Last week I had the absolute pleasure of attending the Talent Acquisition Lab in Berlin – and even better, I got to share some of my favourite examples of sourcing and social recruiting activity with the crowd!
I was asked – even before the event – to share some of my notes online and you know I treat these things very seriously 🙂 This time my job is actually really easy, considering the entire event was live streamed on Facebook. If you have the patience to watch the entire video, you’ll find it at the bottom!
The ever changing world of social media offers plenty of interesting ways to reach your target audience that recruiters don’t always know about. Sometimes we assume that using social media has to take a lot of time or that it’s very complicated. But here are some easy to implement ideas involving some of the most widely used platforms 🙂
LinkedIn – updates that grab attention
In many industries and locations, using LinkedIn can be one of the easiest ways to reach your candidates. Yet surprisingly, most recruiters don’t seem to use all of the options it gives them. Don’t want to be in that group? Here’s what you can do to get some better results:
Focus on discussions rather than simply sharing your job ads. You can still add a link to one, but the update itself should address your audience in a more meaningful way. Perhaps there’s an element of the job that’s particularly interesting that you can talk about? Maybe there are some interesting questions you can ask? Offer a perspective on how things are done in your company? A well thought out update can easily bring you tens of thousands of views. If the people interacting with it belong to your target audience, this can translate into a fair number of applications
Use the social aspects of the platform! Try tagging in the Hiring Manager or the team members the successful candidate will get to work with. It works for a couple of reasons. It attracts people who already know your teams (at the very least they’ll probably like the update). It also allows candidates to have a look at the professional background of the team to better understand whether they are likely to succeed in the role.
Facebook – creating self-managing communities
While a Facebook page is probably a must-have at this point, it’s no longer the best tool to interact with our target audience on the platform. The more forward-thikning companies have already started creating groups linked to those pages. And there’s a good reason for it. A group allows the people in the community built around the company brand to interact with each other. Here’s a couple of tips if you decide to give it a try:
Create some value that will attract professionals to join your group. The easiest way to do that in this context is to facilitate knowledge sharing and professional development. This is why one group may not necessarily be enough – if you’re hiring developers and accountants, their needs will be very different. You may create a couple of groups for different audiences, or just one for your main target. You can also work with existing industry groups.
Make sure the rules of engagement are clear and that everyone knows them. It’s quite easy these days with all the functions of Facebook groups. You can ask new members questions when they join, you can welcome them in a post tagging them in it (that way you make sure they see it), you can share documents and have a pinned post reminding them the dos ad don’ts. And don’t forget as the group manager you will have access to group insights – make use of them to ensure you’re going in the right direction!
Sourcing in unusual places
While you can probably close most of your recruitment projects using professional platforms and job boards, it’s good to mix things up every now and then. After all, there’s nothing wrong in having some fun at work 🙂 Of course the platforms you could use will depend on the jobs you’re hiring for, but here are some of my recent favourites:
Meetup – I like it because instead of focusing on your candidate’s past, it allows you to focus on the future. Say you’re hiring Java developers. Looking for them in a Java Meetup group means some of the people you find aren’t currently working as Java developers perhaps, but they are very likely to want to move in that direction. The platform allows you to send messages to users for free – but make sure they’re good as they can opt out, which will make interactions on the platform more difficult in the future.
GoodReads – I actually joined the platform myself just recently and so far I find it really interesting. If you’re a reader, I recommend you set up an account! Without getting into too much detail, you can use it to find people who read e.g. a book on coding in Java (it’s rarely something people read unless they want to do it professionally). You can also message them for free on the platform – and what a cool way to start a connection, talking about books! 🙂
I hope you found these interesting – feel free to share some of your favourite sourcing and social recruiting ideas in the comment section! 🙂
Very nice key note, i really enjoyed the presentation. I might get back to you soon with some questions for an ongoing research I am doing 🙂 Best, Helene
4 Comments
Thanks, I appreciated. This one worked.
Very nice key note, i really enjoyed the presentation. I might get back to you soon with some questions for an ongoing research I am doing 🙂 Best, Helene
Thanks Helen! I’ll be happy to answer them for you ☺️
Very nice illustrations of How Social Media will be helpful in getting the right hires and also to connect with them. Thanks for sharing.