4 Steps to Social Recruiting Millennials & Gen Z
With more than 300 million unique profiles, LinkedIn is the most commonly used channel for social media recruiting. However, it is one of the only social networking sites in which those ages 18-29 don’t dominate usage.
As a campus recruiter, you have to remain proactive in your recruiting efforts, continue to build talent pools, and stay active on the top social networking channels that college candidates are active on.
To do this, you have to identify the social presence of all your top candidates, compile social profiles for each of them and then utilize those profiles for your campus recruiting efforts. To build and utilize these social profiles and optimize your recruiting efforts, follow these steps:
1. Create a social profile database of your top candidates.
To build social profiles, you should start by documenting the social channels each of your top candidates are most active on. By doing this you, will begin to develop a better understanding of where you have to be to successfully recruit college students.
For instance, 94 percent of recruiters use LinkedIn as their go-to social networking channel. However, if you’re recruiting on college campuses, your social profile database will likely tell you that college students are steadily moving toward newer, more private platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, and Vine. Twitter and Facebook still remain strong among this demographic, but newer platforms like Blend will be coming into the picture, as well.
These social profiles will also let you get to know candidates beyond their resume. You can see how they interact with others online, which can give you an idea of how they will interact with colleagues, as well as what their level of professionalism is.
2. Start proactively recruiting based on social profiles.
Using the social profile database you create of your top recruits, identify the two to three most used social channels and target your recruiting efforts on those channels.
Keep in mind that transparency and openness about what you are doing and why is key to any recruiting campaign you run with this group. Millennials expect a dialogue and do not respond well to having any type of advertising or messaging forced upon them. They are also looking to make a difference and be part of brands with a purpose.
Therefore, you should consider running a more personal recruiting campaign that allows each of your candidates to see and experience what your company brand is all about. Some ways to do this are to take online networking offline and engage in personal interactions through invitations to visit the office, meetups around campus, or host hangouts on Google+.
3. Rate your candidates based on their social media presence.
A great way to thin out your candidate list is by gauging each candidate’s social media influence, presence and proficiency. This may not make sense for every position you recruit for, but especially for any position that requires some understanding of social networking and communication online, use these social profiles to rate each candidate.
Some considerations to take into these ratings may include how often they share content, how proficient they are in each channel, and what their perceived influence on each channel is. With these ratings, you can more easily identify the top candidates based on your requirements for the position.
4. Monitor your candidates on social media.
The great thing about social media is the ability to monitor your candidates and make more informed decisions for who to bring in to interview. Research has shown that 42 percent of recruiters have reconsidered a candidate based on content viewed in a social profile.
To begin monitoring, you can make a Twitter list of the top recruits you are considering and keep an eye on their tweets, or follow each of them on other social channels. When you connect with candidates, make sure you are upfront and honest about why you are connecting and what you do at your company. If you begin reaching out with no obvious purpose, they will be weary of you and you could lose out on connecting with top talent.
With social media and the Internet, you have the ability to learn a lot more about your college candidates even before beginning the interview process. However, as a campus recruiter, you need to be proactive in your efforts and go beyond standard job boards and social networking sites to find and engage the best candidates.
The world of social media is constantly evolving, and college students are part of that evolution. If you can keep up with their fast pace, you’ll be sure to identify some great college graduate candidates to join your team.