How to use social media for recruitment?

Wikipedia describes social media as…

“The online tools and platforms that people use to share opinions, insights, experiences, and perspectives with each other. Social media can take many different forms, including text, images, audio, and video. Popular social mediums include blogs, message boards, podcasts, wikis, and vlogs”.

• Recruitment advertising, employer branding and staff retention are the main clear benefits of using this medium.

Recruitment advertising

At both a direct and passive level social media offers a new route to compliment your online recruitment activity. In a candidate rich marketplace, a general social spread will certainly increase response. The key to gaining the most from this new digital marketing platform is reaching and engaging niche markets. With the latter in mind social media offers a great opportunity, thou be aware of the legal pitfals!

Employer branding

Organisations who follow best practice have a real opportunity to reinvent or strengthen their online brand particularly when reaching out to (for example) ethnic communities. Employer branding opportunities are endless when done correctly.

Staff retention

Sites such as facebook offer employers the opportunity to engage their seasonal workforce offering a new way to keep in contact with employees. Other options include posting photos and video of a recent company team building day out, all with the set objective of increasing moral. Internal company blogs offer additional opportunities.

Getting all these right creates time and more importantly planning. The key to social media recruitment success comes down to execution.

Which brings me onto my final point – If you don’t understand how best to achieve your social media recruitment themed objectives…

….outsource this service to someone who does….