Many of today’s top job candidates will turn to the convenience of social media to find their ideal posting, and this is why it is so essential for recruiters and employers to understand how to mobilize this fact to advantage. However, despite social media being indispensably intertwined with almost every aspect of a running business, many employers are still uncomfortable using social media to fuel their recruitment campaign.
That said, learning how to embrace those popular platforms like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn can go a long way to not only dramatically increasing the pool of candidates available, including providing access to a broad range of passive as well as active candidates, but also streamlining the ins and outs of the entire recruitment process itself.
It is also important to keep in mind that, just like any valuable tool, social media recruitment campaigns have to be mobilized properly in order to be effective, and there are some all-too-common mistakes that employers and recruiters make that will ultimately limit both the reach and effectiveness of their social media campaign.
So with that in mind, the question is, what are the biggest social media recruitment blunders and how can they be avoided? Read on to find out.
1. Only Using Social Media to Post Job Openings
Campaigning to fill a position can eat up a lot of extra hours during the day, and during this especially busy time, it can be all too easy for employers to let their social media page fall by the wayside. If this is the case, they will probably post the job opening, but neglect posting anything else that might continue to draw interest.
However, using a social media page simply as a job posting site will probably serve to decrease traffic to the site, therefore, significantly limiting the available pool of candidates to choose from as well as the overall effectiveness of the recruitment strategy as a whole.
This is because, in order to stay relevant, generate clicks, attract new interest and continue to show up at the top of every subscriber’s home feed, businesses need to be posting the type of information, video clips, and other types of stuff that people will actually be interested in learning about.
Another key to running a page that really draws traffic is to cash in the opportunity to actively engage with the feedback, and this means checking in with all those social media accounts on a regular basis as well as being prepared to spontaneously respond. If a page is smattered with occasional job postings and job postings alone, it is hardly likely to attract the type of casual interest that will bring in more visits and more clicks, and thus, significantly the number of people who actually look at the page, let alone bother to apply.
The good news is that this all too common mistake can be easily avoided when recruiters commit to taking the time to consistently posting valuable, interesting and informative content about their brand. A company page provides a one-of-a-kind opportunity to share more than just job postings, but also a company’s story, philosophy and what they are really about, so don’t hesitate to take advantage.
2. Using a One-Size-Fits-All Recruitment Angle
Anybody who wants to find the ideal candidate to fill a position has to take a bit of time to sit back and think about who that candidate will actually be and the type of skills that they will bring to the forefront. This is a golden rule of running a successful recruitment strategy in general, and when it comes to effectively mobilizing something like social media that has a much wider reach than traditional recruitment methods, it just becomes all the more important.
If employers fail to clearly define who the right person to fill the specific position in question actually is, they will not only attract the type of candidates that are not well-suited to the job, but also minimize the chances of drawing in the types of candidates that actually boast the types of skills that are a perfect fit.
So, while at first glance, it may seem temptingly efficient to develop a general approach to social media recruitment and stick to it each and every time there is a new position to be filled, this type of approach will more often than not simply result in dumping tons of extra hours into filtering through the wrong type of candidates.
Rather, it is a much smarter approach to mobilize highly targeted candidate personas of the ideal candidate that clearly outline the essential traits that the ideal person for this specific type of job and well as any other relevant qualifications like education, employment history and specialized skill sets.
3. Failing to Mobilize Performance Tracking Tools
No matter how great a strategy is, there is always room for improvement, and social media recruitment strategies are no exception. This is why anybody who is failing to track their concrete performance during their campaign is missing out on a valuable opportunity to continue to build an unbeatable strategy that will translate to long term success.
This entails using performance and tracking analyzing tools not only to set concrete goals and stick with them but also to obtain valuable data that can point out areas for improvement. By continuing to tailor and optimize a social media recruitment strategy for the long term, employers will be much more likely to be in a position to attract top-notch candidates in the future.
So what is the fix? To start clearly defining the metrics that are to be hit and then continue tracking the progress of the campaign in terms of these concrete goals. Some important factors to keep in mind include looking at what platforms generate the most traffic and why tracking source-of-hire metrics to understand where most successful hires are coming from and mobilizing engagement metrics to stay on top of a follower or subscriber count.
Taking the Next Step
One of the coolest things about social media marketing is that it can open employers up to the type of employees that they might not otherwise have access to. This can be an especially effective way to post immigration ads since when it comes to the Internet, international boundaries generally don’t apply.
However, it is also important for employers who might plan on sponsoring a foreign national to fill a position that they might have to complete the PERM advertising process, including posting permanent labor certification ads, in order to obtain a green card. If this is the case, they will want to be sure to reach out to an agency who specializes in PERM advertising to make sure they do it right.
