Simple and Effective Tips for Recruiting with Social Media

Building a great company starts with hiring great people, and social media provides a way for you to directly connect to high-caliber employees. The exponential growth of social media sites provides unprecedented access to huge numbers of people who have posted their career experience and other information that recruiters look for. Gone are the days of hoping that hard-to-find talent stumbles upon a job post – social media makes it possible to seek out and contact great candidates directly. Here are some tips to help you make your social media recruiting efforts productive.

1. Start Where the People Are

The key to social recruiting is to figure out where the people are – particularly, the people you need for your business. Browse sites thoroughly to get a sense of the people who use the site: large social media sites like LinkedIn and Facebook offer access to a larger database, while industry-focused sites and blogs offer a smaller, more focused audience.

Find the sites that best suit your business and set up an account at each.

2. Online Recruiting Starts in Your Office

When building your online network, don’t forget your biggest asset: your current employees. Everyone at your organization can help with the recruiting effort. Internal recommendations are a great way to find reliable people, and having your employees help announce job openings in their LinkedIn and Facebook status updates expands your reach to people who aren’t directly connected to your company.

3. Treat Others as You’d like to Be Treated

As ou develop your social network, help others when you can. If a connection is looking to fill a position or seeking advice in your area of expertise, and you can provide valuable help, make that effort. Do more than just post jobs – establish yourself as a relevant resource and you are more likely to get enthusiastic help when you need it. Through it all, be courteous and professional. Bad reviews of your business can spread quickly on the Internet.

4. Quality vs. Quantity

It’s a standard social media debate: Is it better to build the quantity of one’s contacts, or the quality of the relationships with those contacts? The answer is, yes. The larger your network, the more people you can reach. But having 50 people who know you will help with your employee search is far more valuable than 500 people who can’t recall why they’re connected to you. Grow your network, but grow it organically – otherwise, you could be mistaken for a spammer.

5. Get LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a dedicated business networking site, and offers the easiest access to resume-style information. Make sure your company and personal pages are current, and build your network by connecting with current and former coworkers who you respect. LinkedIn is more than an information storehouse – other features allow you to build relationships with potential employees before you need to hire them:

Groups: Join any member-created groups that are relevant to your business and industry, and pay attention to the conversations happening in those groups.

Answers: The site allows people to ask questions and get answers from anyone in their network. If you have relevant information to add, post it. This helps establish you as a reliable resource, and increases your exposure to industry talent.

6. Job Seekers are Looking at You, Too

Social Media is a two-way street. You are looking for great employees, and employees are looking for a great place to work. Make sure you company’s Facebook, and LinkedIn pages are current and relevant, and provide job seekers with an accurate view of your company. (Ditto for your company website.)

When it comes to hiring, the standard procedure of posting an ad and preparing for the deluge of resumes doesn’t work for social recruiting; instead, it’s about building relationships that you can rely on when it’s time to hire.

Finally, social media is another tool for finding qualified employees, not a complete solution. If posting to job boards is working, keep doing that; if a staffing firm consistently delivers the talent you seek, keep using their service. The key is to pay attention to which methods deliver the best results – and invest your efforts there.

Source: volt.com
Collected by Nhu-Vu SAPUWA