Your Company’s Social Recruiting Is Not Just Human Resources Job Anymore

Todd Kunsman

Marketing Team Lead

15 minute read

Employee Social Recruiting.

How many of your employees are already on social?

Being that we are in the digital age, I think it is safe to assume that most organizations have some sort of social media or online presence when it comes to their hiring process.

In fact, 91% of employers are using social media to hire talent today and that percentage will surely grow.

However, if your company does not value social recruiting like it should, there is a good chance you are missing out on amazing job candidates and that top talent is not even aware your company exists.

So why does social media for hiring matter? It’s really pretty simple:

Job seekers rank social media and professional networks as the most useful job search resource compared to job boards, job ads, recruiting agencies, and recruiting events (Source).

Yet, most organizations rely on their HR, recruiting, or talent acquisition teams to be involved in social media recruiting. But that has changed and it is no longer solely HR’s responsibility.

In this article you’ll find:

What is Social Recruiting?

If you already are well aware of the definition of social recruiting, then I recommend jumping to the next section. But, if you need a refresher, looking for an exact description, or just want some statistics this is the spot to be.

Social recruiting is the process of recruiting candidates by using social media platforms as databases for talent. Social recruiting also entails using social profiles, blogs, and other Internet sites to find information on potential candidates.

Yet, social media is the best way to showcase your work culture, employee benefits, and employer brand that would also attract more candidates to your company — without having to constantly research for people.

Social recruiting statistics

While the definition of the concept is good to know, it really comes down to the numbers. Does social recruiting actually work and what data is out there to prove the case for it?

There are plenty of statistics out there, but these are the ones that stood out:

  • 80% of employers say social recruiting helps them find passive candidates. (Source)
  • 59% of recruiters rated candidates sourced through social media as “highest quality.” (Jobvite)
  • 70% of hiring managers say they have successfully hired with social. (Source)
  • 89% of companies plan on recruiting through social media. (Source)

How Employees Amplify Social Recruiting

When it comes to the recruiting and hiring process, we tend to think how this falls in the laps of your company’s human resources department.

While they can be the leaders in facilitating this process, social recruiting is no longer just their responsibility — it’s everyone at the organizations’ job!

You might be asking yourself why, isn’t that one of HR’s main responsibilities? Of course, but employees of other departments can amplify the results and being a team player makes a great company.

One stat I found interesting was employee referrals have the highest applicant to hire conversion rate – yet only 7% of applicants are via employees but this accounts for 40% of all new hires (Source).

Imagine getting more employees sharing social content of company culture, job listings, etc. and what it could do for the talent pool?

Let’s dive into how other employees boost recruiting and talent acquisition on social media.

Related: Wondering how others have approached social recruiting? Learn how Atkins Global tackled recruiting challenges through social media.

Employees are more trusted sources than corporate

This has held true for some time, but more so now as the human connection becomes more important to decision making, especially for career choices.

A Nielsen study showed that 84% of people trust recommendations from friends, family, colleagues over other forms of marketing (Corporate handles, ads, company leaders, etc). Unleashing others to share job listings and about company culture draws in more trust.

 

Employees are the best insiders in company culture

A big factor for attracting many job applicants is the company culture, so it’s important to build a great work setting and ensure it is well documented for employees to talk about online.

And since employees are so close to the company and work environment, they’ll have the best value to bring to social recruiting.

For example, chatbot company Drift ensures they have a great work culture and you see almost all their employees sharing insights/videos to what it is like to work there. No doubt helping contribute to their success and attracting a lot of career interest.

 

Employees sharing content, shows they’re proud of their company

If employees are sharing company content that is not just hiring or culture related (think blog posts or resources), odds are they are proud of their company.

When other employees are willing to share content on a constant basis — besides the benefits on marketing and sales standpoint — they are seen as a company employees care about.

If you worked for a company you didn’t trust or were against, you most likely would not be very eager to share their content or go above and beyond to spread brand awareness. And outsiders notice these things.

 

Employees leaving reviews and sharing content enhances employer branding

Employer branding is the business identity of your company. It’s what makes your company unique or stand out to candidates who are looking for jobs.

When making a decision on where to apply for a job, 84% of job seekers say the reputation of a company as an employer is important (Source).

A flow of content on social networks and employees leaving great reviews on sites like Glassdoor can make all the difference in who applies. Having too many applications for jobs is a great problem to have.

Employees can spread open jobs to their networks

HR teams have a lot of work to do and researching candidates and attracting top talent can be challenging. Getting employees to share out open jobs helps HR spread the career openings out to more networks exponentially.

Think about it. Pending your company size and the average social connections employees have, your company is reaching some untapped markets of candidates.

Additionally, it can help you save money as job posting sites can get a bit pricey and might not even be attracting the best people.

Related: Wondering how others have approached social recruiting? Learn why Kelly Services got their recruiters and other team members active on social media.

How to Develop A Social Media Recruiting Strategy

Before you just randomly start posting jobs and getting employees involved in the process, you need to formulate a social recruiting strategy. Many companies might approach this somewhat differently, but each of these steps will ensure it gets you started on the right path.

 

Adopt a social business mindset

First, it helps to understand and adopt the social business mindset. Being a social business means your company implements social technologies, strategies, and processes that span across the full organization.

Essentially, leaders and other departments need to understand and promote the value of being a social business in their organization for social recruiting (or any social media initiative) to truly work.

Related: In B2B? Learn Why Becoming A Complete Social Business Should Be Your Company’s Top Priority.

Know your goals

If your company does not set defined goals for your social recruiting efforts, it’s hard to determine what next steps to take and what you are measuring for success.

Set objectives for each social media platform, for employees that share content, etc. If you aren’t clear on these goals and objectives, no one else will really understand why it matters either. That’s never good.

Nor do you hear many successful strategies when no one gets the “why we are doing this.”

 

Make it easy for employees to get involved

Employees are busy and already have their own unique job duties to complete. Adding something like sharing to social media for recruiting purposes might sound like a difficult task.

And it certainly can be a challenge if A.) Your company culture stinks B.) You don’t provide your team with the right tool.

Your company needs something that is highly engaging, easy to use, and measurable. This is where employee advocacy and social selling software comes in, like EveryoneSocial.

Many companies not only arm their HR or recruiting staff with our software, but others have seen social recruiting and employer branding results even when that was not the original main goal.

 

Have great content for employees to share

Great content that focuses on educating your audience and company culture content as well attracts top talent. Whether the content helps with the branding or getting an audience to organically apply for a job, content will make the difference.

It’s important to note to create content that will match your objectives and goals for social recruiting. As well as content that employees will be proud to share on behalf of the company.

Besides having a great work culture, updating and strengthening your company content will be vital.

 

Get employees involved in more than just social sharing

While your company should encourage employees to get involved in social sharing, to truly build a great social recruiting strategy, employees to be involved in more aspects.

Get employees active in taking pictures, videos, helping with company events, and contributing ideas to the blog and business. Giving them a voice creates a positive identity for your company and an employer brand that will naturally attract the best candidates.

Plus, who doesn’t love sharing online about the cool stuff they are working on at their company?

Extra: Your company brand and reputation means everything to the success of the business. But, it also affects employees and job candidates. For example, 84% of participants would be willing to leave their current company for a company with a positive reputation. (Source)

 

Social training

Go above and beyond to ensure there are plenty of social media training opportunities for employees to attend. Just throwing a solution out to them and telling them to share content is not the way to get employees involved.

Everyone in your company is at a different level of social media knowledge, best practices, or even knowing what your company’s social guidelines are.

This would be the opportunity to educate and help employees succeed, but it also informs them of the company objectives for any social initiatives.

 

Monitor & measure results

With any strategy, monitoring your social media recruiting strategy and measuring the results is important. This should be on a weekly (or daily) basis and you’ll want to watch how your brand is mentioned, traffic on the company website, your people, any social campaigns, increase in applicants, etc.

By keeping tabs, you can see what is working, when and where you may see positive or negative changes, and where to alter your strategy if need.

 

Final Thoughts

Social recruiting has quickly become the go-to strategy for building the talent pool and generating interest in open jobs.

Yet, with recruiting in the name, it’s assumed that this is all on human resources. While HR plays a huge role, social recruiting becomes everyone’s job within your organization.

Hopefully the above gave you insights into the importance of how employees contribute and how to develop your own successful social recruiting strategy.

 

Looking for tips to get employees involved in sharing on social media? Here are 6 Ways to Get All Employees Active in Social Media Marketing.


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