Facebook Recruiting

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!

Being small is tough. When it comes to recruiting, the big guys have a lot going for them: established branding, greater reach, and just more resources at their fingertips in general. But, being small also has its advantages; you just need to know how to leverage them!

I am an extremely tiny person myself. I am also quite athletic. These things are often at odds with each other, so no one would ever think to pick me first for their basketball team! So, instead of crying over poor genetics, I've found sports that are better suited to my stature. I don't play volleyball, sport of the amazons, but I do Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, which is perfectly suited to those of us with small levers!

When it comes to recruiting, I suggest small businesses do the same.

Smaller companies can beat the big guys. They just have to pick the right game, choose their playing field wisely, and employ a few ninja-like social recruiting tricks while they're at it!

The Game:

Social Recruiting

TV ads, billboards, job fairs, and networking events are very expensive. Social recruiting is not. Big companies also outshine smaller companies in these non-social areas because they have easily recognizable branding, established reputations, and more manpower!

When you use social to recruit, you level the playing field. You simply do not need a large staff to run hiring campaigns when using Facebook  or Twitter. You can grow your employer brand while you recruit, and, let's face it, Facebook Ads are much more budget-friendly than career fair booths!

The Playing Field:

Facebook

I'm not going to dwell on the commonly-used reasons given for picking Facebook to recruit with.

• 1 Billion Reach

• Graph Search's ability to access passive candidates

• Mobile-friendly

• Amazing candidate targeting

All of those things are gold for recruiting, but they are equally beneficial to big businesses as they are to small ones. And we're talking about how you can edge out the big guys. There are two notable benefits to being a small business when it comes to Facebook Recruiting.

First, big businesses aren't using Facebook for recruiting at nearly the same rate that they are using Linked in. Most of them include the network in their strategies, but aren't consistently focused on building Facebook talent communities. This means less competition for small businesses trying to recruit.

Second, Facebook is all about "authentic interactions". The term authentic gets thrown around a lot these days, and often it's just marketing fluff, but when it comes to engaging on a social network like Facebook, it has actual meaning and value. Facebook is built on friends connecting with friends, and users still see the network this way, even though over 70% of them have used Facebook to look for work... just sayin'!

As a small business you can work this angle to your benefit. You aren't some huge corporation, sending out email blasts, using bots, and posting repetitive content. You are human: personal, and engaged. Embrace your smallness. It makes you more relatable.

The Tricks:

Play up your smallness

Engage with people one on one, showcase the that staff you do have on a personal level, emphasize just how small you are, and how that impacts your team positively (i.e. they are a name, not just a number.) Show potential candidates that yours is a company they can grow with. You can do this by sharing content about your company's growth, both past and projected, its history, how you got started and why, as well as posting employee profiles that introduce your staff.

(Here's how to create employee profiles to boost your employer brand)

Go on the hunt

Facebook is the perfect place to seek out passive candidates to grow your talent pools. You can search for potential hires through Facebook's directory, and check out Pages and groups that are relevant to your job openings. More and more, users are sharing their employment histories and professional skills, so you can use Facebook Graph Search to seek them out based on this information.

Be consistent

Many employers only post to their Career Page when they have a position to fill. This simply doesn't work. If you want to build a great employer brand, grow your talent communities, and connect with potential hires, you must share varied content, and do so consistently.

Employee profiles, pics of staff parties, recruiting videos, links to relevant blog posts, and questions, are all great things to post on your Page. I highly recommend checking out Earls Restaurant's Facebook Career Page if you want to see a great example of Facebook employer branding. KLM Airlines also has an amazing content strategy, worthy of imitation.

Most importantly, just get started! The sooner you take the plunge into Facebook recruiting, the sooner you can start growing your talent communities, and attracting qualified candidates!

Oh, and did I mention that the Jobcast Facebook Recruiting App is a super easy way to get started with social recruiting?

Happy employees are an employer brand’s best friend.

According to LinkedIn and TNS enthusiastic and engaged employees are potentially a company’s greatest asset when it comes to branding.

Sadly for us, and by us I mean you and employers everywhere, it can be pretty tough to get employees engaged with your social media efforts. There are lots of ways to encourage your team to engage, but unless you are Lululemon, and have a staff made up of selfie posting, fitness obsessed, Instagram loving young people, getting your employees to create and share content for your brand can be a hard sell.

I have a solution!

Create that content for them.

At Jobcast our head honchos are pretty darn cool. Johnny could bike across Canada without breaking a sweat, has some of the most adorable kids you’ll ever see, and is incredibly passionate about tech, design and user experience. Ryan is a ninja, like actually a ninja, has a gorgeous wife, who is an extremely popular blogger and book author, he also has over ten years experience when it comes to social recruiting, an in-depth understanding of what employers want, and knows exactly what employers need to be successful with social recruiting.

So why aren’t their faces plastered all over the internet? Well, for one, they are both insanely busy trying to make Jobcast better, and for two, they are both pretty humble guys. Your employees are probably pretty busy too, and maybe they don’t feel comfortable talking about themselves, or even know where to start! That’s where you come in, or, in the case of Jobcast, that’s where I come in.

I’m going to create employee profiles for my employers Ryan and Johnny, and in doing so, show you…

How to Create Employee Profiles to Improve Your Employer Brand

Step 1

Photos! You need a really good photo as the main focus for your employee profile. Image-based content is king. Photos and videos get more shares, likes, comments, and general engagement than any other kind of content shared via social media.

We took some professional photos, because we wanted to be able to use these images for any other projects that may come up in the future. You don’t need to invest that much, a good quality smart phone can almost always take high resolution photos, that are perfect for your needs. If your photo taking skills aren’t the best, just try for natural lighting, make sure your subject has a nice smile going on, and if all else fails, use a filter to enhance the picture.

Here are some more great tips for taking awesome photos with your phone.

Step 2

Write a short bio about your employee that includes what they do and why they love working for your company.

Example 1:

Johnny Oshika, CTO, co-founder and technical wizard behind Jobcast is driven, highly analytical, and has all of the technical skills required to create and manage the development of the Jobcast Facebook Recruiting Application.

Johnny loves solving problems, and improving user experience for Jobcast. Striving to perfect the Jobcast app keeps him engaged and excited about his job.

Example 2:

Ryan is the CEO, co-founder, and face of  Jobcast. He has tons of experience with social recruiting, understands what employers need, and how to attract candidates.

Ryan is always happy to share his knowledge with others, whether it’s via webinar, or face to face. That’s what makes him so good at working with employers to make their social recruiting the best it can be.

Step 3

Show everyone, and their mom. Now that you have the content share it on all of the social networks you use. Make sure that you tag the employee in the image so that they see it, and so do all of their connections, this will increase shares, comments and likes. Encourage all of your employees to share the post on their own social networks. You can even write a post on your company blog about employee profiles and how cool they are.

Happy social recruiting!

Job posts.

The most important content for any recruiting strategy. These short (please make them short!) descriptive write-ups must pack a whole lot of punch! They must describe your company, the job you’re hiring for, and what you need in a candidate. And, on top of all of that, they must be enticing.

The way you construct your job posts will largely dictate the type of candidates that apply for your jobs. As we discussed last week, the candidate you want is not always the candidate you need. Let’s take a quick minute to recap.

Unless you are hiring for an extremely lofty, head-honcho kind of position, you are not looking for Superman. Superman is a lone-gun, top dog, who you probably can’t afford anyway. He’s also pretty strange (see: love of brightly colored tights and fear of green rocks). Nope, you want yourself a Clark Kent. Smart, capable, not too loud, supports other members of the team… Office-appropriate attire!

So how do you write a job post that will attract the candidate you really need?

Step 1

Assess your Team: JLA or Fantastic Four?

What your team is like, what your team is missing, the personality types that fit well with your other employees, and the type of candidates that are compatible with your team leader will dictate which candidate is the best fit for your open position.

Yes, of course you need to know the basics, like how much education or experience the job requires, but knowing your current employees and how the operate as a team is also an important part of figuring out who your job posts should appeal to.

Step 2

Understand: The Hierarchy of (Recruiting) Needs

If your job post demands a candidate with all of the awesome powers possessed by Storm, but all you really need is a candidate with a Gambit level of skill, you won’t attract either. Storm knows the position is beneath her (come on, she can summon tornados!), and Gambit is convinced he doesn’t have a chance (he twirls a fancy staff and throws playing cards).

Figure out what skills you need your candidate to possess, what skills would be a very useful bonus, and what skills are cool-sounding but are actually superfluous.

Step 3

Communicate: Openly and Honestly

Express what you need clearly to potential candidates in your job post.

Sounds simple? I think so too, but it isn’t. Most job posts do not delineate between requirements and desires. Often they will list off a ton of traits, skills, experience, and education qualifications, but not communicate the kind of working environment or the management style the candidate should expect. A lot of them don’t even really explain what the job will be like day to day.

“We need motivated candidates, with Food Safe certification, some experience in customer service, and a high-school education to work the cash register, serve pastries, and make espresso drinks at our Italian bakery.

You must like working in a busy environment, and be comfortable making decisions on your own.

You’ll work with a fun team of students, for a manager who prefers their staff to be self-directed, but is always there to help.

Bonus points if you know how to make a killer latte, love Italian food, and have worked at a cafe before.”

Sure, this description is a little fluffy, but expressing what skills you need from a candidate, as separate from what skills you want, will get you more applications to choose from. It also let’s candidates know exactly where they stand, which is very appealing because no one wants to waste their time applying for a job they have no chance of getting, or would never accept. It’s for this reason that I also recommend including some sort of salary range as well.

Oh, and please include your location, website, and any other pertinent details. It’s shocking how many job posts neglect those basics!

Step 4

Attract: Like Metal to Magneto

Make your posts magnetic; draw in candidates in with positivity. Visit the job post section of Craigslist and you will see some terrifying things, my recruiting friends. Employers starting their posts off by saying things like, “no whiners”, “you will be expected to do exactly what you are told at all times”, and “this is a job, not a social club”. Would you want to work for an employer whose first impression was that of a jaded, and demanding meany-pants?

So you had to let go of your last employee due to their inability to follow directions — that’s no reason to write a reactionary job post. As the internet once told me “Ain’t nobody got time for that!”

Positive, upbeat posts will attract waaaay more candidates than those filled with negativity, and not only that, but negative job posts will only attract applications from desperate candidates. Those candidates are often desperate because they keep getting fired due to their lack of listening skills… Just sayin’!

For an example of truly awesome, positivity-filled hiring, I’d like to share with you this fine piece of Twitter recruiting gold, crafted by the ever-witty Kris Dunn:

“Twitter Position description:  @Cimation seeks first ever HR Leader. If you’re a deep, talented HR pro who’s frustrated with the shackles and wants a clean whiteboard, I’ve got the gig.”

Now that sounds like a job I would apply for!

Not only will writing more enticing job posts get you more and better applications, but when you use social to recruit, every job posting you share becomes a part of your employer brand. Make them awesome!

Happy Recruiting.

What every job applicant wants to hear:

“You, my friend, are a mutant — and I have a need of mutants — desperate need!”

– Dr. Xavier

Our feature article last week explored the benefits and pitfalls of social media when it comes to inclusivity and diversity in the workplace.

So, now you know that using social media for recruiting, especially when you are targeting specific demographics, is a game of balance. While social media, and most notably Facebook Ads, offer a way to direct job postings at very specific groups of people, inclusivity requires that, during the hiring process, no one is discriminated against based on gender, race, religion, or superpower preference.

You may be targeting the 22 year-old tech-savvy millennial with your job post, but if you get an application from a 42 year-old ex-librarian who is perfect for the job, hire her. (They’re probably both wearing the same glasses anyway!)

Diversity isn’t just about gender, race, and religion. If you have a racially diverse team, but everyone on that team has the same life experience, values, interests, and opinions, then your team is not diverse. Varying outlooks, life experiences, and learning styles are equally important, and make a company flexible and strong.

That being said, let’s move on to some practical tips for using social media to banish exclusivity, embrace diversity, and create a winning team.

Make Your Content Reflect Diversity

This one’s a pretty obvious one. It’s also pretty easy to accomplish, since most stock photographers are now hyper-aware of their potential clients diversity requirements. Thus all of the racially-diverse images of happy men and women in business suits floating around the internet.

I do have a little tip for any of you looking to appeal to millennials but want to stay inclusive; old-timey images! Millennial hipsters are really into black and white photos of dudes in dapper suits, with old-fashioned hairstyles and mustaches.

Enlist Your Team

Hopefully your team of employees is pretty diverse already. If so, you have a great resource in them. Get your team on-board with your social recruiting; have them share posts, comment, and give input on the content of your Facebook Ads, Tweets, and job posts. If your content comes from diversity, then, chances are, it too will be diverse!

I’ll use an example from our own team, which is pretty darn diverse itself. Our blog is one of the main vehicles for us to share content with our clients, peers, and even candidates. Therefore, coming up with ideas for blog posts that reflect the message Jobcast wants to put out is no easy task.

Luckily, we have a team of employees who all have pretty great ideas for topics. Johnny is full of amazing suggestions about technical tasks that need covering, Ryan is always in the know about what our clients want to read, and I bring the girl power (ladies of HR unite!) as well as the ability to distill technical jargon down to regular words.

Target Diversity

This is probably the best way social media can help you bring diversity into the workplace, but it is also the most difficult to navigate.

Legality Alert! You must understand how your province, state, country, or home planet regulates recruiting practices. It’s going to vary from place to place, so I can’t really help you with this one. Sorry.

Social media, especially Facebook, allows you to target candidates really really specifically. If you need to meet diversity requirements, you can use Facebook Ads to target the demographic of candidates you need to attract.

It’s pretty straight-forward — here’s a tutorial on targeting candidates with Facebook Ads. There is some murkiness surrounding the legality and ethics of targeting candidates based on something like age or gender.

We’ve already given a legality disclaimer, so how do you avoid ethical problems with targeted recruiting campaigns? Easy. Understand that targeting diversity is different than being exclusionary.

Yes, you are primarily attempting to reach a specific demographic with your job posts, but if those posts are seen by a candidate who falls outside of that demographic, they can still apply for the position, and you, being the very ethical employer that you are, would not exclude them based on their age, gender, race, or the skinniness of their jeans.

Look for diversity, but value a culture of inclusion over all.

“You’ve proven you can think and act for yourselves!! Your training period is over!! Congratulations, my -X-Men- employers/recruiters!!”

– Samara Parker in the voice of Doctor Xavier

I think social media is great for recruiting. Duh!

.. and apparently I also think the 90s are back.

I blog for a Facebook recruiting app, so of course I think social media is great for recruiting. I also think that all of you should integrate at least some social networks into your recruiting strategy. Social recruiting is effective, social recruiting is industry standard, and social recruiting is sexy… if you’re into that sort of thing.

What social recruiting is not, is free from all of the strings and regulations of old school hiring methods. You may be able to target candidates based on specific demographics via Facebook Ads, but you also have to be aware of the possible backlash that this kind of targeting may have.

Mishandling your social recruiting policy can lead to a diversity disaster.

Millennial candidates are all the rage. The HR blogosphere would have you believe that all of your social recruiting should be aimed at attracting this generation of candidate. Just see my previous two feature articles for evidence of this, and yet, as much as engaging Gen Y is valuable, it shouldn’t get in the way of fostering inclusivity. Being cautious about diversity in recruiting isn’t just important for legality’s sake *cough, Abercrombie and Fitch, cough!*, it’s also an important part of making your employer brand attractive to potential hires.

To quote another millennial HR blogger:

“Inclusion will always be more attractive than exclusivity”

‘Always’ is a wee bit of an overstatement, of course. Try walking into your favorite local hipster coffee shop wearing sweatpants and carrying UFC 360 magazine; it’s enough to make you run to the nearest American Apparel and buy the skinniest jeans they have on offer. This reaction, caused by an intense atmosphere of exclusivity, is what makes the cafe appealing to many of its customers.

Recruiting, though, is not a hipster cafe.

When posting a job, when interacting with potential candidates, and when promoting your company culture, inclusivity will get you more applications. And it will keep legal issues at bay — what’s not to like?!

Now, that’s not to say that you cannot use targeting to your advantage when recruiting. If you create a Facebook Ad with the intent of it appealing to, or reaching out to, a target demographic, it does not mean that your social recruiting is exclusionary. Similarly, when a company makes a commercial that aims to appeal to youth, it doesn’t mean that they don’t want older people to buy their product. As we all know, most companies just want people buying their product, irrespective of age, gender, or hair color.

Understand What Diversity Really Means

Diversity isn’t just about gender, race, and religion. If it were, then there really wouldn’t be a lot of benefit to cultivating a diverse team of employees, other than meeting industry standards. I know some people think that that is all that diversity is about (again, Abercrombie!), but their opinions are wrong! If you have a racially diverse team, but everyone on that team has the same life experience, values, interests, and opinions, then your team is not diverse.

Differing opinions lead to discussion, which leads to ideas, which leads to innovation, and improvement.

Having an inclusive workplace, made up of employees who are different, but are all working towards the same goal, together, as a team, will benefit your company.

So, how do you use social media to promote inclusivity and help your company meet diversity requirements? That’s a great question!

Now that you have a groundwork for understanding how social media and diversity co-exist, we can move on to practical applications. Next week, we’ll explore exactly how you can put some of these ideas into practice, and use social inclusivity to better your company, your industry, and the world. So basically, we’re going to be using the X-men metaphor that I so dearly love. I’m pretty excited about it!

Until then I will leave you with an inspiring quote from Dr. X himself:

“My name is Charles Xavier. I am a mutant. And once upon a time I had a dream… of a world where all Earth’s children, both mutant and baseline human, might live together in peace. This isn’t it. This is today’s reality”

I ask you to ask yourself, “am I really reaching enough mutants?”

Last week we talked about how Generation Yers are entering the workforce en masse. We also discussed what these millennials want from employers, besides an endless supply of single origin coffee and permission to wear very tight pants.

This week, as promised, we're going to explore the top ways you can attract millennial candidates.

As always, I'm going to present data from surveys, and polls, but since I am a millennial myself, as are most of my homies, I am also going to share some anecdotes and my own personal thoughts on the matter. Like Gen Y, these tips will both meet and defy stereotypes... they will also be heavily fueled by caffeine and free-range, ethically-farmed, sustainable bacon from a pig named Apple.

Tips!

Focus on lifestyle over salary

“Once a salary meets their basic needs, millennials still desire progression and growth, along with challenging and interesting work that piques their interest,” - Razor Suleman (founder and chairman of Achievers)

Millennials want a challenge. They want to solve problems, try new things, and think outside the box. This is a generation reared on online strategy games. Millennials get bored easily, so keep them progressing, and on their toes. Not only will this entice Gen Y candidates, but it will keep your corporate culture fresh, relevant, and thriving.

Another great way to entice millennials is to offer them the ability to move around (laterally) within your organization.

Take my lovely friend Masako, for example. The company she works for encourages their employees to spend time working in different branches of their organization. She has expressed just how much she loves this initiative nearly every time we discuss her career. And it is truly a great policy, because it gives employees a better overall understanding of what their company does, and, who knows... maybe Cheryl in shipping is actually a genius at customer satisfaction!

Make us excited to grow with you

52% of millennials listed ‘the potential to grow with a company’ as an essential part of their decision to accept a position.

As previously mentioned, when assessing a first-time employer, Gen Yers like myself are looking for a committed relationship. One of the best ways to woo millennials is by showing us that your company is growing, that it will offer us opportunities to advance, and that working with you will help us progress in our careers.

We don't need no plaques and trophies

Seriously, stop it with the employee-of-the-month certificates already. Gen Y gets enough of that from gamified apps like Fitocracy, and at least with Fitocracy badges, all of your Facebook friends can see how bad-ass your Crossfit skills are!

Millennials value choice, so let them have a say in what kinds of incentives your company chooses to offer. Gen Yers also value experience over stuff (yeah, I was just as shocked!), so if your employee reward budget allows, offer experience-based rewards like zip-lining tickets, or a gift certificate for a yoga retreat.

Be social or die

Not to be an extremist or anything, but the amount of times my friends have listed a potential employers' outdated social media practices as a major reason for turning down a job offer is too often to ignore.

Over 83% of millennials use social networks every day (and honestly, I think that stat is very conservative), and Gen Y's use of LinkedIn has gone up by 700% in the last year (yet that one may be a bit exaggerated!)

More job seekers than ever before are using Facebook to connect with potential employers, and Facebook's recent recruiting-friendly updates have made it a better place to build a talent pool than any other online platform.

1 in 6 Facebook users access the social network from mobile exclusively. And at least 77% of potential candidates will be surfing your career site from the comfort of their mobile device, myself included. In fact, I work almost exclusively from my iPad.

If you want to connect with millennials, your recruiting and application process must be social. And today, all social recruiting strategies must take mobile into account. If your candidates cannot complete their application from their smartphone, chances are they won't complete their application at all.

Offer coffee

Good coffee. Preferably Bows & Arrows. Please — no Nespresso!

Okay, so that last tip is directed pretty specifically at my favorite employers: Ryan and Johnny — Hi guys!

But, hopefully, the rest of these tips will help you grow your own super army of millennial hipster/rockstar employees, who will make your company thrive! Or at least introduce you to weird drinks like kombucha, and bring some vintage flare to your company culture.

Sources:

Mercer - Generation Y: Realising the Potential

Acheivers - The Class of 2013

Mashables - How Job Seekers are Using Mobile

PWC - Millennials at Work: Reshaping the Workplace

Cracked.com - #hipsters

Is your recruiting strategy missing out on one of the most important demographics? Odds are, the answer is yes. Over 60% of job seekers are using mobile devices to look for work. That means that over half of your potential candidates will be trying to apply for your job openings via mobile. But, in our most recent survey, we found that only 1 in 20 career sites were mobile-optimized, even though quite a few of them thought that their employer sites could accommodate mobile applicants. So what's the big deal? Won't these candidates simply apply later from their computers? Well, actually, no they won't! In fact, 40% of your potential hires will abandon the application process entirely if it is not mobile-friendly. And your candidates have very high standards when it comes to mobile experience. Simply put, if your potential hires cannot complete their application immediately, and completely, from their mobile device, they will not complete their application at all. (Caveat: of course this does not apply if you are hiring for president, or CEO, or the next Batman!) Hopefully we all agree that mobile friction is a huge problem, so now we can move on to the easiest possible solution.

The Jobcast Facebook Recruiting App is your mobile solution.

It's easy to use, it's completely free (although I highly recommend upgrading to our Enterprise plan), and with Jobcast, all job applications can be completed immediately from any mobile device. Most other recruiting apps do not allow candidates to submit their resumes from their mobile devices. Since most iPhone or iPad users don't or can't access their file system from their phone, there is no way to upload a resume, or any document, from their mobile device. The Jobcast team has used Cloud Technology to solve this problem. This new Cloud integration makes it possible for your candidates to submit their resumes with Dropbox. Here's how: From your Career Page, the candidate will start the application by clicking 'Apply Now'.

• You'll notice that the applicant has the option to apply by uploading a file or with Dropbox.

• Applicants applying from their desktop computer or with an Android phone or tablet can select a resume from their hard drive by clicking the "My Computer" button.

• The next button is where the magic happens! Your applicant can tap on the Dropbox button to access their Cloud data, from any mobile device, or any computer.

• A pop-up window will appear, and the user will be asked to log in to Dropbox.

• Once they are logged into Dropbox, they will have access to all of the files that they have saved in the Cloud. Your applicant can then select the copy of their resume they wish to attach.

• Through the magic of the internet, lo and behold, their resume will now be attached to their job application. They will then have the option now to 'View' the file that they have attached, or to 'Remove' it and instead select another.

As with all applications, you will be sent a notification, and a copy of the resume via email. Of course, the applications and attached resumes will also be viewable in the "Manage Jobs" section of the Jobcast App. If you like, you can post this tutorial on your Facebook Career Page for applicants to see, but we believe that the design is intuitive enough on its own; they won't even notice a difference between applying from their computer, and applying from their phone. At Jobcast, our main goal is to make your recruiting better. We believe that mobile friction is the biggest hurdle employers currently face. Trends predict that mobile job searches will double over the next year, making a frictionless mobile application process more essential than ever.

Make your recruiting mobile with Jobcast!

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!