Can Social Recruiting Help You Overcome the Skills Gap Dilemma?

By Cheryl Morgan

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The current economy gives any business a reason to hope for big things in the years to come. In fact, during the last few months of 2014, employers added more than a quarter of a million jobs every month. However, many businesses are complaining about the skills gap, and rightfully so. When job openings pop up in certain industries, it can be hard to find candidates with adequate skills to be a good fit for the position. Social recruiting can help overcome this very real human resources challenge.
 

Create Posts That Address the Needed Skills

While your social media posts regarding jobs that are available should vary greatly from post to post, you can do a lot to bring attention to the fact that you need workers with certain skills during the recruitment process. You may start by mentioning how important a skill is in your particular field as it could encourage your current followers to take classes or study up on that skill to boost their employability.

If you know that you simply cannot consider a worker without a certain set of rather rare skills, lead with a description of those skills. For example, if you needed someone who was experience with a more unusual programming language, then make sure this is flagged upfront. Asking your followers if they know anyone with this skill, or where you might go to find people who have it, may provide you with some good leads. 

Also, sharing content related to this skill and using hashtags may help you to connect with people that have experience in this area. There are also tools available that enable you to search for people who are influencers on certain topics, which again could help you to reach out to relevant people whose skills are in demand at your organisation.



You may be able to influence multiple professionals with each social media post.

 

Target Skilled Professionals

Social recruiting norms and traditions are really becoming non-existent before they've even formed. While it may seem unusual to send messages to working professionals directly on social media, it has been done. It would be in poor taste to publicly pursue a professional who is happily employed elsewhere, but it is okay to engage in active industry discussion with any professional in your field. Through doing this you can subtly showcase the opportunities at your company and why you're a great place to work. If you connect with these individuals you're then able to send private messages if you wanted to talk more explicitly about an opportunity that you think they could be a good fit for. 

 

Link to Advice Articles

If you are finding that candidates who are applying for your open positions simply aren't the right fit for what you ultimately want in workers, be sure to make more detailed posts that can showcase your company's work culture, immediate needs, and long-term needs. Make long posts on your business blog regarding the skills that are most in demand at your company at the moment, then be sure to link them far and wide on your social media accounts. This will help raise awareness among recruits.

 

Conclusion

Finally, keep in mind that you can continue to experiment and hone your social recruiting skills to best find candidates with specific skills and talents. Luckily, thanks to the internet, you can easily connect with dedicated professionals of all kinds and work towards filling any possible job within your company. Request an expert consultation to discuss your social strategy and learn how you can improve your skills even more to serve the needs of your company in a changing economy.

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