Modern Recruiting Starts with a Selfie

Recruiting is marketing. Sometimes just having a job on a board is not going to be enough to get the candidates you need.

In the good (or were they bad?) old days, recruiting was an incredibly formal process that might have included letters of introduction, scads of printed documents for a candidate to learn about an organization, and arms-length professional-only relationship building.

Despite the fact that those times are long past, many organizations cling to antiquated recruiting models. Is your company one of them?

Modern hiring means enthusiastically embracing the practices of inbound recruiting and social marketing. Inbound marketing tactics are not just a valuable practice, but quickly becoming a requirement for recruiters and hiring managers.

How does your organization currently use social media to attract the very best candidates?

If you answered “I don’t know,” then it’s time to embrace the paradigm shift and start thinking about your brand’s narrative for recruiting prospective new hires. It could be your most critical initiative this year.

What do the messages you post on Facebook or Twitter say about your company? More importantly, what do they say about your employee culture or recruiting campaigns?

What was the impetus for the creation of social media networks? A two-part outcome: connecting people to share information.

Too many organizations take to social media for only promotion periods of time,“We’re hiring for…” is not sharing information that engages passive candidates.

Promotional #jobs posts will most likely only result in a few favorites from Twitter spam bots and job boards. We know, we troll #jobs 😉 and have probably favorited your tweet, but we’re not candidates, and that’s the point.

Marketing and social content have to be valuable, shared clearly and concisely, and targeted to make a noticeable difference regardless of the audience.

So remember, just as you can find a candidate’s drunken Facebook posts, talented candidates may scope your Instagram to see if the Glassdoor rumors are true.

Using social media for recruiting doesn’t stop with checking a candidate’s Facebook page before an interview — the social web is how we communicate, and it’s a great way to attract candidates.

Social Recruiting Success

To give you a little context and less opinion, check out a few examples for getting your social recruiting wheels a’ turnin’.

Use Snapchat for first impressions

Pizzabella, a new concept Pizzeria, recently launched a social media hiring campaign that gave candidates just one chance to make an impact and potentially be considered to hire.

Using Snapchat, prospective workers made their first impressions through snaps. It was easy for the business to manage and turned into a clever way to put company culture first.

Create Employee Advocates

Deloitte had a goal of increasing their workforce by twenty percent. How did they do it? Employees on social media, of course.

Deloitte empowered bloggers within their workforce to broadcast how much they liked working for the firm. Also, they equipped their brilliantly designed recruiting site with personal social media account information for candidates to use to contact hiring managers and recruiters.

Selfies are Content Marketing

Shareable and engaging content is of your team, with your team, feeling like a team. Selfie your way to IPO baby, maybe not, but just sharing a team pic every Friday is a great easy start.

We want to join teams of cool people who share our ambitious goals and drive to change the world or at least look like they would sign the Bday card, am I right?

Inbound Recruiting is part of recruiting done right

While some companies quickly fall off the social media bandwagon, others use it to excess and drown out potential clients, customers, and employees with a constant stream of inanity.

So as you consider your social media game plan, remember that while you’re using networks to recruit and engage, you’re also starting conversations with people who could help your organization succeed in a million different ways.

Stay Breezy my friends.

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