesses can recruit and hire using social media is no longer a gimmick. It’s now a vital channel for sourcing candidates and promoting company culture. Here are some benefits of using social media in your recruiting efforts:

● Reach the elusive passive candidate. Social media is the best way to find and connect with passive candidates. LinkedIn is essentially a directory of professionals organized by industry, company, job title and a number of other categories.

● See talent and passion firsthand. Many people use social media to make it known they love their career. You can find passionate people and learn what amazing work they’ve done and creative ideas they have.

● Get resumes details without a resume. On LinkedIn, and to some extent Facebook, you can view a person’s complete work and education history. You’ll know if a candidate has the experience the role calls for before you reach out to them.

● Find a great culture fit. Social media allows you to learn what a person’s hobbies are and even conclude what sort of personality they have. You can find candidates who are skilled and will also be a good fit for your workplace.

● Filter out bad candidates. Some people behave poorly on social media. You can determine if a potential candidate has a bad attitude by seeing what they share online.

● Save money. Unless you promote job openings through paid campaigns, social media recruiting is completely free.