We live in an era ruled by technology and social media, so as an employer, why not take advantage of the many benefits and use them to their maximum capacity? Using social media as a recrutement tool is becoming a frequent practice by many companies. Not only does it offer your company great visibility at a low cost, it also demonstrates that your company is modern and up-to-date with the latest trends; all of which are attractive to prospective candidates! Whether it be via LinkedIn, Facebook, or even Twitter, these social media platforms allow your company to reach a much larger candidate pool in a more creative way than traditional recruitment methods.
LinkedIn is the leading online professional networking site. Apart from allowing individuals and companies to build and manage their network of contacts, it is a powerful tool that allows employers to reach a large pool of potential candidates by posting and sharing job ads for free through their personal page. This is particularly interesting for employers wishing to promote themselves amongst new graduates (a group which is popular to the site) as well as attract passive job-seekers, who are not necessarily actively looking for employment.
For employers who want to reach a candidate pool outside of their own network, they can also advertise a job posting on LinkedIn, however there are associated costs with this option. When posting a job ad, there are two types of packages an employer can purchase. The first is “pay per click” whereby you are charged for the number of times someone clicks on your posting. The second option is to pay a fixed cost which will make your posting appear amongst the first 1000 results in the search engine. Posting job ads allows you to target candidates and the desired profiles through a pre-selected criteria. It is equally possible to know exactly whom has consulted your posting, thus allowing you to directly contact candidates who meet your criteria. You can also opt for the LinkedIn Recruiter tool, which allows you to adapt your posting, send it to candidates who are have consulted your position and even gives you access to email templates and other tools.
Despite being known as the go-to social media site for sharing pictures of kittens and invitations to pool parties, Facebook can also be used as a recruitment platform as it is becoming increasingly used for creating and maintaining professional relationships over just social ones. The fact is – your friends need jobs too! The important thing is to stand out, not only to attract candidates but also to increase the visibility of your company. One way is to present your job offer in the form of a contest; invite your “friends” to like and share your advertised job offer and in exchange they will be entered in a draw for a prize. Involve your current employees who are present on Facebook to like and share their company’s advertised job posting to further increase and promote visibility and attract a larger candidate pool. This option is particularly interesting for companies who offer employees recruitment bonuses for referring candidates who are subsequently hired.
Finally, Twitter can also be used as a recruitment tool since it allows you to « tweet » a job posting that has already been posted on another job board and or website. Even if the site’s purpose is slightly different from other social media tools since it serves as a medium to “share” a job posting and not publish one, it still allows for traffic to be created towards your website.
There is no doubt – social media is here to stay. Employers must find creative ways to accept and embrace this technology and use it to their best advantage!
