Recruitment has been transformed by the digital revolution. In the war for top talent, innovative new techniques have shaken up strategies across the world. Social media is one, a reactive platform that connects your business with a new generation of talent. Here’s how to make it work for your business.
Takeaways
- Reach Millennials and Generation Z with engaging job ads
- Save time and money
- Futureproof your hiring strategy
- Get ahead of the competition
Reach a new generation of talent
Millennials and Generation Z use social media a lot—this has been fairly well documented. Before any candidate applies for one of your roles, they’ll likely have looked at your social accounts.
So you should aim to keep them updated regularly, not just with fresh content but any changes for your business details. Have well-formatted header images and display that you’ve put the effort into making your accounts look good. This has the power to impress new staff.
Build a positive brand image
The bland corporate image of decades past has been ditched in favor of upbeat professionalism. There are more brands than ever before that have embraced personality and it comes across in their website designs and social accounts.
Use your social media accounts to showcase personality and commitment. The more positive you look, the more desirable a business you’ll be to work for.
If you’re a small business with a limited budget, try out TalentLyft to help you set up your first campaign.
Screen candidates
It’s commonplace for businesses to check candidate’s social media profiles. It offers an insight into their personality traits, including any negative ones.
With interviews remaining formal experiences, and candidates typically unwilling to reveal too much about themselves, it can be a helpful insight into their personality. This can be all important for fitting into your business culture.
Maximize your reach
Simply put, you want to pursue every available avenue available to your business when you’re hiring. The more platforms you’re using—whether it’s traditional job sites or the discussed social media platforms—the more chance you have of finding a wide range of talent.
This does mean you’ll get more applications, which can increase the number of unsuitable candidates, but it may also unearth your ideal future employee.
Screen your candidates
Use this method cautiously, so that you don’t lapse into discrimination. But social media does offer insights into a candidate’s personality traits.
Jumping to conclusions or stereotyping should be avoided, but you’ll at least be able to find out a little something about what makes a candidate tick. Do they match your business culture? It’s worth consideration if it’s potentially going to be a poor match.
Try out live recruitment
It’s possible to live recruit with some social platforms. After a few message exchanges over Twitter, for example, there’s nothing stopping you from starting a live video chat with a candidate.
You can do this with anyone anywhere across the world. This is the real-time, hands-on nature of social media. It’s a reactive recruitment tool. In the space of a few minutes, you might find a potential employee and be interviewing them—take such opportunities as they present themselves.
Get cost-effective
The convenience of social media is well documented—you can have a profile set up in no time. It costs nothing to post your vacancies. Even promoted posts don’t have to cost much to reach thousands of candidates. This will tick many boxes for some, especially small businesses on tight budgets.
Get a chatbot
Artificial Intelligence has advanced to a point where chatbots are not prevalent in many industries. These automated bots can interact with candidates and send them further into your recruitment process.
That can save a lot of time and money. Have a read of HR software projects that streamline day-to-day activities for clients.
And finally… provide feedback
You don’t have to use social media to do this, but do be aware younger generations expect feedback. If you don’t provide it, they can spread negativity quite easily on social media. They can also turn to emerging job sites such as Glassdoor to leave you with bad reviews. Put the effort in to avoid any long-term damage.
About the author: Alistair Brown is the chief technical officer of BrightHR in Manchester city center. He’s responsible for overseeing innovative HR software projects that streamline day-to-day activities for clients.
