Social media has grown to be a great recruiting tool over the years, but mistakes are easily made… But we’re here to help! Below we’ll look at the 5 common social recruiting mistakes people make and how to avoid them.
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Social recruiting definition:
Social recruiting, also called social media recruitment or social hiring, is the process of recruiting candidates by making use of social media platforms as talent databases or for advertising. There are two different aspects of social recruiting. First is using the power or social networking and relying on people to spread the jobs far and wide. Second is using public information and social networks to search for potential candidates. Social recruiting can be done by in-house staff like the HR department or by recruiters.
Mistake #1: You focus on sharing job descriptions
With so many responsibilities that accompany recruiting, it can be challenging to find time for your social media and most people only focus on publishing the job vacancies instead of focusing on the bigger picture. Candidates are looking to get more value out of social media, so you won’t build a following if your posts are limited to job descriptions only.
You can ensure that your social recruiting efforts are successful by creating valuable content. Include more details about your company and other useful information. Create varied content that showcases your company’s values and culture.
Mistake #2: Failing to plan
To succeed in social recruiting, you’ll need to have a well thought out plan. Without a basic strategy, you’re setting yourself up for failure and you’ll waste valuable resources without getting the results that you’d hoped for.
When you’re developing your plan, consider the purpose of your social media posts and the steps that you’ll need to take to achieve your goals. A useful goal to have is building up your brand in order to engage with new candidates. You’ll also need to determine how you’re going to measure your success. Likes, shares, and comments can all be used to determine whether you’re posting the right content.
Mistake #3: Not knowing who your perfect candidate is
If you want to recruit the best candidate for the job, you need to know who you’re looking for first. Using the same approach for every job description won’t help you to find the candidate that you’re looking for. You’ll be wasting your time on people with the wrong qualifications and those who aren’t interested in the position.
Start by creating a profile of your ideal candidate. Identify what qualifications and skills they need to get the job done. Consider their personality traits, employment history, and level of experience. Use this profile to create social media posts that appeal to your ideal candidate.
Mistake #4: You don’t include images
The absence of visual content is a big mistake that will harm your social recruiting strategy. Written content that includes an image will increase your levels of engagement significantly while helping you to boost your number of followers.
Look for images that grab your target audiences’ attention so that your content gets noticed amongst all the other social media posts. People have short attention spans so accompany the image with text that’s concise and to the point.
Mistake #5: Failing to value interaction
If you want to recruit quality candidates using social media, you’ll need to do much more than getting people to like your posts. However, many recruiters only open their social media when they want to post their own content. If you take this approach, you’ll fail to build strong relationships with your target audience.
Make sure that you interact with your followers to achieve the best results. Take the time to reply to comments on your posts and to engage in conversations. Commenting on other pages’ posts will help to build up your network.
Now that you know which social recruiting mistakes to avoid, you can start connecting with quality candidates online.