Change is hard.

Otherwise my apartment would be completely spotless, and I wouldn't spend my Saturday nights curled up on my couch, streaming Youtube videos, and munching on slices of gluten-free cinnamon raisin toast. Luckily for my love of toast, other than missing out on cool parties, there are not a lot of negative ramifications for this anti-social habit of mine.

Unfortunately for employers with anti-social recruiting strategies, the consequences are much more severe than developing a little case of FOMO!

Social recruiting is no longer just an exciting new way to connect with candidates. These days jobseekers (especially millennials) expect to be able to connect to potential employers via Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. They want to be able to engage with recruiters and employers, ask them questions, and get a general feel for company culture before applying. Not only do they expect to be able to do all of this, but they expect to be able to do it from their iPhone.

If your recruiting strategy doesn't include social media platforms, and if your Career Site isn't mobile-optimized, you're simply not meeting job seeker's expectations.

And yet, you're reading this blog post; this means you're already interested in social recruiting, in fact, I'll bet you already know just how important it is to candidate experience.

So what are you waiting for? A colleague, partner, or employee to take initiative? Your boss to command you? Permission? The stars to align?!

Since we've already established that you're both well-informed and industrious, it's safe to assume that you're waiting on one of the latter two options. I can't help you with the stars — maybe once I finally master the whole transcendental meditation thing — but what I can do is give you permission.

Go for it! Tap into Facebook's 1 billion user talent pool. Grow your employer brand, recruit passive candidates, and most importantly, give your potential hires the engagement they've come to expect from employers.

At Jobcast, we've witnessed the employer branding of an entire province, through Facebook alone, with Phoenix Group's Think Sask campaign. We've helped grow Earls' Facebook talent pipelines by over 500% in less than a month, and every day we see more and more companies discovering just how easy and effective Facebook recruiting can be. I'm giving you permission to be one of those companies!

In case you need more than just my permission (although that seems extremely unlikely), I'm also going to give you some fantastic resources to help you get any additional permission you may need.

Jobvite

The latest version of Jobvite's social media survey is the most often cited resource for stats on Facebook recruiting. It is extremely comprehensive, and answers most of the questions commonly asked by employers, as well as many questions people don't think to ask. Jobvite's survey is also able to provide information about how social recruiting is trending, because they have data compiled from similar surveys they've conducted over the years. (You do have to give them an email address to access the full survey. Or go to AllFacebook for a shorter version)

The 3 Pillars of Social Recruiting

If you think you'll need more than just facts and statistics to get the permission you need — do I have the thing for you! In August, we teamed up with Identified to present a comprehensive webinar explaining the basics of why Facebook recruiting is effective, and what successful Facebook recruiting entails.

Earls Case Study

If your audience is still not convinced, then I highly suggest you find a new audience! Or present them with this super cool example of a company using Facebook recruiting to succeed at finding talent in an extremely difficult market.

Earls used Jobcast Enterprise to increase their Facebook reach by 500% and get over 200 applications from qualified candidates in just one month's time. Their Earls Wants You Facebook Career Page is gorgeous and completely brand-consistent, so they make for a wonderful example of how successful social recruiting can be, and how to use Facebook to reach talent.

Hopefully you now have all the permission you need to get started with Facebook recruiting. Let us know if you have any questions in the comments below!