Three easy ways to use social media for better recruitment

If you’re flat-out running your small business and desperately need help attracting candidates to your vacancies, you’re not alone. Millions of businesses across the globe are struggling to find and hire new team members that fit the bill. But, not everyone is leveraging the power of social media to full effect. We’re going to help you get started with a small time investment that’s bound to generate great results. 

Major platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok are available for free and used by millions and millions of people, young and old, every day.

We’re not just talking about stalking potential hires and sussing out their profiles, either. We’re talking about reaching out to passive candidates and building a talent pool with your posts.

Not only are we going to share tips to use social media for better recruitment; but we’re also going to teach you how to promote your business’s brand as a great employer and create a community of candidates who actually want to work with you.

How to use social media for better recruitment

Don’t panic. We’re also a small business. We’re not going to tell you that the only way to recruit socially is to pour days and days into your Facebook profile. We understand that small business owners and operators are time-poor and need to get great results in good time. So rest assured that these tips are going to be easy, accessible, and light on your budget.

1. Celebrate your employer brand

Employer branding is easier to understand – and build – than you might expect. Essentially, your employer brand is the reputation your business has from the perspective of potential employees. It’s also understood as the values you give to your employees. Considering this, you can imagine how important it is to have a good, strong employer brand! You want people to want to work with you.

There are several ways you can use social media to build your brand as an employer:

• Dedicate a couple of posts a month, at least, to showcasing your culture, benefits, values, and team.
• We all love stories about people, so you could get your current team members to tell success stories in text or on video and share these with your audience.
• Introduce your team members and their roles to your audience, and share behind-the-scenes pictures of your team hard at work, having fun, or celebrating milestones together.
• Post some of this content to your business page’s story, if available, as this generates more engagement and pushes you up in the algorithm, too!

2. Create a recruitment community

You may already post your vacancies on your business’s social media accounts, but you could take it a step further. Rather than clog your main page with job posts, consider creating a branded Facebook or LinkedIn group to share your vacancies with a dedicated group of interested candidates. Alternatively, you could join existing jobseeker groups to tap into an existing group of eager potential employees.

There are a couple of ways to funnel candidates into your recruitment community, such as:

• Directing anyone who expresses interest in working with you to your branded group;
• Making an occasional social post that directs jobseekers to your talent community (with lots of #nowhiring hashtags);
• Asking for expressions of interest in your branded community; and,
• Promoting your recruitment community in relevant networks and social media groups (if allowed).

With a steady stream of candidates filing into your community, you end up with an engaged group of potential team members that you can tap into whenever a vacancy comes up. Bonus: it costs nothing.

3. Generate recruitment leads

In recent years, we’ve all gotten used to the highly visual, dopamine-delivering online world and the instant gratification that comes with it. It’s time to shake up your recruitment methods to take advantage of those short attention spans.

Long, drawn-out application processes push candidates away. If you’re struggling to get any applications for your SEEK ads, try using social media to generate recruitment leads.

Put out a post (paid or organic) with an eye-catching, relevant image and a call to action like:

• Tag someone who’d be interested in this role;
• DM us with your name, number, and relevant qualification; or,
• DM us your resume and we’ll do the rest.

Ultimately, you are removing as many barriers between yourself and interested candidates as possible.

Note: This approach works particularly well when you’re hiring in bulk, or for a role that, at its core, only requires a couple of key qualifications.

We’re hopeful that these tips to use social media for better recruitment will help you cut through the noise and get better results when you’re hiring. If you have any questions about how to get more applications or attract more candidates to your small business, reach out to us and we can help you achieve your goals.