⚡ Get All Content for 20% Off ⚡

3 Ways to Be Constantly Recruiting Star Talent Through Social Media The search for talent is an integral part of a well-developed social media branding strategy.

By Joe Budzienski

entrepreneur daily

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Paramount Studios

Every month 288 million people use Twitter, 300 million use Instagram and 890 million a day use Facebook. Social platforms, with the largest audiences available, have become marketing platforms, and not just for clothes and kitchen appliances. Hiring managers and recruiters are increasingly turning to the social web to market their companies to job seekers.

"Social hiring'' to source candidates is a rapidly emerging recruitment strategy. Companies are using social networks and other platforms, such as GitHub for software developers or Dribble for designers. Yet many companies still don't understand how critical it is to their success.

In this new, post-recession economy there is no such thing as a passive candidate. Everyone is a candidate all the time. The challenge is how to reach them. Millennials, especially, think about their employment differently than previous generations. They are like athletes joining professional teams, staying only as long as the relationship benefits both. It's not just millennials relying on the social web to find opportunities, but job seekers of all stripes. To keep up with seekers, recruiters must understand and utilize social for recruiting with a focus on building and reinforcing their talent brand in that space.

Related: Why Millennials Are Immature, Entitled and the Best Hire

At Monster, we've prioritized social hiring through Twitter, which is one of the fastest growing social networks for recruiting. On average, more than 60,000 jobs are tweeted each day on the platform. With its huge, engaged professional audience and heavily public user-to-user access, Twitter is being utilized by about 40 percent of companies to source talent.

Other platforms are being used for social hiring too — 54 percent of recruiters use Facebook, 8 percent use Google+ and YouTube; and 4 percent now use Pinterest, according to the Society for Human Resource Management. Savvy hiring mangers and recruiters are experimenting with ways of leveraging the social web to source talent and expose their employer brand. Here are three critical things all companies should already be doing:

1. Focus on your social talent brand.

A company's talent brand is how their mission, vision and corporate culture are perceived on the social web. That plays a significant and vastly under appreciated role in reducing a business' cost to hire and its ability to attract quality candidates. Google, for example, does a great job of talent branding. They look like a great place to work and that's become their biggest asset in hiring. Make sure your company's image, in words, photos and videos, is consistent across Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and other platforms.

Related: How Recruiters Creepily Troll Social Media for Job Candidates (Infographic)

2. Enable your employees to evangelize.

The most effective way to draw candidates to you is to have employees spreading the word that the company is a great place to work. Empower them to Tweet and blog about their work and the office culture, post photos on the company's Tumblr and engage on the corporate Facebook page. According to a 2014 survey from Monster, 65 percent of respondents would consider an opportunity for a new job if they learned about it from a personal connection.

3. Cultivate positive exposure across the social web.

Your company should be celebrating itself by putting out a variety of written and visual content, such as posts on a corporate blog or photos of events and everyday happenings at the office on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook (with corresponding hashtags like #officeparty or #teamouting). That could be a photo of your modern office space or a six-second Vine video of a recent, raucous staff meeting. Update what's happening in your industry and in your company, and consistently post your available job, on Twitter, Facebook and Google+.

Obviously, you won't be able to do this if you don't have a corporate culture where employees are thriving, but assuming you do, you should be talking about it — socially. The more positive exposure you cultivate for your company across the web, the more great talent will come looking for you.

Related: How to Hire Without Spending a Fortune. (Hint: Use Social Media.)

Joe Budzienski

Vice President of Product & Technology at Monster

Joe Budzienski currently serves as vice president of product and technology at Monster, where he leads the initiative to create new and innovating social recruiting products. Prior to Monster, Joe founded Gozaik, a social recruitment startup out of Boston that focused on social media job advertising and was acquired by Monster Worldwide in early 2014. Joe holds a BS in Business Administration and Management from Pace University.

 

Want to be an Entrepreneur Leadership Network contributor? Apply now to join.

Side Hustle

The Remote Side Hustle a 43-Year-Old Musician Works on for 1 Hour a Day Earns Nearly $3,000 a Month: 'All From the Comfort of Home'

Sam Ziegler wanted to supplement his income as a professional drummer — then his tech skills and desire to help people came together.

Marketing

Ever Wonder Why Certain Websites Rank Higher Than Yours? This SEO Expert Reveals The Secret to Dominating Search Results

It's often the smart use of SEO, now supercharged with AI, particularly in keyword optimization.

Franchise

The Top Franchise Brands Growing Globally

While our main Fastest-Growing Franchises list focuses on North American growth, more and more brands are looking to grow worldwide. These are the 25 that had the greatest franchise growth outside the U.S. and Canada from July 2022 to July 2023.

Business News

AI Is Impacting Jobs. Here Are the Gigs Affected the Most, According to an Analysis of 5 Million Upwork Postings

The researcher said in the report that freelance jobs were analyzed first because that market will likely see AI's immediate impact.

Leadership

Former Interrogator Shares 5 Behaviors Liars Exhibit and How to Handle Them

Five deceptive behaviors to look for and how to respond to those behaviors when you encounter them.