Aim, Fire! – Leveraging Social Media to Attract Superior Candidates
In a previous blog we introduced you to social media for businesses, and this week we continue to discuss social media for businesses and specifically how it can be a powerful tool for candidate engagement.
PASSIVE CANDIDATES:
Social media makes it simple to develop and share content including videos, images and information about your organisation. Furthermore it is presented all in one place easily accessible to candidature. Certainly, a jobsite should be the most influential sourcing channel for your organisation but initially candidates need to know about your organisation to progress to that stage.Many organisations utilise Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest and the like to build their online presence and branding. Business pages are not only a link to consumers but additionally from employees to candidates. Organisations effectively using social media are able to demonstrate the culture and values to which they represent. They answer questions such as what kind of place it is to work there? What is the organisational structure like? What exciting projects are they working on now? There’s a level of transparency and openness that attracts candidates. In the present day, most organisations realise they must sell their workplace culture if they want to attract the most appropriate and best candidates. Furthermore, by continued use of social media businesses are able to attract the next-generation workforce as the millennial generation continues to increasingly rely on social and mobile technology within their career efforts.
KNOWING YOUR CANDIDATES:
Social media divulges not only information regarding a candidate's experience and skills, but also subsequent information into their personalities including lifestyle, values and potential cultural fit. This is crucial for companies seeking not only to recruit and hire, but additionally to engage and retain long-term employees. Obtaining a clearer image of who potential candidates are aids content creation for the purpose of attracting those specific candidates.
CONTENT CREATION:
Using stories to present a client’s success through your organisation’s help is highly beneficial. Supporting diversity, CEO interaction with the business, the last company outing…stories similar to these can engage candidates and invest them in the human element of your organisation.
LEVERAGING THE HUMAN TOUCH:
Comments, messages, likes, shares etc. they are all interactions that can used to encourage candidate engagement. Plan, develop and build content and candidate touches that are customised for each individual job title and position you plan to recruit for. Instead of broadcasting to the widest possible reach, obtain a 'wait and see' mentality. Establish relationship touches and engagements to specifically reach your candidate audience.
TREAT CANDIDATES AS YOU WOULD YOUR MOST VALUED CUSTOMERS:
Any candidate that applies to your company is a potential hire and a potential referrer of future hires. Even if they are not a perfect fit for current job openings, they could send your company qualified candidates as referrals. When you treat your candidates like high-value customers when engaging with them on social media you are building a relationship that can benefit you in the long term.
CONDUCT LIVE CHATS:
The scheduling of posts in advance a good social media strategy, however the icing on the cake is the occasional use of live chats. Live chats enable a personal connection with multiple individuals. By posting live you acknowledge your audience and let them know a staff member is online to answer questions or reply to comments stimulating conversion. A live chat can be commenced with a topic issue, the more interesting the bigger the potential conversation and the bigger the conversation the more engagement you will have with candidates. Consistency is so the audience comes to expect a specific real time they can interact with the organisation.
Are there other ways you use social media to engage with candidates? Share with us your experiences
