The Top 5 Social Media Recruitment Techniques for 2024

SHRM states that for HR, overlooking social media today would be like “ignoring e-mail 20 years ago.” Social media is an indispensable tool for HR professionals in the recruitment and hiring process. Let’s look at five social media techniques you can use to optimize your recruitment efforts this year.

1. Encourage Employee Advocacy

Your employees can become some of your best free “recruitment tools”. It is likely that your seasoned employees already have many connections with people in your industry. One way to reach those connections is to encourage employee engagement on your socials.

According to Lewis Glanz Consulting, “Employee-generated content receives twice as many clicks as company-approved content.” Employees can like, comment, and share your posts, boosting traffic to your page. You can showcase your organization’s culture by posting candid employee videos, celebration posts, fun events, company-wide activities, etc. When you post new job openings, have employees and hiring managers share the roles on their social media platforms. Your posts should always give employees a reason to click the share button.

You can also boost engagement with your page by creating new hire posts and tagging employees. These posts typically generate traffic because people love learning more about where their friends have started new roles.

No employee will advocate for an organization they don’t like working for. The Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) is a metric you can use to measure employee loyalty to your organization. The key question to ask your employees is ‘On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend your employer to friends and family as a good place to work?’ If employees are satisfied, they are far more likely to engage with your socials and steer others toward a career at your company.

According to The Harvard Business Review, “A downside to referrals, of course, is that they can lead to a homogeneous workforce, because the people we know tend to be like us.” While employee referrals can be great, don’t let them be your only source of talent.

2. Become a Go-to Resource for Your Industry

Oftentimes, the best candidates are not looking for a job. Still, it’s not wise to limit your reach to job seekers.

Provide opportunities for the broader community to engage with your content. You can do so by hosting panel discussions, webinars, and virtual networking events. You can also share the most relevant industry information with your following through blogs or other mediums.

Your great resources will not only appeal to your clients and customers, but also to others in the industry who may consider applying for a role at your organization.

Aim for consistency with whatever resources you choose to offer. Consistency is key to building credibility and positioning yourself as a trustworthy, go-to resource for your community. For example, if you have a blog page, make sure you post every week. What you post should also be consistent with your organization’s personality and brand.

3. Build Your Online Brand Awareness

Forbes emphasizes the importance of understanding the current state of your business’s brand and how your brand presence may help or harm the talent pipeline. HR leaders can collaborate with their organization’s marketing team to analyze the company’s online presence and identify areas of improvement.

Buchanan Graduates encourage leaders to improve brand exposure by:

Using social media regularly and consistently
Collaborating with other leaders or influencers in the industry via guest blogging or joint social media events
Publishing and promoting articles on LinkedIn
Using visually appealing content; and
Using video content

Consider how you want your audience to see your organization. Talented candidates want to work with organizations that are growing. Improving your brand exposure can help you highlight your company’s growth and show that you are heading in a good direction. This ultimately helps your organization stand out as a good place to work.

4. Use Hashtags

A hashtag is a word or phrase preceded by a hash sign (#), used on social media sites to identify digital content on a specific topic. Hashtags help your posts show more easily in searches.

For example, if you are in the fried chicken restaurant business in LA, you can attach a more general hashtag (like #lafriedchicken) to your post. When someone clicks on that hashtag, they will be able to see all other posts in the same category (if they exist). It can be helpful to look at already existing hashtags and make decisions accordingly. If a hashtag is only used for one post, it’s likely that people will have a harder time finding and engaging with your post.

According to Agency Central, using hashtags can double the level of engagement with your posts. The hashtags you use consistently can help your posts reach a relevant audience and your audience will eventually begin associating certain hashtags with your brand.

Create a hashtag that is unique to your organization. For example, at IceHrm, we regularly post on LinkedIn with the hashtags. It also enhances our brand awareness and highlights our niche in the industry. Creating your own hashtag can be powerful– if you do it right and use it often.

Hashtags are also useful when you’re trying to recruit people from your city. Adding hashtags like #nashvillejobs to your posts can boost your engagement with potential candidates in the Nashville area. HR leaders should also use hashtags with recruitment terms, industry terms, or even skills needed for the roles they are trying to fill.

5. Consider Changing Your Outreach Platform or Method

Most people typically think of LinkedIn as the only social network that can help with recruitment, but what if LinkedIn isn’t the most effective choice for your organization?

Think about the size of your business, the product you offer, and the type of candidate you want to attract.

Would it help your recruitment efforts and brand awareness to be able to post stories on Facebook or Instagram? Would quick tweets be more effective for your outreach than longer, more formal LinkedIn posts? Platforms like Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook were not built for recruitment, but that doesn’t mean you can’t use them to recruit.

You can also take your outreach method into consideration. While job descriptions are definitely necessary, many organizations also create short videos, reels, or TikToks describing new job opportunities. If you are looking to reach a wider audience, posting these to your organization’s social media accounts gives opportunities for people to easily share job opportunities with their friends.

If you stop at your own post, you miss out on networking opportunities. Just as you want other people to be engaged with your digital content, make an effort to engage with other people and organizations in your industry. This will help put you on more candidates’ feeds.

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