6 Ways to #Fail at Social Recruiting
Here are six commonly overlooked opportunities and mistakes that we see recruiters making as they try to find their way in social recruiting :
1) You’re Not Quite Getting the Social Part
You’re posting at the optimal times of day, at the optimal rate for each platform. Your content is funny, relevant and informative, but you’re missing one vital part of social media –engagement. You have to treat social like a two-way dialogue opportunity. The same amount of effort you put into posting should be put into engaging, replying and reaching out to followers. Marketing coordinator at HNi, Erin Van Handel said:
“Without a person dedicated to social media, how can you be sure job seekers are treated as customers?” Van Handel says, “A dedicated social manager can keep interaction consistent and customer service flowing.”
2) Friends Don’t Let Friends Get Spammy
Neither will followers, connections, groups or even tweeps. Whenever you’re entering a different social platform, feel it out first and discover what the unwritten rules are. If you come in guns uh blazin’, not knowing the social norms of the community, you could come off sales-y, pushy or irrelevant. Founder of Come Recommended, Heather R. Huhman, said:
“Once you decide on some specific communities, it’s important to respect the way they do things. Chances are, you won’t be allowed to spam their group with job listings, so make sure you learn their rules before you engage.”
3) You’re Not Perky Enough
Want to know a few questions that all candidates want to know about, but won’t ask? Where are the perks, benefits, free lunches, work from home options and sponsored cocktail hours?Highlight these things! There’s no reason not to.
Consider this: Let’s assume that your competition does in fact offer more perks than you can. Let’s also assume (quite safely) that they don’t advertise or showcase those perks. In the candidate’s eyes, you’re the clear choice because they can see exactly what you have to offer. For all they know, the competition is offering zilch.
4) Where are Your CTAs?!
You spend a lot of time crafting creative listings, sourcing interesting content and beefing up the company career page –let’s get people to see all that hard work! Did you know that simple inclusion of words like “click”, “please retweet”, “comment” and “share” are proven to increase engagement? Dan Zarella of Hubspot conducted some research and found that posts that include a call-to-action got more of the specific action they mentioned.
5) Enough With the Judging
I get it; social media can be a great place to do some quick and easy screening. I’m not knocking it as a tool; I am, however, knocking taking social media screening too far. According to a Reppler study, 33 percent of recruiters have hired a person because their profile showed solid communication skills. What?! Does that mean they’re on Facebook a lot? How are they gauging this?
6) You Aren’t Using Tools
Firstly, I recommend that you use an applicant tracking system that automates the social sharing of job listings. This eliminates the redundancy of manually sharing. Secondly, research tools like Sprout Social or HootSuite. These social sharing tools will allow you to fill up queues of posts and schedule them to go out at different times across different networks. While you will still have engagement and interaction to worry about, posting for the week can be covered in 30 minutes.
To end, I want to remind recruiters to work smarter, not harder. There are countless resources, studies and best practice posts that you can gather helpful information from. You can find out the how, when, where and why of social media from other people’s research. Remember, start with a strategy, follow best practice guidelines and ultimately do what works for you and your audience. Happy social sharing!