The rise of social media recruitment

Suffice to say, we all know the impact that social media has had on the world, becoming an essential component of many people’s day to day lives with individuals from all generations embedded on various platforms and an average of over 4.48 billion users worldwide. I’m always surprised to find out how little organisations are maximising this captive audience. With so many opportunities to attract candidates, organisations that fail to include social as a key pillar in their talent strategy stand to miss out. I wanted to look at the benefits of recruiting via social media, how to make it work for your organisation, and what we’re doing at Lorien to embrace this vital channel.

The value of social media and recruitment

Today, 96% of job seekers use social media when conducting a job search to understand a company’s values, tone, benefits and to search for employee reviews of the company – all of which help them decide whether to apply for a role and, ultimately, if they would accept. This means that for any organisation, keeping your ‘shop window’ up to date and engaging is a must, and not just on your own pages, across social media & review sites too.

Recruiting via social media can be more cost-effective than traditional attraction methods– and often yield more results due to the huge audience size and the ability of technology to segment candidates into the markets you are trying to attract. With specialist recruiters able to personalise messages to candidates through translating the full opportunity and piquing candidates’ interest in roles, social media offers an opportunity to appeal to a large audience in through a personalised approach. Of course, another huge advantage of social media sourcing is the opportunity to also attract more passive candidates - those who are looking, but they aren’t sure what they want, or those who didn’t know they were looking until the right opportunity appeared on a social media platform that they visit daily, and are comfortable in using for communication.

Making it work for you

Some organisations have fully embraced social media recruiting, such as Under Armour and ASOS; and they do it very well. One strategy that they have adopted is creating a dedicated social media page for recruitment across different platforms. This type of social media recruitment allows a candidate to get a feel for the company and their staff without being faced with posts aimed at consumers.

In order to effectively use social media as a hiring tool, organisations need to tap into the right platforms for their industry. Social platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and even TikTok, can be appropriate, depending on your target market and industry. For example, a younger audience can be found on platforms like TikTok or Instagram. It’s also worth considering how different platforms can serve different content types – YouTube for example is great for sharing informational or promotional videos, while Twitter is great for feeding bitesize content or reactionary news. You need to do your research, look at which platforms best reflect your organisation, and leverage your brand well on the appropriate platforms.

Implementing a strategy

With 78% of recruiters expecting social media recruiting activities to increase, there is no better time to start planning your social strategy for talent acquisition.

The first thing to start building on is your social media presence, and this is something that shouldn’t be half-hearted. Establishing a well-thought social media presence will give your brand consistency and visibility to candidates. Within the first year of a consistent social media presence, we at Lorien had grown our follower count by 149%. Today, our follower count is more than 100x that, at 240,000 followers. We learned that it’s not difficult to build a social media following, but you must be regimented with it, including consistency with branding, tone and topics so your audience understand who your organisation is.

We have also found that an audience trusts employee voices, which presents a great opportunity to elevate your employee voice beyond brief references and testimonials. This is something we have embraced at Lorien, with members of staff offering their thoughts on the market in regular monthly blogs and our wider team using Paiger to share their industry insights, offering our audience a chance to see the faces and knowledge behind our organisation.

To make the most out of recruiting on social media, organisations not only need to focus on developing a compelling and comprehensive Employee & Contractor Value Proposition, but they also need to provide authenticity and access to employees to engage and respond to potential applicants.

Despite a slightly gloomier economic outlook, skilled candidates remain at a premium across the board and social media at its heart is about connecting – with others, with information, and with opportunities. Not leveraging these tools and their immense capability would be a massively missed opportunity in ensuring your organisation can secure all the talent you need.

If you have any thoughts on social media recruitment, please contact me here. To view Lorien’s other insights, click here.