Social Recruiting: Three Companies That Got it Right

By Robert Conrad

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The ultimate goal of the recruiting process is to find the best talent to fill vacancies. With printed ads giving way to seemingly endless digital job forums, it’s easy to get buried or miss your intended audience, even with a beautifully written job description.

To combat this, some businesses have harnessed social media in unique ways to attract potential candidates. Notable approaches include posting pictures of interviews being conducted in a ball pit to offering unique benefits through publicly announced partnerships.

Below are three examples of employers who have successfully embraced social media as a means of improving recruitment.

 

Zappos

(Image courtesy of Social Media Examiner)

Yes, that is a job interview being conducted in a ball pit and posted on the company’s Twitter account for all to see. It’s obvious that Amazon-owned online retailer Zappos takes great pride in its unique company culture, and leverages it to attract customers and potential employees.

To make it more visible, Zappos utilizes two separate Twitter accounts, @eyezapp and @InsideZappos, to show visitors what it’s like to work for them and host the #InsideZappos tweetchat respectively. What makes this chat unique is that it engages employees in a way that’s transparent and encourages them to participate while other employers are locking down social media usage during work hours.

Zappos even goes so far as to formally train employees how to use Twitter and maintains a leaderboard to track usernames and followers. The result? A sustained and transparent social media presence primarily ran by employees that has boosted their sales, reputation and branding.

Consider tearing a page from Zappos’ book if you want to highlight your awesome company culture and empower your employees. Both of these traits are highly attractive to potential hires who may see a random tweet and consider applying.

 

Nokia

The Finnish telecommunications giant has employed a similar social recruitment strategy. Utilizing Socialcast, Nokia encourages its employees to share their experiences and opinions online through tools like Socialcast and Agora. The premise of their social recruitment strategy is to use the resulting content for:

  1. Sourcing new talent.
  2. Building an online community.
  3. Generating a buzz through sharing brand messages publicly.

What makes this approach effective is that Nokia’s own employees are creating an organic platform that is approachable and above all, real. The general public would be more inclined to believe the natural comments of current employees as opposed to a formal statement, whose static nature alone prohibits organic discussion.

Nokia makes employee satisfaction, the effective use of social media, and knowledge of world events top priorities in their everyday operations. At this point, it almost makes sense for any employer to satisfy their employees so that they’ll not only be excited to come into work, but will gladly share their positive experiences with anyone who’ll listen.

 

Starbucks

(Image courtesy of Twitter)

Recently, the Seattle-based coffeehouse chain was recognized by Fortune as a company that is changing the world. One of the ways that they are doing this is through its recently expanded partnership with Arizona State University. Where Starbucks used to only offer 2 years of paid tuition to juniors or seniors, they are now offering 100% tuition coverage for all four years of ASU’s online Bachelor’s degree programs to eligible Starbucks Partners (employees).

Neither institution has been shy about sharing news of their partnership online, with Starbucks making the official announcement via Twitter on April 6th, 2015.

As a result of this expansion, Starbucks has successfully created a social recruitment strategy that will get more prospects in the door, not only for them but for ASU as well. Much like Zappos and Nokia, Starbucks is also creating an environment that employees are encouraged to share publicly while also thrusting their company culture into the spotlight. The only difference is that it doesn’t come off as “sales-y”.

 

Keep it Natural

If you’re looking to get qualified candidates into your organization, you need to make sure that your current employees are satisfied. By providing these candidates a firsthand glimpse into your company culture, they will have to chance to assess whether they would be a good fit or not.

The moral of the story: stay classy, transparent and social.

 

The kind of stuff that Social Hire do...

At Social Hire, we don't just do social.

What the Social Hire gang loves is making a difference for our clients, and we don't want to waste your, or our resources on campaigns that aren't right for your organisation, if it doesn't get your organisation the difference you need - we prefer a better approach. When your business utilises social media management, Social Hire get your brand the exposure it needs and offer your business the lift it needs to improve.

We're an organisation that helps our clients boost their social media marketing by offering social media marketing on a monthly basis.

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