Samara Parker

I follow a lot of blogs — many of them are related to HR and social media — but just as many of them are not. I also follow too many YouTube channels, and Podcasts. Out of the hundreds that I follow, only one is related to HR, because most HR podcasts and HR YouTube channels are just too boring for words (Jim Stroud is the hilarious exception to that rule, so check him out)!  A few of them are specifically about social media, but most cover a broad range of topics.

I consider this kind of engagement with media an essential part of my job. And though I certainly don’t charge for the time I spend listening to Planet Money (please, please, please listen to Planet Money, it’s amazing!), that time still positively affects my ability to keep this blog relevant, engage with our Twitter community, and keep our Facebook content varied and interesting.

In today’s social media driven culture, it’s more important than ever to stay plugged in to a broad range of media and topics in order to remain relevant.  Heck, Gen Y is about to take over the workforce, and you had better know what their interests are if you want to snap up all of the best millennial talent!

On that note, here are a bunch of the best articles about social media, HR, and other interesting trends I’ve read this past week:

We’ll start on topic with this interesting post by the very lovely HR pro, Nisha Raghavan, about how stealing your competitors’ star employees may not benefit your company at all.

Now to get a little off-topic, here are 24 ways you can relieve your tech stress! Nothing to do with HR specifically, but recruiting is stressful work, and kicking some of that stress in the butt is a great way to become more productive. The article is presented in partnership with a pretty cool new healthy living web app called whil, created by the founder of Lululemon. Definitely check out their site if you want to see incredible branding in action, oh, and if you want to relax and stuff.

Let’s get back to recruiting for a minute with Talent HQs’ round up of 45 mobile recruiting tips and trends. That’s a whole lot of information to help make your social recruiting more mobile-friendly. If you get overwhelmed, I highly recommend using Jobcast Premium to make your Facebook recruiting mobile-friendly in a jiffy. I also recommend using the word jiffy whenever possible!

Oh, and did you know that YouTube is going to host its own music awards show? Bet you can’t guess what it’s called! Yes, you are correct; it is called the YouTube Music Awards. Very creative, YouTube! This is the kind of stuff you need to know about if you’re going to relate to all those new Gen Y employees you are about to hire.

The topic of our final link is a strange combination of sci-fi paranoia, social media, and human resources, which seems perfect for this particular Link Love. Are You Going to be Replaced by a Robot? is written by Steve Boese, so not only is the meshing of topics perfect, the writing is also wonderfully witty, although sadly lacking in alliteration.

That’s all the Links I’ve got for this week. Next week’s theme will probably have something to do with how sick I’m getting of everyone talking about pumpkin spiced lattes, unless you have a better idea. Let us know in the comments!

Just when you thought Facebook recruiting couldn't get any better...

The social network rolls out Facebook Skills! Employers and recruiters all over the globe rejoice —

this is awesome, in a totally nerdy HR kind of way. The reasons that the addition of a skills section to Facebook is so awesome are many, some are obvious, some less so. First, let me break down exactly what this new feature is for those of you who don't obsessively check The Next Web #Facebook, and then we'll look at how FB skills will benefit your recruiting. Facebook's new 'Professional Skills' option shows up under the 'Work and Education' heading in the about section of a user's profile. The new feature basically allows users to add a list of their professional skills to their profile a la LinkedIn, thus making that information available to their connections, and through Facebook Graph Search. Even cooler, when a Facebook user adds professional skills to their profile, the list does not remain static. Facebook takes the information they've entered and links them to relevant groups based on each skill. What's to love:

Organic Interaction

Linking users’ skills to groups automatically fosters engagement and allows employers to interact with potential candidates without it feeling forced. By introducing these skill-based groups, Facebook is giving recruiters and employers a foot in the door with candidates, even if they are not connected to them in any other way. A Shift Towards the Professional

Facebook has lost traction amongst tweens. Tweens are too busy sending Snapchats of themselves dressed as Miley Cyrus to check Facebook these days (and you thought us millennials were a bad bunch!). In response, Facebook is growing up and becoming more professional. Last year 52% of job seekers surveyed by Jobvite reported using Facebook to look for work. The social network is becoming less about memes and drunken photos, and more about forging connections with others in your field, showing off accomplishments, and professional skills. This shift in focus is bad news for companies using Facebook to advertise crop tops, but fantastic news for recruiters. Tweens can't legally work for you, nor, I'm betting, would you want them to! The introduction of Facebook Skills is changing how users perceive Facebook; they are becoming more open to it as a place to connect professionally, which makes them more open to being contacted by employers and recruiters. Awesome. Prompts to Make HR Smile

Every time Facebook rolls out a new feature, users get a barrage of prompts urging them to check it out. Prompts encouraging users to fill out the skills section of their profile also encourages them to update the rest of their profile information, because it reminds them that that part of their Facebook Page exists. The more information users make available to Facebook's Graph, the more employers and recruiters have to go on when searching for candidates. Facebook Skills bring us one step closer to that, ever elusive, employer dream of using Graph search to make the recruiting of passive candidates easy for even the most difficult to fill positions. Our day will come! Facebook Ads Now 20% Better for Recruiting

Okay, so I made the 20% part up, but the sentiment is all true! More searchable information available on users’ profiles means you can get even more targeted with your Facebook Ads campaigns. We already know that Facebook Ads are the most effective tool for social recruiting. We also know that the reason that they are so effective is that they allow you to target talent based on demographics, work history, occupation, education, location, interests, and now, SKILLS! Yes, skills, the most pertinent of all information! If you thought Facebook Ads were awesome before, just you wait until users start updating their profiles to share all of their mad skillz, and you can target them based on things like "joinery skills", "CSS skills", and "customer service wizardry". Or don't wait. Check out our tutorial on targeting candidates with Facebook Ads, download the Jobcast Facebook recruiting app, and get recruiting! Heck, if you read through the tutorial and decide that using Facebook Ads is too much of a hassle, just sign up for Jobcast Enterprise and we'll handle everything for you.So then you can have more free time to update your own Facebook profile. We're nice like that!

It's that time again — time to share some of our favorite articles, videos, and apps with you, our beloved readers. Keeping up with all the cool, techy, social stuff that comes out every millisecond is no easy feat. We try our best, but sadly we are only human, and not in any way bionic. 

Yet still we persevere in our quest to hunt down every morsel of cool recruiting, and social media related info that the interweb has to offer. Okay, so it's mostly just me. The rest of team Jobcast have their hands full with designing new features, growing our client’s employer brands, and problem-solving. Finding links to love is my quest, and your happiness is my reward! Hopefully, this week's links will make you all super happy by helping you optimize your Facebook employer brand and recruiting. If not, then watch this hilarious video, so you'll at least get a good laugh! Now on to the links:

Crowdbabble is an awesome analytics app that lets you track your Facebook stats in real-time. They present all of your data beautifully, with charts and infographics that are full of data, but laid out in a way that makes it all very easy to understand and apply. We all know that tracking your results is the only way to measure success and make informed strategic improvements. Crowdbabble is a great addition to Facebook Insights and Jobcast reports. Another way to keep your Facebook employer branding top-notch is to be proactive about engagement. Sometimes that means dealing with less than kind comments on your Employer Page and, tempting as it may be to simply hide or delete them, this is definitely not the way to go! Instead you should belittle the negative commenter and insult their mother.... Oh wait, that's also a terrible course of action. What you really ought to do is read this article by Franceen Shaughnessy, where she explains exactly how to handle negative comments on your Facebook Page.

Now that you know exactly how to deal with undesirable comments, let's look at a way to get more positive ones. Image-based content always get the most engagement from Facebook users, and you know what's even better than one great image? A collage of great images of course!

Pic Monkey is a really cool app that lets you compile images into super fancy collages, which you can share on your Facebook Page. It even lets you add bunting graphics, which will give you all the hipster cred you need to appeal to millennials like me! Speaking of appealing to millenials, Facebook now allows users to target iOS IDs in custom audiences, so you can make sure all of those hip gen Yers with iOS7 see your lovely collage. Last, but not least: the best way to improve your Facebook recruiting is by making sure your Career Page is optimized for mobile. You can bet that at least 1 in 6 (that's the most conservative stat. It's probably closer to 80%) of your potential hires are accessing Facebook from a mobile device. You simply can not afford to lose these candidates to friction caused by poor mobile experience. Here's how to create a Smart URL with Jobcast to make your Facebook recruiting mobile-friendly. Enjoy these fantastic links. I'm off to find more of them to post on our Facebook Page, because I really need to start following my own advice! If you have any cool posts, apps, or articles you'd like us to feature on the blog, let us know in the comments.

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!

You want the truth?! Well, that's awesome; because I'm pretty sure you can handle the truth. Maybe not the truth about corruption in the armed forces, or extra-terrestrial life… But the truth about Facebook Recruiting? No problem. Last week's Link Love was a long one, so to balance things out, this one will be as short as Tom Cruise sans-lifts and as sweet as Mission Impossible 1. It will also be more useful than both of those things combined, although slightly less entertaining. These links provide some true facts, pertinent stats and straight-talk about Facebook recruiting. Well start with the meatiest link. This survey about the American workforce and Facebook recruiting, put out by Jobvite, shows that job seekers are flocking to Facebook to find work like never before. It also reveals that Facebook is the leading social network in the American workforce, mostly because of stats like this one:

“52% of job seekers use Facebook to help find work.”(2012)

Our next study, by Simply Measured, explains the positive impact of Facebook Timeline for brands. It’s a great little chart that squeezes in a lot of detail, but still manages to be easy to understand. The major takeaway is that “brands receive on average 46% more engagement per post with Timeline.” Getting back to stats that are specific to recruiting on Facebook, here’s a case-study showing that Facebook is an effective tool to recruit for the restaurant industry. Next up, a great piece by Business 2 Community which compiles a huge amount of Facebook marketing stats that can be applied primarily to employer branding, but also recruiting. The most interesting, in my humble opinion, is the one stating that “80% of Social Network Users Prefer to Connect with Brands through Facebook.” Our last link is not for the faint of heart, or anyone with a short attention span.  With this in-depth study, Pew Internet gets into the nitty gritty of how social sharing works on Facebook, and Facebook’s user demographics. The link will take you to a chart of who’s using Facebook, and what they’re using it for. The chart is very large, and very detailed. I suggest you grab a cup of coffee before clicking through!

Facebook can be a very needy social network at times! If you want your Facebook posts to be seen and your employer brand to grow, you have to give it what it wants.

Easier said than done!

Thank goodness saying it is super, super easy, so actually doing it is just plain easy. This article will show you how to get Facebook on your side, but first let’s get on the same Page (pun intended!) about what exactly Facebook wants from you. Hint: it ain’t flowers…

What Facebook Wants

Image-Based Content

Facebook doesn’t want you to send a bouquet, but posting an image of a floral arrangement on your timeline is a completely different story!

Facebook has been pushing advertisers for years to incorporate more photos and video into their content strategy. The recent updates to FB’s link share ads and organic posts take these demands for visual content to the next level by upping the ideal image size for these posts to 1200 pixels x 627 pixels, and setting the minimum to 560 x 292.

Timeliness

Just as you don’t want to be the person still talking about the Britney-Madonna music awards kiss fiasco, once everyone else has moved on to the breaking news that is Miley Cyrus’ twerking abilities (or lack thereof!) I mean really, just writing that has stamped a date on this blog post. Facebook posts, much like today’s pop stars, become irrelevant with age. Old posts get pushed to the bottom of Facebook Newsfeed, never to be seen again.

Engagement

Facebook gives priority to content and Pages that are engaging, and they determine engagement by measuring interaction and popularity, or as Facebook refers to it, Affinity and Weight.

Weight is how popular your content is. The amount of shares, Likes, and comments that any given post you share receives (there are a few more nuances that affect the amount of Weight Facebook gives posts, but we’ll tackle that in the hows.)

Affinity is basically how much users interact with your Page. Facebook uses this information to gauge how interested a particular user is in the content you share, which determines how often your posts show up on their feed.

How to Make Facebook Happy

Post ALL the Pictures

This one is kind of a no brainer, but we still see so many employers and recruiters who do not include image-based content as a part of their Facebook recruiting strategy.

A really great way to include pictures, while staying professional and true to your employer brand, is by creating and sharing employee profiles. Use a large-scale image of an employee (you can just use your smartphone, or theirs — no excuses!) accompanied by a short blurb about who they are, what they do, or why they love working for your company. The picture will make Facebook happy, and employee profiles make your company more likable in general. Win-win!

Logitech Careers has some great examples of employee profiles on their Page.

Follow the Rules

Remember how I mentioned earlier that the process by which Facebook decides how much Weight to give the content you share was kind of complex? I hope you do, as it was only a couple hundred words ago! Facebook gives more Weight to posts that follow the rules. Both spoken, and unspoken.

You can find clearcut rules posted on the Facebook Blog. These usually focus on desired image size, amount of characters used, and specific language. It’s also a very good idea to follow InsideFacebook.com for frequent updates, as Facebook really, really loves to change up the rules!

As far as the unspoken rules of Facebook go, I’ll give you a short list:

• More Weight is given to content you upload yourself, i.e. not through third party apps like Youtube or Flickr. So, if you’re going to post a large image, do so directly through the Facebook interface in order to maximize its effectiveness.

• Images and video content get more Weight than links; links get more Weight than plain text.

• You get what you pay for. Promoted posts, ads, and sponsored stories get more, if not the most, Weight. This makes sense as that’s where Facebook makes its money.

Create Your Own Buzz

Boosting engagement can be a tricky thing, especially when you’re first starting out with Facebook Recruiting. We highly recommend using Facebook Ads to improve your reach, but there are a few more tactics you may want to use as well.

First off, get your employees, family, and friends on board (hi mom!). Ask them to share, Like, and comment on your posts as much as possible. If your employees are reluctant to engage with your Company Page, bribe them with pumpkin spice lattes, or smoothies!

Next, tag everyone and everything. Tagging people in posts boosts your popularity points, and alerts them and their friends, which will then hopefully lead to more Likes and shares. Don’t tag people in posts that have nothing to do with them, or they will get grumpy with you, but anytime you post images of staff functions, or employee profiles, then tag everyone involved. Another nice way to include more tags is to post content suggested to you by your staff, and tag them in a ‘thank you’ note. Everyone likes to be appreciated after all.

Be nice to Facebook and Facebook will be nice to you. What are you waiting for? Get out there and get your Facebook recruiting on!

It’s smack dab in the middle of the work week, which means it’s time for some Link Lovin’ to help us get over the hump that is Wednesday. This week has been pretty great for HR and social media related content already, so there’s a lot to choose from, and I want to share ALL the things with all of you! Sadly, this is about as feasible as fitting every, single flavor of gelato into one small sized cone. Which is why I always choose a large cone, and why this week we're going to share 7 links instead of 5. You heard me! It’s about to get crazy:

Crazy relaxing that is! First up is my very favorite link of the week. It’s my favorite for two very obvious reasons: it’s and Infographic, and it’s about napping. The science behind taking a perfect nap has been compiled into an Infographic  and published by the Wall Street Journal, so you know it’s legit. Napping boosts happiness and productivity, which is why better napping will make you better at your job and a better coworker. Big thanks to Jim Dougherty for bringing this cool graphic to my (and now your) attention! Now for something a little more serious, but still pretty darn cool! Did you know that Facebook daily active user (DAU) numbers in Europe grew from 127 million to 182 million DAU. Ad revenue in Europe went from $245 million to $451 million from 2011 to 2013? Talk about global reach! To help companies capitalize on this crazy growth Facebook’s ad goals for the future are to become even simpler and more worldwide. The article linked does a great job of explaining these goals and what they mean for you. Do you find yourself easily distracted by simplicity and pretty colours? That’s okay, so do I, and, according to Laurie Ruettimann so do most humans. This is why Laurie has laid out some great advice for choosing HR software without being sidetracked by flashy design. Sometimes the smallest things make the biggest impact. Productivity is so important; we all want to be more productive all of the time. Sites like Lifehacker, books like The 4 Hour Work-Week, and apps like The Jobcast Facebook Recruiting App are all a response to this need. But it’s also important to remember how basic things, like taking notes with pen and paper, are often just as important for productivity as any high tech tool.

Bullet Journal is a great reminder of just how great a simple notebook can be. Speaking of technology VS old-school methods, Morgan Hoogvelts’ latest article for ERE.net advises recruiters to remember the basic principles of hiring. It’s true, love Facebook recruiting, but he makes some darn fine points with this post.

LinkedIn is gearing up to add more bells and whistles to their platform. Now don't get me wrong, I enjoy LinkedIn and am really looking forward to the improved communication these updates will bring, I just wish they would improve their mobile app first! The final article is from Inc Magazine and contains the Link Love quote of the week!

“People aren't engaged by programs; they're engaged by people.”

Important words to keep in mind when using social platforms to recruit, and when trying to get employees on board with your Facebook recruiting strategy and employer branding endeavours.  The article from which this quote is pulled explains why most employee engagement programs fail, and what to do about it! Happy Link Loving, if you have any articles you’d like to share, let us know in the comments.

Facebook is a brilliant tool for marketing, as many companies have already learned. This is why more and more big brands, like Coca-Cola and American Express, have been diverting significant amounts of their marketing budgets into Facebook marketing. And their results have been fantastic. What makes Facebook the number one choice for these brands, and why does it work so well? Facebook does what 140 character Tweets simply can’t: it allows brands to tell stories. Stories like the ones that Dove shares on their Facebook Page. From their Real Beauty Sketches campaign, to their recent wedding-themed posts, Dove is giving their customers what they want by crafting interesting, often heartwarming, stories, that people can relate to and be inspired by. Facebook is perfect for brand storytelling because the content that is shared has a longer shelf life, lasting for several hours, unlike Tweets (which disappear within a few minutes). Because of this relative longevity, brands are able to chain posts together, creating a narrative as they unfold. This narrative can seamlessly integrate text, links, video, and images to hold fans' attentions and keep them coming back for more. Brand storytelling does a lot more than just sell products; it establishes a company’s identity and builds up their loyal customer base. The same is true for companies looking to recruit and grow talent communities. An employer brand story is one of the best ways to illustrate to potential candidates why they should want to work for your company. Since the introduction of Facebook Timeline last year, it has become critical for employers, if they want to increase engagement, to make the shift from simply blasting out messages, to creating meaningful stories. Facebook Timeline presents Company Pages in a much more visual way, with a focus on interactive content. This has changed how employers and recruiters must interact with potential hires and applicants to successfully engage with them on the social network. In fact, since the introduction of Timeline, successful branding on the Facebook platform has become pretty much entirely dependent on creating, and elaborating upon stories. A focus on storytelling is effective because it creates a more meaningful relationship between employer brands and their Facebook community. Engaged talent communities participate in social sharing, which helps employers grow their reach and expand their talent communities even further. Here are three ways you can share your employer brand story on Facebook

Talk about your past

More specifically, tell the story of your company’s history. Talk about when and why your company started. Explain what motivated its creation and whether or not that motivation remains the same.

For example, Gatorade was originally made by researchers at the University of Florida to help replenish the electrolyte stores of athletes and was named for the assistance it provided to their football team: The Florida Gators. It was also, according to Gators alumni, completely disgusting. Every company has an origin story and sharing yours is a fun way to show off your employer brand’s roots. Share your causes

If your company has a cause it supports, or a mission statement that shapes its decision making, show it to your potential hires! People want to work for businesses they can be proud of. If your company participates in fundraising, has a really progressive equal rights policy, or is making the world a better place in some other way, tell that story! I’ll use Dove as an example again here, because they do the best job of this that I’ve ever seen. My husband actually emailed me the Youtube video of their Real Beauty Sketches campaign with the caption: “this made me cry, you have to watch it.” They also use their Facebook Page to discuss the terrible body-images issues plaguing so many women today, which tells a brand story of compassion, and support for women. Telling an employer brand story in this way is inspiring to potential candidates, because everyone wants to make a positive difference with the work that they do. Tell your brand story through your employees

Years ago I worked for a super hip restaurant. They had their Twitter account, Instagram, and Facebook branding down pat. So, when I told them I was going to compete in the infamous Tough Mudder obstacle run, they made sure I was sporting a branded t-shirts and trucker hat, and they shared updates of my adventure through their social networks, joking that I was powered by pork (it was a BBQ Joint after all!) When your employees do interesting things, share them! Post images, quote them, make them a part of your story. This is a great way to let potential hires get to know your team, and create original content for your Facebook Page that will appeal across the board. Check out what Earl's Restaurant has done with their "Earls Wants You" Facebook Recruiting Campaign for an awesome example of employer brand storytelling.

Although it’s probably a terrible idea to date our blog content this way, I just can’t help myself…

September is here; it’s time to go back to school. Recruiting School that is! (So cheesy, yet so satisfying.)

This week’s Link Love will get you educated, and you won’t even need to sign up for an online course, or community college, or play beer pong!

From recruiting millennials, to not horribly offending your potential hires, each of these articles is a wealth of information for employers and recruiters alike.

Let the learning begin!

Millennials 101

Millennials are the new black, and not because they are trendy, but because they now make up a large percentage of job seekers. So, it’s important to know exactly how Gen Y feels about social media in the workforce and this article will teach you everything you need to know on the subject.

Millennials 102

Delving further into the topic of Gen Y, Dan Schawbel’s latest article for Harvard Biz is entitled: You’re Probably Wrong About Millennials!

I love, love, love Dan’s advice “to drop generational stereotypes and give Gen Y employees a chance to prove themselves.” And his down-to-earth tips for getting the most out of your millennial employees.

Facebook Edgerank 101

Warning, it is extremely helpful to re-visit Facebook Ads 101 before enrolling in this course!

In this excellent post, Meredith Soleau, breaks down exactly how you can beat Facebook Edgerank to get your job posts seen, liked, and shared. This article is mandatory for any student looking to pursue Facebook recruiting.

Tutorial: Avoiding Interview Disasters

Recruiting doesn’t end at converting candidates into applicants. You also have to interview those applicants and convince them that they want to work for you!

Here’s how to avoid the 7 deadly sins of the interviewing process by Ken Sundheim.

Employee Satisfaction 300 Level

Now that you’ve learned how to reach candidates, convert them into applicants, and interview those applicants like a *baws*, it’s time to talk about retention. Here’s how to reward employees the right way, and to make them feel appreciated while boosting retention.

Stay tuned for next week’s Link Love, where we discuss how to pack healthy lunches for recruiters, and how to keep office bullies at bay!

Unless, of course, I decide to cover a topic that is slightly more pertinent to our readers… Speaking of pertinent, if you have any links that you think we should feature, or ideas for blog topics, let us know in the comments.

Do employers actually reach candidates through Facebook, and, if so, what are the numbers?

I know you’ve all been waiting for the last two weeks, with bated breath, for the answer to this question! Sorry that I made you wait so long, but our interview with Jessica Slusar about Earls’ Facebook recruiting strategy was so awesome, we just couldn’t wait to publish it. I would also like to say, that the stats and advice we shared in that interview do a pretty good job of showing just how effective Facebook recruiting is.

Yes, Employers do actually convert candidates with Facebook recruiting.

Read our interview with Jessica about Earls’ super-successful Facebook recruiting campaign, or head on over to the Leaders West Blog to check out a case-study on Earls’ super-effective employer branding, and you’ll see just how well it does work.

What? You want even more proof?!

Okay, I aim to please:

52% of job seekers used Facebook to look for work in 2012. (Mashable)

So, yes, there are real candidates on the social network who want to apply for your jobs. This is especially true of younger demographics, so if you are looking to hire for customer service and other hourly positions, Facebook is an especially useful tool.

22 million people surveyed used social media to find their last job in 2012. That’s up from 14.4 in 2011. (Jobvite survey)

Okay, so that stat is not specific to Facebook, but it is relevant. It’s pretty safe to assume that quite a few of those 14.4 million were using LinkedIn, but it’s also important to point out that recent grads, those looking for work in trades and construction, and people looking for hourly positions, are not LinkedIn’s traditional user base. So, if you are looking to fill positions within those demographics, Facebook is a far better choice.

84% of job seekers have a Facebook profile. (Time Business)

That’s a huge talent pool to fish from! And please, please excuse the terrible, terrible metaphor. But it is a huge pool — in fact, it’s more than double the number of job seekers with active accounts on Twitter (39%) and LinkedIn (31%), and yet more employers post jobs on those other social networks than they do on Facebook.

Which brings me to our next stat:

Only about 60% of hiring managers are actually using Facebook to recruit. (NAS Recruitment)

This means less competition, which makes Facebook recruiting a huge win for employers looking to hire in competitive markets. We highly suggest you get started with Facebook recruiting immediately, because more and more employers are starting to implement social recruiting strategies. The sooner you build your Facebook Career Page and start recruiting, the more time you’ll have to build your employer brand, establish social proof, thus give you an edge over latecomers.

Now, stats are all well and good, but honestly, I think examples are always better.

Earls Restaurant recently decided to make Facebook the main focus of their social media recruiting strategy with their Earls Wants You Facebook recruiting campaign. They chose Facebook for all of the reasons mentioned above, but also because it allowed them to convey their company culture to potential hires in a way that neither Twitter nor LinkedIn (let alone any job boards) allowed.

Being able to show candidates what an awesome place Earls is to work at, through recruiting videos, and pictures of staff events, gives the restaurant an advantage over other restaurants. This aspect is very important to Earls, because they are doing a significant amount of recruiting in an extremely competitive market (Calgary and British Columbia in particular).

Earls’ decision to focus on Facebook recruiting has really paid off.

In less than one month they increased their Page Likes by 500%, their main Youtube recruiting video (embedded on their Facebook Career Page) got 1,449 plays, and they received over 200 applications from qualified candidates.

Just in case you were wondering, Earls used the Jobcast Facebook Recruiting App Enterprise Plan for this campaign.

So there you have it, Facebook recruiting works; it’s efficient, effective, and takes less time than traditional recruiting methods.

Get started with Facebook recruiting now.

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