Social media has opened up opportunities for hiring agencies to find and recruit the best talent. Like, recruiting with social media helps foster a great reputation while serving its primary objective of finding quality candidates and filling open positions within the company. With many positive outcomes of social media recruiting, it’s easy to see that why recruitment agencies should stop following conventional hiring methods and start using digital factors to connect with potential candidates.
In the United States, 82% of organizations say they use one of the “big three” social media sites (Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn) for their recruitment. This evidence is enough to reflect that social networks have become the ideal playground for headhunters.
The digital transformation has profoundly revolutionized the companies, even in the recruitment process. Faced with new uses, Human Resources must evolve and adapt! To date, only large organizations are investing in these channels, but small and medium-sized businesses also need to be present and influential to differentiate themselves and attract new talent.
3 Pillars of Social Network that Favors Recruitment Agencies
- LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter are the most highly trafficked social media sites used in recruitment. And it is of no surprise to see that LinkedIn is the most popular one. The figure given below clearly shows that LinkedIn with 79%, leads in the popularity rate.
LinkedIn is mainly used to search for candidates (95%), to contact them (95%), and to do sourcing (93%).
The above figure clearly displays that how LinkedIn is mainly used for different recruitment purposes. - On Facebook, the first reflex of the HR is to scrutinize the profile of the candidates (67%), to animate the employer brand (59%), to make the cooptation (51%) and to publish offers of employment (48%).
- For the social network Twitter, you will find more or less the same uses as on Facebook, but at a higher level: animation of the employer brand (95%), publication of job offers (95%), cooptation (93%) ) and sourcing (93%).
LinkedIn is mainly used to search for candidates (95%), to contact them (95%), and to do sourcing (93%).
The above figure clearly displays that how LinkedIn is mainly used for different recruitment purposes.Recruitment and Social Network: Present Scenario
The data below reveals that recruitment agencies are using social network more and more as a recruitment tool:
- 91% of recruiters are active on the social network, and 70% of them plan to increase their social media budget.
- 9 out of 10 recruitment agencies look at a candidate’s social profiles before positioning themselves for hiring.
- 7 out of 10 recruiters say they have successfully recruited through social platforms.
- 64% of recruiters admit to using at least two social networking sites in their quest for talent using, in order of priority, LinkedIn (94%), Facebook (66%), Twitter (52%) and to our surprise Google+ (21% ).
HR and Social Media: Choosing the Right Platform
Launched in 2003, Linkedin is the leader of professional social media platforms. This platform has more than 500 million members from 170 industries in more than 200 countries.
There are many benefits of using this social network for recruitment. The method is fast and inexpensive and allows to contact quality profiles directly. By providing up-to-date and easily verifiable information, LinkedIn makes it possible to perform a first ” skimming ” of the candidates that save time. To post a job, a recruiter or hiring agency can log in their LinkedIn account and then click on the ‘work’ tab on the top-left. After that, a pop-up window will appear with a title ‘visit more LinkedIn products’. On the click of the icon ‘Post a job’, a page with three different tabs showing (Company, Job title and Location) will open. This is the place where one can start job posting.
LinkedIn offers HR services in a large number of tools to facilitate their efforts. These tools allow them:
- to post ads
- send messages directly to potential candidates
- to communicate on internal events to enhance the corporate culture
- search for keywords to identify candidate-experts on a given subject
With 2 billion+ subscribers, the Facebook and recruitment market seem to be on the move! Isn’t that exciting?
Recently, Facebook has launched a job posting feature that allows recruitment agencies or businesses to publish their job listings for free. Since then, Facebook job postings are going exceptionally interesting, certainly for local companies.
For posting a job opening on Facebook, click on the title ‘Jobs’ under ‘Explore’ section on left side of ‘home page’. A page with title ‘Jobs on Facebook’ will appear as shown in screenshot below.
With the addition of this feature, you can quickly understand that the social networking giant wants to tackle e-recruitment. And if we look at the bigger picture of things, then it is easy to visualize that HR’s and more and more of companies are using Facebook recruiting to their advantage. With Facebook recruiting efforts, they are able to select from a world’s worth of talent who are actually good matches for their recruitment needs. While for this, they are also taking advantage of the Facebook ad feature to recruit at a better pace by targeting people based on their preferences such as location, job title, salary range and job type.
The above screenshot is an example of a page that opens up after clicking the tab ‘publish a job post’. Here, recruiters can fill in the information as per their requirements and put it out there.
In addition to a specific targeting, recruitment agencies have the opportunity to put forward their job ads so as not to run under the ads of competing companies! But of course, it will not be free!
The operation will be similar to advertising on LinkedIn; you have to pay a certain amount to be highlighted and thus become visible to the target candidates.
With over 300 million users, Twitter has become every recruiter’s secret weapon. It is a pretty effective recruiting tool to convince the candidates that your company is the real deal. But, only if done in a right way.
So, what’s the particularity of this social media platform? What makes it so attractive among recruitment agencies and what are the limitations of this tool?
Companies use Twitter to give visibility to their news, events or strong commitments. This network feeds individuals with information by giving them a modern, active and responsive image of the company. It is a platform for highlighting successes, values and behaviors at the service of the employer brand.
Most of the recruitment agencies use this platform as an effective way to disseminate and share their job offers. The use of Hashtags can precisely target the people. Twitter is here used as a call-to-candidates tool. The aim is to send them later to more precise information about the vacancy (such as the job description). For instance, AT&T always uses the Hashtag #LifeATATT to mention their employees thoughts, responsibilities and working experience at the company.
Playful, interactive and easy to access, Twitter is ultimately a recruitment platform that stands out for its short and attractive content in a search for communication to the essential.
Twitter is ultimately a very successful recruitment mode. Although digital recruitment methods contribute significantly to their success and business performance. And, nothing can replace real contact to ensure successful recruitment.
Social Network & Referrals
Nearly 70% of recruiters use social networks when recruiting a candidate. Nevertheless, gathering information about a candidate by searching for his name on Google does not replace a reference. However, both are complementary. For example, you can rely on the LinkedIn profile of a candidate (through his career and skills exposed) to work on your questions during the reference. You can also cross-check information obtained via social media platforms and linked references.
Another advantage is that you can contact employers via these platforms directly to schedule a meeting and it saves your time.
The Importance of Employer Brand
Social media platforms help businesses to connect with candidates like never before! To find the best candidates, companies compete with each other. Having an excellent institutional website and putting an ad is not enough to attract the ideal candidate.
If the companies want to attract the best profiles and make candidates want to join them, they must build a strong employer brand. Through social networks, companies can build and maintain a brand that connects an organization values, HR policies and people strategy to the corporate brand.
To do this, they can rely on their employees. They are great ambassadors who will be able to share offers and recommend members of their network. Recruitment of the future will be collaborative or will not be!
What you Must Remember
The HR function was turned upside down by the arrival of social networks which has given birth to new modes of recruitment. These new HR methods have brought the company closer to its future candidates. However, it works both ways. To benefit from the positive impact of social media platforms, the company must invest in a strong employer brand.
So from a digital perspective, social recruiting has changed the game. Be it sourcing candidates, building brands, promoting jobs or creating relationships, social media has become a key tool. Recruitment agencies know that it’s the future and hence investing their time and money accordingly. The best talent is not going to wait.
If you have a quest of knowing more, then get in touch with me. I would be glad to answer your queries.