As more employers increasingly look to social media as an additional way to engage and attract talent, it was interesting to read about a recent study by recruitment advertising agency, TMP Worldwide, which explored graduates perception of ‘social recruiting’.
The research found that 79% of graduates believed social networking sites were key to employers engaging with them.
42% of graduates said that social media was ideal for conveying an employer brand, although interestingly stated they would not work for employers that “exploited social media” to sell jobs to them. Instead, graduates from the study insisted on a ‘tell not sell’ approach of promoting jobs or employers online.
The research also found that students were actively using social media to research organisations and validate whether their employer brand messages reflected reality.
For example, 30% of graduates reported that they chat with current employees on social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to check if their expectations of a particular employer were met after being taken on.
These figures prove that organisations cannot afford to overlook the value of using social media to recruit and even risk going under the radar of the best talent if they don’t adopt consistent social networking strategies.
To help get you started, here are 5 top tips to think about when you analyse the social media aspect of your recruitment strategy:
- Be transparent. Use social media to let prospective applicants understand what is it like to work within your organisation. But don’t sell what you don’t have.
- Create a user experience. Social media is about creating an open dialogue and building relationships with others, with the end goal of creating an active community. Start conversations that engage your audience and keep them coming back for more.
- Manage your online reputation. Social media is all about word-of-mouth marketing. Share success stories, from an employee’s perspective, about working with your organisation. Highlight your unique knowledge and share useful information with jobseekers that they will share with others.
- ‘Tell not sell’ specific jobs. Give more than just a job posting; provide talent with unique information about your organisation or job. Help jobseekers understand why the job might be the right opportunity. Remember “tell not sell”.
- Keep it consistent. Organisations must be consistent with their online employer brand and maintain the values they promote everywhere else. Make sure employees have a uniform way of describing the organisation on social media sites so jobseekers aren’t confused.
For more top tips on using social media to recruit, please check out our other blog articles below:
How to make your website more social
10 steps to reduce your recruitment costs
Twitter: what is it and how can it be used for recruitment?
10 great tips for using LinkedIn to recruit for free
I hope that you find this article useful and if you have some great ‘social recruiting’ tips and tools to suggest, please drop me an email at carl@jobs.ac.uk and I will include them in future blogs posts on ‘social recruiting’.
Many thanks
Carl Freelove
jobs.ac.uk
