The employees that you hire in your business are of extreme importance, not only for the work that they do but also because they will represent what your business is to your customers.
Making a good choice when it comes to deciding which employees are going to fit good in your company is very imperative. Attracting and hiring employees that are up to the challenge will be one of the best things you can do if you want to see your business succeed.
Since the usage of social media platforms is reaching its peaks in recent years, it is logical to reach out to potential employees through it. Social media revolutionised professional communication and the exchange of information, not leaving behind the recruitment process as well.
If you are thinking about reaching out to potential employees using Social Media as your channel, in this article we will disclose how to do it the right way.
Use the right social media platforms
Robert Walters Insight Series are white papers that offer insight on the recruitment strategies and how employers should behave regarding them.
The fifth white paper was written on the subject Using Social Media in the Recruitment Process and it offers some interesting statistics when it comes to what social media platforms are the right ones if you’re trying to reach out to potential employees.
For the statistics in the paper, Robert Walters surveyed 896 job seekers and 280 hiring managers. From the job seekers, LinkedIn was the most common platform that they used with 85%. Secondly, Facebook and Twitter were cited with 74% and 39%. All the rest were in way lower percentages than these.
The same goes from the other side of the process. Most of the job recruiters had professional profiles such as LinkedIn with 69%, followed by 43% Twitter presence, and 42% Facebook presence.
This means that if you decide to use social media platforms as a recruiting method, you should choose the right or the most used platforms where potential employees will be present. Then use the right social media engagement tool to attract attention. Ideally, you should promote the job openings on all social channels so it will reach the widest audience.
But if you need somebody that has more experience in the industry your business is in, LinkedIn has thorough profiles that will explicitly disclose the previous experiences and education of the candidates. It’s not always easy to weed out the good candidates from the poor candidates, so use a LinkedIn automation tool to help you. After that, you can use other platforms to gather further information about your candidate.
There are other professional platforms that you can use depending on the industry your business is in, such as GitHub or StackOverflow for developers, Medium for writers, Dribble and Behance for designers, and more. There are other social media platforms that can be equally helpful, so do your research.
Encourage your employees to share their experiences with your business
If you want to leverage the social media platforms, a good idea is to ask your staff not only to share the job postings but to include their own experiences connected to the company. This way, other people that are interested can be reassured and will want to join your company.
Creating a positive image about the company’s culture to the potential employees can really help your hiring process out, especially when that positive image is being created by somebody that just works at the company.
Potential employees will more likely relate and believe the experiences that their equals share on social media platforms instead of the company bragging about themselves.
Don’t base your decision only on social media screening
Although it is a good way to see if there are any red flags and to verify some information, you should not do it as a first step in your screening process. A lot of other things can confirm the quality of a potential candidate such as work experience, test results, portfolio, or else.
Leave social media screening as the last step, when you’re deciding between two or more already good candidates. Don’t make assumptions and don’t rely on social media platforms completely.
Image: Unsplash
Why do it?
Simply because you can. Getting a first impression of the potential employees on their social media platforms can be very beneficial for you. Most of the job recruiters “online stalk” the candidates to see how they interact with other people in different contexts, which is why more and more job seekers are making their profiles private.
For example, in some positions where people skills are one of the top needed qualities, job recruiters will pay attention to how the person interacts with other people online which can be very helpful for getting a gist of the person’s communication abilities.
However, in most of the cases, the social lives of the candidates are not what’s important with few exceptions. It’s important to know how to detox the unrelated information from your first impression.
Seeking the potential employees on their social media profiles can often confirm their resume information like the place they graduated in, the city they live in, and other relevant information. You can easily find out if the person lied on their resume, if they post offensive content about race, religion, gender if they badmouthed a previous employer, or something similar to these examples.
In summary
Times change and social media is inevitably a big part of both of our professional and personal lives. Using that in our businesses’ advantage is a big plus. Knowing which social media platforms to use and how to use them in the hiring process is important.
Once you find interesting candidates, try not to dig too deep into their personal lives since that is not the priority. Although it gives perspective into what kind of people they are, there is a limit that should not be crossed. The most important things are checking the validity of the information that they gave you, and any red flags that might stand out.
Reaching people to join your company through social media can broaden the pool of candidates for you since you can also reach out to people that are maybe not from your particular country.
About the Author
Mary Walton is a professional editor, content strategist and a part of NCSM team. Apart from writing, Mary is passionate about hiking and gaming. Feel free to contact her via Facebook.
