Social Recruiting: Why Recruiters Simply Can’t Afford To Be Left Behind

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For every Recruiter or HR Manager who’s incorporated social recruiting into their recruiting strategy, my own experience says there are dozens more who have not. Let’s be clear, incorporating social recruiting into your recruitment strategy means far more than just having established a handful of social media profiles.
 

The purpose of this article is to lay on the line the key reasons recruiters can’t afford to be left behind in the race to establish a true social recruiting strategy. Articles in the coming weeks will build on each of these points and help inform readers’ understanding of new ways their social recruiting strategies can be taken to the next level.
 

The 5 key elements of a powerful social recruiting presence

1. Engaging rather than selling. Social media provides the means to start a conversation with candidates who could be of interest as hires, or who could be advocates who spread the word about your roles to others. Too many use social media as simply another advertising channel for pushing job adverts - and in the process only scratch the surface of the potential this new medium offers.
 

2. Prompting candidate interest earlier in the decision cycle. When implemented well, social media will have you talking to candidates when they’re at the very earliest stages of considering a career move. Indeed your interactions may even be the first spark prompting them to consider a change of career. Crucially this means you will have candidates primed and interested before there is even the need within the business to make a particular hire.
 

3. Being responsive. Ask candidates what their biggest dissatisfaction with online recruiting has been and there’s a good chance the reply will be some variant of the “black hole”. That’s to say having invested time and energy researching and applying to opportunities, only to hear nothing back. Social media gives us the opportunity to differentiate ourselves as recruiters who are responsive - and that needn’t involve more resource if implemented correctly.

4. Building up an asset for you / your business. A following of interested and qualified candidates is a huge asset for any recruiter. If building your database of candidate CVs / resumes is old school, building a following of candidates is the modern day social media equivalent. There are so many exciting aspects to this which will be explored fully in the coming weeks, but for starters this is a candidate pool that you can call on to fill opportunities at absolutely no cost - a candidate audience you can reach out to irrespective of the budget you have available to you in the future.
 

5. Enhancing the prospects of hires successfully integrating into your business. By giving candidates more insights into your business - its culture, the pros, the cons, future work colleagues - social media can significantly impact the ratio of successful hires your business makes. That in itself is quite some prize.

These are my thoughts on the key elements of an effective social recruiting presence - and I’ll be expanding on each in a series of articles over the coming weeks. But what would you add to the list? Do use the comments field below to share your thoughts.