An Introduction to Social Media Recruitment

The recent explosion in social media has resulted in growing numbers of recruiters using it as a talent sourcing tool. Social media is beginning to offer a compelling online recruitment tool for the employer recruiter.

So far, social media recruitment has largely been confined to professional recruiters and larger corporates but smaller companies with more limited resources should also consider including a social media element in their online recruitment strategy.

What is Social Media?

It is hard to define exactly what Social Media is other than by pointing at well-known websites like Facebook, Linkedin, Myspace, Youtube etc. But in an attempt to clarify things we can say that all of these websites, forums or mobile platforms share the common feature of offering people a place to connect, to share opinions, experiences, contacts, knowledge, expertise as well as other things like, for example, jobs and career tips.

Why use social networks to recruit?

The majority of employers recruiting online use their own website and job boards to recruit. Indeed, using job boards is by far the most common and effective method of recruiting online. Job boards work because they bring recruiters in contact with people who are looking for new jobs.

But what about people who are already in a job and are happy in that job but who, if the right opportunity came along, might be tempted? Obviously, such people are not on job boards and are not looking at your careers website because they are not actively looking for a new job. How do you reach these 'passive' candidates? That's where social media recruitment comes in. Social media gives you access to the passive candidate.

In a report published by ComScore in July 2009, it was estimated that 80 percent of the total U.K. online population visit social network sites at least once a month and do so for an average of 4.6 hours. Clearly, if you want to reach passive candidates social networks would seem to be an obvious place to start.

Using social media to recruit

In spite of all the buzz about the technology, you'll be glad to know that social recruiting is really just another way of doing traditional recruitment:

1: Referrals

Typically, recruiters use social networks and their contacts within those social networks to get candidate referrals. A person on Facebook might not actually be looking for a new job but if a friend tells them about an opportunity they might be tempted. A tweet for referrals on Twitter can be especially effective.

2: Job Posting

Yep, we are back to job posting. If your company has a page or group on Facebook that attracts some traffic you could use it to promote your live vacancies. Whether you post a job on your profile page, add a discussion in a relevant group in Linkedin or tweet the job vacancy on Twitter, you'll be promoting your job posting to many more of those valuable passive candidates.

3: Sourcing

Many recruiters use social networks to actively search for relevant candidates. Searching for software developers on Facebook may bring back excellent candidates. Linkedin offers the same possibility. Twitter allows you to find people interested in a particular topic and, in all likelihood, expert in that topic. Indeed, any social network or social media outlet will provide opportunities for recruiters to source. The key is to source wisely.

Targeting your campaign

You should always approach your social media recruitment campaign in the same way that you approach any online marketing campaign. Choose the right social media platform for your audience. Beyond the obvious generalist social networks like Facebook and Linkedin, there are thousands of smaller niche communities, blogs, groups and other platforms that might offer a more targeted audience.

Obviously, in an introductory article like this we are limited in what we can cover. However, we hope we have shown you just some of the possible reasons why you can and should use social media as part of your online recruitment campaign.

Next steps? Read these articles

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