Samara Parker

We recently had a fantastic comment on our post about making Facebook work for small business.

In it, our reader asked just how targeted Facebook really is, whether Facebook recruiting is effective without an existing audience, and, in summary, whether or not Facebook recruiting is any different from placing an ad in a local newspaper. That last question is what really got my attention, and not in the way you might think. Using social media to recruit is different from using non-social media in very obvious ways. But, what I think we do not talk about enough, in the field of social recruiting, are the similarities between using networks like Facebook to promote job openings, and using the career section of your local paper. Facebook Recruiting is NOT magic. It is awesome, it is effective, it has high ROI... Facebook recruiting works, especially if you use a top notch recruiting app, just saying... But, no, sadly Facebook recruiting is not magical. Like placing an ad in your local paper, using a company career site, and recruiting with job boards, Facebook recruiting takes work, time, and a budget (albeit a relatively small one!)

Similarity Number One: Effort.

"The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary" - Inspirational poster on the internet

I wish that it was possible to simply share a job post and receive a flood of resumes. Actually, I don't because then I would be out of a job... But it would be very nice for all the employers and recruiters out there. Like with any other kind of recruiting campaign, social recruiting takes work. You will need to create content, build up an employer brand, and engage with Facebook users that you would like to see become part of your talent pool. Why Facebook is Better:

Unlike placing ads in the paper, and posting on job boards, when you use Facebook to recruit, all of the content you share, the work you put into your employer brand, and the effort you put into engaging with users, will also build your company brand as a whole. You get to combine recruiting with improving your overall social media presence, which is so important in today's heavily online driven markets. Similarity Number 2: Time.

Writing a quality job post takes time. Researching how you should promote those posts once written takes time. Building a trustworthy, recognizable employer brand takes time. You'll need to build a recruiting strategy, figure out how to write effective job posts, and promote your company culture no matter what medium you choose to employ. Why Facebook is Better:

Social sharing. Unlike print, job boards, or even LinkedIn, Facebook is a medium primarily built around interaction. The structure of the network its self encourages users to share, comment and Like your company's content, which means their connections are more likely to see your job posts. And, Metrics! Facebook Insights makes it pretty darn easy to figure out what works and what doesn't when it comes to your recruiting strategy. Using data to fine tune your recruiting campaigns is one of the best ways to cut down on the amount of time (and work) you have to spend on them in the future. You can also use a Facebook recruiting app like Jobcast to help you measure more recruitment specific data! Similarity Number 3: Budget.

The best things in recruiting are not free. Sure, there are some pretty great free options when it comes to Facebook recruiting, but if you want access to the most effective features the social network has to offer, you're going to have to invest a little capitol. Print ads cost money, quality job boards cost money, and hiring recruiters definitely costs money! Why Facebook Is Better:

It costs less. It's that simple. Ed Social Media explains how they were able to run a successful ad campaign for a mere $20 dollars. Running ads in print news papers often costs upwards of $500 (and that's for a small paper) which is much, much more expensive. Not only do Facebook Ads cost less, but they give you more. Facebook Ads allow you to target users based on their work history, skill set, and interests. Print journals may advertise circulation rates in the tens, even hundreds of thousands, that's a lot of potential viewers, but often those rates are exaggerated, the demographic is completely wrong for your jobs, and no one can tell you how many of those readers even flip to the wanted section of the paper! (Yet another great thing about Facebook Insights!) This incredibly comprehensive article by Jon Loomer will give you a better understanding of what Facebook Ads campaigns should cost. You can also check out our free white paper for a step by step guide to Facebook recruiting.

Retention. It's important. It keeps the office calm, and happy, and it's great for your bottom line. Let's face it, change is hard, and ain't nobody got time for turn-over! According to HR pros like Tim Sacket, 2014 will be the year that retention returns to HR. In the midst of the recession, retention has been neglected, but with the current economic upswing, HR needs to start worrying about losing candidates to the promise of better jobs with shiny new companies! Our Monday blog post explored how you can use company culture as a part of your retention strategy. In researching that article, we stumbled upon a lot of great advice about retention. So, we thought we'd share that advice with you, our lovely readers! Links to help you improve retention and keep your employees happy: Recruiting "A" quality talent, and creating a culture of respect and trust, are at the heart of Netflix' retention strategy. I have to admit, I'm both surprised and totally impressed by the company's forward-thinking policies. The Evil HR Lady: On the importance of company culture, including some fantastic examples from Sapient on cultivating the kind of culture that employees want to be a part of. With the economic future looking bright, recruiters everywhere are predicting that 2014 will bring a huge increase in employees looking for new work in greener pastures! Here are a few ways you can tighten up your retention strategy to keep your best people from jumping ship. And, if those tips aren't enough, or you just want to be extra careful, Carolyn Douglas shares her top 5 retention strategies. These hugely successful companies also have some of the lowest turn-over rates. What do they credit it to?

Connecting company culture to performance!

These articles all provide fantastic advice for keeping your employees happy, and, well, just keeping them! Just add a decent espresso machine and cookies, and you have an airtight retention strategy. Easy peasy. Happy Link Lovin'

Retention is one of the biggest buzzwords for 2014. With a forecasted economic upturn comes expectations of job creation, and with expected job creation comes the swooshing sound of disgruntled employees everywhere dusting off their resumes. Hence, a reinvigorated focus on retention by HR pros and employers. Another big buzzword this year is culture. It was also a big buzzword for 2013... And 2012. Let's face it, love it or hate it, corporate culture is an integral part of doing business in this social media-dominant world! Personally, I love that companies are putting culture first and letting the culture they create drive their business. I also love what company culture can do for retention. The culture you promote can mean the difference between retaining your best employees and losing them. In fact, many employees value aspects of company culture as much as they do rate of pay. That's why smart companies (like Sapient, REI, Google, and SAP) act very strategically to cultivate a culture that rewards employees loyalty, and puts a premium on retaining their best people. Follow their lead! Here are great ways you can use company culture for retention: Make your culture flexible

In employee satisfaction surveys, millennials consistently cite flexibility as being more important than rate of pay. Allowing your people to work malleable hours, giving them the option to work from home home on occasion, and creating programs that allow them to work in a different department, or at a branch located in a different part of the country (or different country altogether), are just a few examples of the kind of flexibility they desire. Make your culture something to be proud of

You may not be able to increase pay, or hand out massive bonuses, but you can make employees feel good about working for your company. If your company culture promotes good ethics, through charitable giving, fundraising projects, and community support, your employees have something other than a high salary that they can take pride in. Being proud of the company you work for is a huge motivator, especially amongst younger employees (us Gen Yers still think we can change the world, sssshhhhh, don't burst our bubble!) Having a 'mission' is a great way to make doing good a signature part of your company culture. Whether it's improving your own environmental policy, giving a certain percentage of profits, or products, to charity, or organizing fundraising events with your staff. Check out Tom's for a great example of a highly successful company that has a strong message of giving back, and excellent retention. Create a culture of community

When your employees feel connected to each other and their superiors, they are less likely to jump ship. You can cultivate a culture of community by organizing events that bring your team together. For example, every Friday let your employees stop work an hour early and share some beers, and/or snacks while talking through the week. Not only will this give them a chance to get to know each other better, but it will also give you some insights into how they're doing, and what the general vibe around the office is. Another important way to make sure that your company culture promotes a strong sense of community is to hire for fit. This does not mean hiring employees based on their personal style, or hobbies, as so many recruiters seem to think it does. Hiring for cultural fit simply means hiring candidates that will get along with the team you already have, and enjoy working in the culture that you want to promote. You can also use social media to give employees more encouragement to interact with each other. Try Campfire, Skype, or Slack to promote communication, and community within your company. Create a culture of respect

The saying "Employees don’t leave companies, they leave managers" may be an overstatement, but it is true that poor management has a huge effect on retention. Make sure that you train your managers well, that they interact regularly with staff, and that all employees are made to feel heard and that you take their input seriously. SAP does an especially good job of this. Check out this article for 10 ways that SAP encourages employee engagement, and thus showcase their culture of respect. More than even financial motivations, social and emotional fulfillment can determine whether employees choose to stay and grow with your company, how much they contribute, and how well they perform. That's why, for 2014, a year that marks the return of retention as a major issue for HR, company culture must be seen as a top priority.

It's Link Love time again.

You know what that means... a silly, rambly intro from yours truly! Then a whole bunch of super useful links of course.

Do you ever feel like there is so much to do that you simply don't know where to start? I do. Almost all the time. Definitely today. But, because I find myself in this position so very often, I've developed a trick for coping with it.

Tidy one small thing from start to finish.

Your desktop, your email inbox, your kitchen sink, it really doesn't matter what, so long as it is a small project, and you finish the job.

Sounds a little silly maybe, but it works. Sitting down at your newly organized desk, opening up your email to find it completely empty, or glancing over at your sparkling sink, will give you a sense of accomplishment that can put a positive spin on your entire day. And even if it doesn't, who doesn't like a clean sink?

Link time!

Experienced recruiters have a lot going for them. Namely: experience! But what about when that usually positive quality becomes a negative? Nancy Park exposes the number one error that experienced recruiters make, and what to do about it.

Gamification, it's still a thing. In fact, it seems to be getting more and more attention lately, especially in the world of recruitment. This article gives a great summary of how gamification is changing HR, and how you can benefit from including it in your workplace. i.e. how you can make HR policies fun... Apparently the impossible is possible in 2014!

PS

Our gamification article, was recently featured on the cover of HR Insights Magazine.

Gamification is usually aimed at millennials, but apparently younger and older generations are coming together like never before. According to this article by Allen King, the workplace generation conflict is just a myth. I agree. I get along just fine with Gen Xers, so long as they keep the Nirvana to a minimum.

Unfortunately, the gender gap in HR is no myth. According to a recent article from XpertHR, the HR profession in the UK in 2014 is three-quarters female, but only two-thirds of UK senior HR professionals are women. Check out Michael Carty's post for more info on the gender profile of HR in the UK.

No matter what demographic you are looking to reach, having a better Facebook landing page will help. Inside Facebook shares an awesome template for improving your Facebook Page template in 2014.

Happy link lovin'!

This is officially our first blog post of the New Year (Link Loves don't count!). Very exciting. Everyone loves New Years — it's a time of renewal, a chance to wipe the slate clean and start fresh.

It is also, obviously, the time for New Year's resolutions. And I don't know about you, but I shudder at the thought. The gym is totally packed with new people, Starbucks is less packed (as those people resolved to improve their budgeting and are brewing their java at home), and bloggers are vowing to post everyday. There are joggers everywhere!

But only about 10% of us will follow through on our resolutions. My gym will be empty again by March, the siren call of caramel macchiatos will win out, and, hopefully, those bloggers will realize that blogging everyday has poor ROI... There will always be joggers.

So, instead of making a zillion resolutions yet only following through on one (and then feeling sad), this year I'm simply going to keep on keeping on. Try to improve where I can, and follow Rayanne Thorn's lovely advice about seeing New Year's not as a time of change, but as a time of renewal, a time when you evaluate what things add value to your life and what things don't. Renew the things that do, and discard the things that don't.

This practice can easily be applied to your social media practices as well! You have the metrics to show you what works best for you and what doesn't, so this is the perfect time to pull out that data and re-evaluate your social media strategy.

Ask yourself:

What is your candidate asking for?

Do they love your Facebook presence, but wish your career site was more mobile-friendly? Do they want more Twitter interactions, or possibly less? Maybe they wish you would post more details in your online job descriptions...

Watch all of your social networks closely for comments and questions, not only because it is important to respond, but because every comment has information that can help you improve your strategy, reach more candidates, and understand your audience better.

Are you providing the message your candidates want to hear?

The feedback you gather from your talent pool should also inform your overall company brand. Maybe your voice is a little too serious for the potential hires you are looking to attract, and maybe it's not professional enough.

Look back over your posts, but try to do so from the point of view of the candidates you want to engage with. Better yet, ask a current employee who belongs to that demographic for help. Then, keep posting the content that your talent responds to, and scrap the stuff they simply don't want to hear.

Are you using the right platform?

Instagram can be amazing for recruiting.

If you are a fitness-related business that is looking to attract young, sporty candidates; Instagram is perfect. It's visual, has a young user base, and is very popular among the healthy living crowd. But, if you are a bank, looking to hire financial advisers with several years of experience, you're better off using a more professional, business-oriented platform such as LinkedIn.

Take a look at the social networks you are currently using, and reassess what they are doing for you. You will want to maintain a presence on key networks, like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, no matter what your target demographic, but platforms like Vine, Pinterest, and Insta are simply not for everyone.

You may also want to try a few new platforms. If you're not currently using Youtube, I highly recommend you start. Video content always receives the highest rates of engagement, and recruiting videos are one of the best ways to increase application rates. Check out these great new examples of recruiting and employer branding videos from Earls Restaurant for inspiration. Following the example of brands who use social media effectively is always one of the best ways to improve your social strategy.

Here's to keeping your social recruiting strategy effective, and fresh this year! Happy social recruiting.

The best thing about New Years' day? French toast.

The second best thing is pouring yourself a nice cup of coffee and reading through all the great prediction, best of, and yearly round-up articles that flood the blogosphere this time of year.

There are always amazing posts that you've somehow missed, cool social media hacks, and hilarious corporate branding blunders to be found. And, for some reason, it seems like a lot of bloggers are in top form when writing that last article of the year.

Today’s Link Love is a round-up of social media and recruiting-related blog posts looking back at 2013, and articles making predictions about HR, social, and branding for 2014.

Enjoy!

Predictions, always entertaining, often risky, are my favorite kind of year-end content. In this piece for Social Media Examiner, Cindy King asks 12 social marketing pros to make predictions about what 2014 will bring to social media marketing.

Learning is fun. I think that will be my 2014 mantra. That and ‘suck it up buttercup’. Those two combined pretty much cover every situation that could possibly arise... right?! When it comes to social, the best way to learn is by example, which makes Jennifer Beese's post, "What Big Brands Taught us in 2013", a fantastic resource for anyone looking to improve their social media branding, marketing, and recruiting.

More predictions! This time we have an article that is more specific to employers and recruiters by Dave Zielinski. In his article, Dave proposes 5 trends in HR tech that you need to watch for in 2014.

Best Facebook Hacks of 2013. How could we not link to this post? It's definitely cheesy, but very fun to look back over all the cool features Facebook's hackathons have led to.

I'd like to end this Link Love with an article that really inspired me. In it, Rayanne Thorn writes about shifting the way she approached the New Year. She encourages us to forget about making resolutions, and instead focus on this moment as a time for renewal. Ray Anne says that she now views New Years "like everything has expired and I need to decide if I want to renew or not, kind of like a magazine subscription". It's a really wonderful article, check it out!

Have a very happy New Year, and Link Lovin'.

So apparently 2013 is practically over.

Did this year go by super fast or what?

It’s probably all the exciting and cool social media innovations that make it feel this way. Vine Video, Upgraded Facebook Ads, the introduction of Facebook Skills, Tinder… The list goes on, and on, and on! It’s been an incredible year for social recruiting, and for all of us at Jobcast.

The Jobcast Facebook Recruiting App went completely mobile, we released our first white paper (a how-to guide for Facebook Recruiting), filmed a Vine recruiting video, co-hosted an awesome webinar with Indeed, were featured on the cover of HR Insights magazine, and our talented CEO, Ryan St. Germaine, gave an inspiring talk at Six:Forty.

It’s been a very good year.

No one wants to read about what’s already happened though. Predictions are where it’s at. In fact, our most popular blog post to date was our social recruiting trends for 2013. And, I hate to brag (that is a bold faced lie!), but ALL of our predictions totally held up.

I could skip the whole prediction thing and stick with a year-end review… You know, play it safe to keep my batting average one for one, but I prefer to live life on the edge.

It’s time for the Social Recruiting Trends 2014 predictions to begin, and I’m going to start with a risky one.

Facebook Goes Professional

Facebook is losing some traction as a means of connecting with close friends and being social in a personal way, but its user base just keeps growing. I predict that many of these users will use Facebook to connect with potential employers, companies, and peers in their field of work.

The introduction of Facebook skills, and the huge rise in the number of companies that are using Facebook to recruit, makes this shift seem more than just possible — almost inevitable.

This prediction is purely my own. I have no data to back me up, other than observing job seekers and my peers, but risky predictions are the most exciting. Let’s see what happens!

Mobile-Optimization or Death

Last year we predicted the rise of mobile recruiting, and we were right. 1 in 6 Facebook users access the network exclusively through mobile. Over 60% of job seekers are using mobile to look for work, and 40% of potential candidates will abandon the application process if it is not mobile-friendly.

Which brings us to our prediction: Mobile friction will become the main deterrent to candidates completing the application process. Failing to have a fully-mobile career site and application process is NOT an option in 2014. Your social recruiting must go mobile.

Niche Recruiting

Gone are the days of simply sending out job posts, and praying that they get seen by candidates who fit your company’s needs, instead of just 12-year-olds and cat ladies with nothing else to do but hang out on the internet.

With all of the data that employers now have access to, and the improved ability to target these candidates based on that information (thank you Facebook Graph Search), social recruiting will become more about reaching a very specific group of candidates.

Recruiters and Employers can use HR Tech to mine data in order to determine exactly what they should be looking for in a potential hire, and then use social networks to find candidates that match that. Equipped with this knowledge they can use Facebook as a tool to find, engage and attract those niche candidates.

Facebook Ads, especially after their recent updates, allow you to reach these candidates easily, as you can get very specific about the audience that they target. This means you can use them to direct job posts to the eyes of those potential hires you most want to reach.

Facebook’s introduction of professional skills to users’ profiles, and they way that they encourage them to connect with others with similar skills by pushing them to related groups and Pages, also gives you a great “in” with specific groups of candidates. You can seek out passive candidates based on the skills they’ve entered and either make contact directly, or you can join groups related to the skills you are looking for in future employees, and engage with users that way.

Facebook just keeps getting better for social recruiting!

Oh, and last but not least:

The Jobcast Facebook Recruiting App will take over the world (of social recruiting). That one is definitely true.

Happy New Years’ from the Jobcast Team. May 2014 see all of your recruiting dreams come true!

Hello, It is almost Christmas. So, if you celebrate that holiday, hopefully all of your shopping is done. If you celebrate it with gifts that is! My family celebrates with food mostly, but also presents. That is why it was pretty scary to wake up yesterday morning, realize just how close to Christmas it was, and that I had not yet even thought about shopping for gifts, let alone purchased any, and that I was going to have to actually leave my house, and maybe even enter a MALL. Thankfully all of my gifts are now purchased. I did have to venture outside, but luckily I managed to avoid the mall. Life is good! To celebrate, I thought I would give all of you, our awesome readers, a gift as well. It's the kind of gift that employers everywhere dream of: A free white paper about how to use Facebook for recruiting. I know, I know, there are a lot of white papers out there, but this one is full of great tips and tricks, has a really easy get-started guide, and is very thoroughly researched. It even includes real life examples! What's not to love? Check out our free white paper for an awesome guide to Facebook recruiting. Happy (holiday) social recruiting from all of us at Jobcast.

Facebook is the Worlds Most Effective Social Recruiting Platform: Download this White Paper and Start Recruiting with Facebook Today! Facebook has a massive reach, and its over 1 billion user base makes it the largest social talent pool to date. Facebook recruiting is simple, fast, and effective. If you know how to use it! Download this white paper now and you'll get access to:

• Our Step-by-step Facebook recruiting guide

• Important statistics all employers should know about social recruiting

• Research-based methods for recruiting passive candidates

• Field tested content strategies that attract potential hires

If you're not changing, then you're probably dead. That’s morbid, yes, true nonetheless!

To keep your recruiting going strong you’ll need to grow and innovate. I'm not saying that you have to make your HR team bigger, add more networks to your social strategy, or overhaul your branding, but you must be consistently growing your reach in order to connect with new candidates.

We all know the perils of trying to get too big too fast, and this is why small innovations are one of the best ways to keep adding to your talent pool.

What follows are 12 days of simple steps that you can implement to keep your social recruiting alive and well.

Day 1

Re-evaluate your job descriptions

Job descriptions are the most important part of your content strategy. When recruiting with social media, you have fewer words at your disposal to hook candidates, so make them count. Go over your job ads, and make sure they are all short, accurate, and that they include a call to action.

(Here are more tips on writing job descriptions for social recruiting)

Day 2

Share a pretty picture

Image-based content receives the most shares, Likes, and overall engagement. This is true for both Facebook and Twitter. Post a great photo of your team, with a fun description, and tag every staff member you can, so that their connections see your post.

Day 3

Leverage your connections

Reach out to your peers and your current team. Explain what you're trying to do with your social recruiting strategy, and ask for their help.

People actually love helping — it makes them feel really great and useful. Just don't send out some generic plea to all of your Facebook connections and Twitter followers. This doesn't make anyone feel good! Ask in person, with individualized emails, or at the end of staff meetings, and try to do so in a way that conveys genuine appreciation, and excitement.

Day 4

Create employee profiles

Employee profiles are great because they are image-based, they introduce potential candidates to your current team, and they act as social proof.

(This tutorial explains how to create employee profiles to boost engagement)

Day 5

Mix it up

Get yourself a content aggregation tool, and use it to find a mix of great content that you can share. This will help you stay connected with potential hires, even when you have no job openings to post, so that you can better reach them when you do. Basically, consistent posting is a huge part of building a social talent pool.

(This article shares some awesome content aggregation tools for employers)

Day 6

Stock up

Now that you have a tool for finding content, you need a way to save and organize the gems you find. You can use Pinterest, or Delicious... My favorite is Pocket App — it's probably my most used app. Tools like this allow you to save, and tag awesome stuff that you find on the internet. That way you’ll always have a nice little stash of shareable content at your fingertips.

Day 7

Say it with video

You don't have to invest in a flashy recruiting video, heck, we made one using Vine, and it got tons of engagement. Much like photos, video is much more likely to be shared than text-based content or links. Also, candidates are almost twice as likely to apply for a job if they've viewed a recruiting video.

(Here's how to use video to recruit, and here's our Vine recruiting video)

Day 8

Re-share it

Employee profiles, staff party photos, recruiting videos, positive reviews of your company, good press, and posts from your company blog are premium content. As such, you’ll want to leverage them as best you can. It is totally acceptable to re-share this content, so long as it is still relevant. On Twitter you can re-share regularly because of the volume of tweets people receive on the daily. On Facebook and LinkedIn, I recommend waiting at least a couple of weeks before re-sharing.

Day 9

Ask questions

Use your social networks to ask potential candidates questions. This is a great way of getting feedback about how your social strategy is perceived by others, and about who is engaging with your talent pool. Use questions that are open ended, but that still give a lot of guidance. For example "What's your favorite recent tech innovation?" (if you are looking to recruit for tech.) Remember to use hashtags!

Day 10

Post a Facebook Ad

Facebook Ads are awesome for recruiting. They can help you grow your employer brand, get your job posts seen, and reach more passive candidates. They also have killer ROI (and by this I mean that they are cheap, and effective!)

(Check out this post for a tutorial on how to use Facebook Ads for recruiting)

Day 11

Schedule your content

Posting to your various networks consistently is so important. It keeps you on your potential hires’ radar, which is a must when you’re trying to foster an active talent community. There are tons and tons of great apps to keep the content flowing on your Facebook Page, Twitter, Google+, and LinkedIn. Check these posts for a list of scheduling apps, and how to set up a social media time schedule.

Day 12

Check your metrics

Go over your Facebook Insights, and any other information you have on hand. This will give you a better idea of what’s working for you, and what isn’t. Maybe posting questions is the best way to engage your talent pool, or maybe it’s video. You'll never know unless you check!

Tune in on Wednesday for our brand new white paper, which details how to improve your Facebook recruiting. It’s full of awesome tips to improve your strategy!