Social Recruiting Is Here to Stay; Here Are 4 Steps to Getting Started

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When most people think about the cost of a hire, they think about the hours spent writing job descriptions, posting ads, screening resumes, and interviewing candidates. But that isn’t the whole picture. Hiring also costs businesses in terms of lost revenue: The hiring process pulls people away from their daily tasks, meaning there are fewer people selling products or servicing customers properly. For example, a recent study from The National Automobile Dealers Association found that recruiting and onboarding new employees cost the average dealership $500,000 in lost gross profit every year.

Social recruiting  — that is, using social media to advertise openings and attract talent — can help cut the costs of hiring and retaining talent by making the process less time-intensive. Good candidates, including many who aren’t actively looking for jobs but are open to new opportunities, are on social media. Partially, that’s because everyone is on social media. But the fact still stands that social media is a great source of talent — provided you know what you’re doing.

Unfortunately, many business aren’t sure where to start when it comes to social recruiting.

My suggestion? Begin with an audit of your process to identify where you need help. Do you know from where your applications come? Are you getting the candidates you want? Do you know where your ideal candidate is looking for jobs? How do your reviews on career sites like Glassdoor look? Once you’ve identified your problem areas, you can start shaping your social recruiting strategy accordingly.

Here are a few tips to help guide you:

1. Don’t Ignore Facebook

The average person spends 50 minutes a day on Facebook. Make sure your job openings are posted there, and use the platform to showcase your company culture.

Facebook and other social media platforms are great avenues for your current employees to share job listings. Consider encouraging this behavior by rewarding employees with referral bonuses.

2. Get on Google

If you want you job ads to get significant attention, you’ll want them to rank highly in Google search results. To show up on the first page of search results, post your open positions on a wide variety of sites, especially top ones like Glassdoor and Indeed.

3. Manage Your Company’s Reputation 

Competition for talent is stiff. Once you find the right candidate, what are the chances they’ll want to work for you? Businesses are used to managing their reputations with consumers; in the age of social recruiting, they also need to manage their reputations with potential employees. According to Glassdoor, 69 percent of job seekers would not take a job with a company with a bad reputation — not even if they were unemployed!

Your company’s reputation with job seekers depends in large part on the reviews your current and former employees leave on sites like Glassdoor. Luckily, you can put your best foot forward on employer review sites by getting your happiest employees to post their reviews publicly. Make it as easy as you can for your happy employees to post their positive reviews on sites like Glassdoor and even Facebook (again, that’s where many job seekers are). That way, when candidates read about your company, they’ll see that there are more happy current employees than unhappy former ones.

Of course, there will always be negative reviews. You can address these by surveying your employees. Ask them what they do and don’t like about working at your company. You’ll get great feedback. It might not all be positive, but it will all be very helpful in making your workplace a great one.

4. Get Active

Finally, be active on social networks. Don’t just share information about your products and services. Promote your great employees and company culture, too. When potential employees consider your company, they’ll do much of their research online, especially on social networks. They want to see an active company presence and engaged employees.

Alexi Venneri is the cofounder and CEO of Digital Air Strike.

By Alexi Venneri