Social Media Recruitment: an Introduction

Social media recruitment
Alexander Bond – Director – finpro analytics Ltd
WWW.FINPROANALYTICS.COM

Who am I?
• Recruitment Director 11 Years
• Worked in Insurance, Finance, Education, Data Science, Analytics,
Development and Digital Marketing
• Recruited from Graduate to C-Suite throughout UK and Internationally
• Worked both client side and consultancy
• Run FinPro Analytics Ltd specialist recruitment

What are the main recruitment strategies?

Recruitment Methods
Recruitme
nt
Offline
Advertisin
g
Online
Advertisin
g
Word of
Mouth
Social
Media
Recruitme
nt
Companie
s
Executive
Search*
External
Database
Searches

Executive search “the perfect model”
• Identify a role to be filled
• Create an ideal candidate profile
• Identify all possible sources for that candidate – competitor clusters
• Identify every possible candidate – above and below the line
• Profile every candidate – not best of available
• Interview the best of that pool
• Offer the best candidate
•WWW.FINPROANALYTICS.COM

Problems with the model
PROCESS
• Identify all possible sources for
candidates
• Identify every possible candidate
• Profile every candidate
•
•
PROBLEM
• Time consuming and geographic
limitations
• Scale in addition to above
• In addition to time and scale of task
we are reliant on available
information or more time

The great recruitment truth
Time
Mone
y
Skill or
Resources
Skill or
Resources

Recruitment is targeted marketing

A definition
• Social media are computer-mediated technologies that facilitate the
creation and sharing of information, ideas, career interests and other
forms of expression via virtual communities and networks –
Wikipedia
• I believe social media is just a new name for the internet and how we
use it today – Gary Vaynerchuk

Before you start with social recruitment
1) Definition: One strategy or many?
2) Objectives: Know the business objectives
3) Existing Recruitment Strategy: How does this align to business
strategy?
4) Capability: Who is responsible and how much capacity do they have?
5) Budget
6)

Social media recruitment - 3 applications
1. Employee Branding
2. Targeted Advertising
3. Sourcing Candidates

Employer Branding
1. Every organisation has an employer brand
2. Brand image is an abstract concept but very real
3. Every potential employee has an image of an employer
4. Brand happens with or without your input as a business
5. Your perception of your brand and your desired brand may differ
6. Employer brands happen both formally and informally

Why is it important?
• 83% of candidates agreed or strongly agreed that employer brand was
important to them in accepting a new role (Hays)
• 80% of people agreed or strongly agreed that a strong employer brand
was likely to influence their enjoyment of the job (Hays)
• 66% people said they would be willing to accept a LOWER SALARY if a
company impresses during the hiring process (careerbuilder.com)
•

A positive employer brand will…
• Attract new candidates
• Increase employee engagement
• Help you be seen as an employer of choice
• Reduce your recruitment costs
• Increase staff retention

What are your employees saying about you?

What contributes to your employer brand
• Social Media
• Company values
• Opportunities for advancement
• Your company branding and marketing
• Recruitment advertising and branding
• Career website
• Current employees
• Pay and Conditions
• External sites
• Alumni

Hubspot – an inside look
• Short – 2 Minutes
• Fresh and Natural
• Depicts company culture
• Addresses candidate concerns
• Shows unique benefits of
working for Hubspot
•
•

Brookdale – meet the employees
• Short – 30 seconds
• Honest
• Cheap to make
• Represents values of the
business
• Answers the why

UPS
• Image based tweet
• Truthful
• Speaks to the “why”
• Directs to more content

Evening Standard
• External content
• Staff Interview with a blog
• Expresses company values
• Appropriate for the audience:
Written word for Journalists

Someone in the room …

Acumen BUSINESS LAW
• GOOD CONTENT
• CONSISTENT POSTING
• ADDING VALUE
• RICH MEDIA CONTENT
• MULTIPLE PLATFORMS

Using social to enhance Employer branding
• Put out favourable content – Control the narrative*
• Video and images are often better at quickly demonstrating company culture/values
• Document don’t create
• Don’t underestimate the written word – Blogs – Medium/Linkedin/Instagram*
• Good content that offers value will attract more candidates – Value Driven
• Be truthful – it can’t be all company away days – Recruitment Industry!
• Good employee branding content works as good branding content – Ben and Jerrys
• Be consistent
• Different platforms for different demographics – what is your ROI?*

YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA RECRUITMENT
STRATEGY IS AS GOOD AS YOUR SOCIAL
MEDIA MARKETING Strategy
….. And build a careers page otherwise what are we driving people towards

Targeted advertising
What, where and why?

Good adverts
• A – Attention: attract the attention of the customer.
• I – Interest: generate interest by focusing on the advantages
and benefits.
• D – Desire: convince customers that they want and desire the
product/service
• A – Action: persuade customers towards taking action
•
•

Good Job adverts
• Good job adverts are ADVERTS not job descriptions
• Are only effective when correctly targeted – If a tree falls
• Appropriate for the platform
• Details – Salary (Receive 40% more applicants) and Location
• Job Title – Avoid Internal/Ambiguous titles
• Opportunity – Is the company growing? Is there progression?
• Call to Action – Where to apply? To whom?

Which platform?
• There is no set social platform for your business
• Different platforms work better for different team
• What platforms work well for your target area – where are the
candidates?
• Social networks are increasingly segmented e.g. Hunted.com
• Some allow greater targeting than others
•
•

The
Importance of
Visuals

Snazzy room
• Short – 2 minutes
• Funny
• Reflects company culture
• Informs company benefits
• Sharable
• Call to action
• Contact details!
•
•

Does Anyone recognise this video?
• Relevant content
• Visual is better than written word
• On the right medium
• Too short
• No call to action
• Sound is poor

The Coal Shed
• Simple but shares some of the
company employer brand
• Sells the business
• Discusses opportunity
• Has a call to action

Which Catches your eye?

Social Job adverts
Paid Free

Facebook jobs
• Facebook jobs live in North America
coming to UK soon
• Allow people to post jobs on
Facebook company page
• People will apply directly through FB
• Application will pull in FB data
• Conducted all through FB messenger
• This is the future of recruitment

Facebook
• Can target adverts by: Industry, Profession, Employer, keywords or a
combination
• Paid for but you decide the budget
• Price depends on a variety of variables
• Targeted nature means only paying for qualified candidates to view
your advert
• Excellent tracking data

Linkedin
• Better for corporate business
• Targeted via employees – appears on their profile side bar
• Effective for active job seekers
• Excellent tracking data
•

Instagram
• Not just images
• Long form written content
• Can also utilise video
• One of the faster growing
mediums across all ages
• Can direct message

Best Practice for the DIY advert
• Create visual and engaging content
• Create the right content for the right platform
• Share on all relevant platforms
• Ask all of your staff to share the content* (make it worth sharing)
• Repeatedly share the content
• Budget is an excuse not a constraint
• Consider the ROI

Candidate sourcing on social
media
Finding the needle in the haystack

Sourcing vs recruiting
• Sourcing is a fundamentally methodical approach to identifying the
right candidates for a specific role
• Recruitment is the ability to approach and attract that person to the
opportunity
• You may use one network to identify talent but another medium to
contact them

Linkedin – Before You begin
• COMPLETE YOUR PROFILE
• Join Linkedin Groups – up to 50 Groups – best way to grow your network
• Add new connections daily – the wider your network more connections e.g. Chefs
• Consider upgrading
• Use connection request to send a message (can check if its been read on mobile app)
• Linkedin Recruiter

Boolean Searching
Up to 200 words
Plugins
Media

Boolean
Search Filters

Facebook – lets cheat
• Download intelligence search
chrome plugin
• Search all social platforms but
best on Facebook
• Search job, location, company
and keyword
• That is executive search

Example – Chefs
• Hundreds of Results
• Message them directly
• Opens in the window of profile
careful to open in company
account

Don’t be Afraid of the Phone!

Social Media Policy – you need one
• Focus on encouraging and engaging staff than on litigation
• Areas to be covered:
• Network Security
• Acceptable Behaviour
• Data Protection and Monitoring
• Business Objectives
• Disciplinary Procedures
• Intellectual Property
•
•

Summary
• If you don’t have a recruitment page – get one
• Share valuable and relevant content often across the right platforms for you
• Don’t obsess with perfection obsess about value
• Images beat words, video beats images
• Build your presence on the right social networks – social media recruitment doesn't work
without it
• Don’t be embarrassed to engage with candidates for the future
• Have a social media policy
• Encourage your staff to participate – it only increases your reach

Additional Recommendations
• Get an applicant tracking system – JobAdder, Zoho etc
• Use a social media management tool – Hootsuite, Buffer, Sprout etc
• Utilise plugins – Dux Soup (Linkedin Notes, email addresses),
Intelligence Software
• Use a curation tool to help you share content – List.ly, Fliboard, Feedly
• Monitor ROI for social engagement
•
•

Social Media Recruitment: an Introduction

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