How To Build A Social Network Around Every Job

A whopping 73 percent of employers successfully hired a candidate via social media this year. But guess what? That number could be much, much higher. How? By creating a social network around your job.

Social recruiting is becoming increasingly important when searching for quality job candidates. Sure, recruiters know about Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. And you certainly can screen your talent pool using these social networking tools. In fact, they are the most used social networks by recruiters.

But how do you create a social network around your job? By engaging candidates and current employees in your company and content via two-way conversation in real-time. This will launch your company’s brand and improve your job candidate pool, which is key for many recruiters. Here’s more on how you can build a social network around a job to do just that:

1. Crowdsource the Job

Crowdsourcing allows multiple people in your company to become involved in the creation of the job, not just the hiring manager. This way, your team can collaborate on the job description, promote it on their own social networking channels, and become more involved and committed to the process.

Your employees are your best social recruiters. Their emotional involvement makes them much more likely to create a network around the job than three paragraphs someone in HR wrote a year ago.

2. Add Social Connectability Social Sharing

This might seem like a no-brainer, but adding links to share your job description on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn will allow job candidates to recommend the job to their network. This will increase referral rates and create a better job applicant pool.

You should ask “connectors” (e.g. shareholders, advisors, colleagues, friends) to share the job with their networks — if you have good relationships with them, they will want you to succeed!

How else can you create a social network around the job? First, allow job seekers to see your employees. We are big believers in using visuals such as pictures and video to show off your team and culture (e.g. employers using recruiting videos received a 34% greater application rate, according to CareerBuilder) — this will make the job more shareable and appeal to job seekers!

Next, add the ability to login via LinkedIn or Twitter so job seekers can who they are connected to within your company. Maybe they know Joe down the hall and he will tell you the candidate is the perfect fit. As any good recruiter knows, the best quality lead is a referral!

Now, not only are your employees invested, but the job seeker also has a connection to your job and your company.

3. Real-Time Interactivity Between the Employer and Job Seeker

Now that your current employees and the job seeker are both invested in the job, open the floodgates! Allow real-time conversation to occur around your job. Use keywords and hashtags on Twitter to create a following and a conversation. Answer questions about the job via Facebook comments or allow your current employees to share anecdotes about the company.

With this real-time aspect of social sharing, you can create conversation around your job that wouldn’t have existed with the traditional job description.

Simply creating a network around your careers page won’t drive the right talent to your job descriptions. By creating a social network around each and every open position, you will make your jobs more relevant to applicants by encouraging personal connections with your brand and your hiring team.

How have you included aspects of social recruiting into your business’ recruitment strategy?