Most companies do not have dedicated social recruiting teams.

These companies rely on HR, recruiters, or even just a socially savvy employee to manage their employer brand and run their social media hiring strategy.

This is no easy task, especially when you still need to manage all of the responsibilities of your primary job description.

If you are one of these ambitious employees, then you can’t afford to spend hours each day on social recruiting. You have other stuff to do!

In this post, we’ll look at how, with the right set up and plan, you can manage your company’s Twitter recruiting in 20 minutes per day.

Set Up

Before you get started with your daily Twitter recruitment campaign, it’s important to get a solid foundation in place.

1) Automate your job postings

Automation is one of the most effective ways to save time on Twitter.

Sharing job posts is a great task to automate because doing so does not involve content curation, significant customization, or an immediate response.

With a social recruiting automation tool, you can set up a schedule so that your latest job posts are shared at peak times throughout the day.

2) Build Twitter Lists

One of Twitter’s most beloved features is Twitter lists.

Lists make it possible to segment Twitter users into categories based on defining characteristics such as occupation, interests, influence, and the type of content they Tweet.

You can make these lists private, or public, it’s up to you.

You can also follow other people’s lists. This is an awesome way to find new people to follow, or candidates to reach out to.

Here are few Twitter lists that you can create for social recruiting:

• Influencers in your field

• Candidates you are interested in connecting with

• Your competition (make this list private!)

• Potential candidates (you can find people to add to this list by searching bios for skills such as “Software Engineer” and location with tools like FollowerWonk.)

3) Arrange Content Curation

Yes, Jobcast is a tool specifically focused on job sharing, but I cannot in good conscience tell you that you can share nothing but job postings and expect to get good results.

Effective social recruiting requires diverse and engaging content sharing.

I like to use Feedly to create a news feed out of sources that are relevant to my Twitter audience.

I also use Buzzsumo and Digg to help find new sources to add to my Feedly.

Now that you’re all set up, here’s what your daily Twitter recruiting routine will look like.

8 Minutes in the Morning

• 1 Minute:

  Check the news and your calendar real quick. It’s important to know what’s going on in the world to avoid any serious making any serious gaffes on social and if there’s a holiday coming up you’ll want to include it in your content strategy for the day.

• 1 Minute:

  Check your notifications and respond to DMs (direct messages), @mentions, check out new followers and thank them or follow them back if they look legitimate.

• 1 Minute:

  Browse your Twitter feed to see what’s going on with your network. Comment on one or two tweets, star the ones you like, and retweet at least one tweet that you think your audience would find interesting.

• 1 Minute:

  Check out your lists to get ideas for conversation starters or topics to focus on for the day.

• 4 Minutes:

  Scan your content feed of choice for interesting articles or videos to share and schedule 2 -3 of them for sharing with your favorite tool, I use Buffer.

9 Minutes in the Afternoon

• 1 Minute:

  Check your notifications and respond to DMs (direct messages), @mentions, check out new followers and thank them or follow them back if they look legitimate.

• 1 Minute:

  Scan your feed and your lists again and do some commenting, retweeting, and favoriting.

• 2 Minutes:

  Look at your lists a little bit more closely to see if there are any new potential candidates there that stand out to you. Engage with those candidates and move them to your potential candidates list.

• 5 Minutes:

  Try to connect with the candidates that you find in your Twitter lists on LinkedIn and follow any potential candidates that you’ve connected with on LinkedIn on Twitter.

3 Minutes in the Evening

• 1 Minute:

  Check your notifications and respond to DMs (direct messages), @mentions, check out new followers and thank them or follow them back if they look legitimate.

• 1 Minute:

  Scan your feed and your lists again and do some commenting, retweeting, and favoriting.

• 1 Minute:

  Do a quick check to make sure that all of your tools are running as desired.

• Sign off and disconnect.

  When the day is done, it’s time to turn off or face serious work/life balance repercussions!

Give this routine a try and monitor your results. You may find that you need to make some tweaks along the way to fit your needs like spending more time on lists and less time on content curation. But even if you do, having a solid routine in place will keep you on track and prevent you from getting overwhelmed by Twitter recruiting.

Every individual in marketing today recognizes the importance of video. They know that video is the most effective medium for selling a product via social media. When it comes to marketing your jobs to top talent, video is just as effective. Recruitment videos can increase applications by a third and they are 12 times more likely to be shared on social media than text only job posts. But many companies are still ignoring this powerful hiring tool. Use these six ideas to jumpstart your video recruitment.

1. Highlight your employer brand.

Explain your company’s core values, give candidates a virtual tour of your facilities, and introduce job seekers to their potential coworkers. Strong talent brand leads to 2.5x more applicants per job post. And millennials often employer brand as being a more important factor than salary when applying for a job. Giving job seekers access to this information about your company in a video creates a level of trust and connection that you cannot achieve through other mediums.

2. Show off perks and benefits.

Video is the perfect way to show candidates all the bonuses of working at your company. Film snippets of staff events or parties and all the everyday stuff that makes your employees love coming to work. Like staff lunches, after work drinks, or an attractive workspace. Share interviews of employees where they talk about their favourite perks of working for your company. Or what benefits they enjoy. Again, video is much more compelling than texts for this type of content because showing always carries greater weight than telling.

3. Explain your hiring process.

This is a win-win situation. You’ll help job seekers understand how and why you hire so that they can make more informed decisions about which jobs to apply for and what to include on their resumes. In turn, you’ll see a higher caliber of applications come across your desk… Or, more likely, your computer screen ;) For content like this you can try using an animated video or a quick whiteboard explainer ideo. They’re relatively inexpensive and excellent for conveying a process or giving instruction.

4. Have employees give you a glowing review.

In the vein of employee referrals, this tactic is highly effective for encouraging job seekers to apply. Reviews the most powerful piece of content for persuasion in social media marketing because people are 71% more likely to make a purchase if they read a recommendation via social. Having an actual employee sing your company’s praises is recruiting gold! These testimonials are even more meaningful when candidates can see and hear the employee delivering this message. These are easy videos to make as all you need as a happy employee and a smartphone with a good camera.

5. Answer job seekers’ questions.

You probably get a lot of questions during the interview process. Chances are the job seekers considering applying to your company have a lot of the same questions. So why not answer them with a video? Have your hiring team compile the questions that interviewees most frequently ask and then answer those questions in detail in a video.

6. Share your company’s biggest wins and coolest projects.

Potential for advancement, and job satisfaction are two major deciders for potential applicants. Job seekers want to know that your company is growing because that means they’ll have an opportunity to grow with you. They also want to feel pride and fulfilment in their work which means the type of project that your company undertakes matters a great deal to them. Using blog posts or Facebook posts to share updates like these  is very effective, but when you have something extra special to show, then a video is worth the time investment. Don’t be intimidated by video recruiting, have fun with it. Even if your videos are shot simply with a smartphone, a little creativity and confidence are all you need to create and awesome video that will engage job seekers!

Even though social recruiting has been with us for a while now and has been embraced by most recruiters, the strategies best practices still confusing to many professionals out there.

And, thanks to a general lack of firsthand experience with social networks, misconceptions about social recruitment abound!

Here are 6 common misconceptions about social recruiting – debunked and explained to help you avoid making mistakes that can hurt your talent brand.

1. Social recruiting is free

Yes, the platforms might be available to you for free, but the time, people, and other resources required for developing an efficient process of social recruiting are definitely not free!

Even if it’s your internal workforce that’s taking care of your social media presence, you are still paying them for their work.

And social recruiting isn’t easy.

You won’t get anywhere without a smart strategy in place – and those change for every season and sector.

Creating and implementing such a strategy takes time and time is money.

2. A couple of social profiles = social recruiting

Regularly post job offers to a Facebook Page liked by only a handful of people is not good social recruiting.

Similarly, creating a profile on LinkedIn doesn’t mean you’re recruiting – especially if you don’t have many 1st degree connections, your profile isn’t 100% complete and you never post any status updates or otherwise engage with candidates.

In order to reach job seekers with your social recruiting, you need to post engaging and interesting content that inspires job seekers to follow you and engage with your posts.

You need to offer them value.

3. Everyone on social media is a job seeker

Many recruiters treat social media as vast candidate pools – repositories of people desperate for a job.

This is just not true.

According to Jobvite, only 51% of professionals in the US are actively seeking new employment opportunities. It’s safe to say that the figure above extends beyond the US.

This means that you must encourage social referrals.

Ask your community to share links to the jobs that you post to their friends, family, and colleagues. Engaging your community in this way is a fantastic way to grow your talent pool.

4. Connecting with recruiters is every candidate’s dream

This misconception is unreasonably widespread among recruiters who expect candidates to be interested in connecting with them without an introduction or even a personalized message.

Even if candidates are looking for a new job, they are not necessarily looking to connect with recruiters.

When you reach out to potential hires make sure that your message is warm, human, and above all make sure that it’s tailored to them and their specific talents.

And remember, a genuine compliment will go a long way!

5. Only LinkedIn is good for social recruiting

LinkedIn might be the largest professional network on the web, but social recruiting can, and should happen on all platforms.

Jobvite’s research shows that 76% of social job seekers found their positions through Facebook. With contacts sharing job opportunities and providing them with valuable perspectives about the company, no wonder this and every other social network could become a perfect choice for recruiting.

6. Social media recruitment works wonders – instantly!

Social media requires patience – you cannot force your audiences to perform specific actions without first making them trust you and recognize you as an expert.

Building your employer brand’s reputation and following can be a slow process, but the payoff is awesome.

Have patience, work your way through the social web and send a positive brand message – that’s what ultimately draws in talented candidates.

Author, Cindy Boesel works as a marketing manager at BizStats. She’s an incurable technology addict and great enthusiast of new branding strategies.

Editing and images by Samara Parker.

As the war for talent heats up, an increasing number of companies are turning to social recruiting. This means more competition for social recruiters everywhere. More competition for you! Do you know what your competitors are Tweeting? If not, then it’s time to find out! Your rivals are a prime source of information. Inspecting your competitors on social media helps you better understand your industry and gives you valuable insight into the behavior and interests of the audiences that you are targeting. Their most popular content can inform your future content and their failures can steer you clear of social media disaster. In this article, you’ll learn how to analyze your competitor's social media strategy to ensure that you’re always one step ahead.

1. Harness The Power Of The Spreadsheet

Your first step in total social media domination is to create... A spreadsheet! If you are one of those amazingly organized people who ALWAYS makes a spreadsheet then please feel free to skip to step 2. Before you start scrolling through your adversaries’ Instagram accounts, make a simple spreadsheet that lists a few of your main competitors, which social networks they are active on and links to their accounts. This way you can approach your investigation in an organized, effective manner.

2. Gather Facebook Intel

Facebook makes it really, really easy to stalk your competitors. Facebook’s Pages to Watch feature allows you to create a list of business Pages that you want to monitor and then gives you their data. Seriously. You can see their Page Like progress, how many posts they’ve shared, and what their engagement was like this week. You can even go in and look at each competitor’s top posts to see what kind of content performs well for them.

Here’s how to get started with Facebook Pages to Watch. Use the intel you gather to create goals for your own Facebook Page, such as how often to post and to inform what content you choose to create in the future. Here are a few more things to consider when Facebook stalking your competition:

• How many followers do they have?

• What topics are they posting about?

• Are they posting mostly internal content or curated content?

• What kind of language are they using and what kind of language do their followers use?

• How often do they post?

• How many likes/comments/shares do they get per post?

• Do they post jobs to their timeline or have a Career Site on their Facebook Page?

And, if you’re like me, you’ll also want to add your findings to your social recruiting spying spreadsheet!

Follow Them On Twitter

Twitter is one of the most popular social networks for businesses. Twitter is also an excellent place to find information about your competition because so much of Twitter data is public The first step to accessing this data is to simply follow your competitors. But this is seriously un-sneaky! No honorable spy would out them self so readily. The sneaky way to follow your competition on Twitter is to add them to a private Twitter list. To create a private list on Twitter select “List” from the “Profile and Settings” dropdown, and then click on “Create new list.” Name your list, set it to private, and start adding your competitors Twitter accounts!

Within minutes, you’ll have a stream of relevant information to learn from. You can also use free tools to get even more information about your competitors.

• Simply Measured will provide you with a free Twitter follower report

  to help you analyze their demographic and interest data.

• Twitter Counter lets you monitor your Tweet volume and follower growth against two of your competitors.

• Followerwonk lets you analyze any profile's followers for free enabling you to build a comprehensive picture of your competitor's Twitter presence.

Here are a few questions that you’ll want to answer about your rivals’ Twitter presence:

• How many followers do they have? And how influential are those followers?

• What do they tweet about?

• How many favorites/replies/retweets do they average per post?

• What kind of content gets them the most engagement?

• Have they created lists? If so, what lists have they made and who’s on them?

• What hashtags do they use most?

• Do they run or participate in any Twitter chats?

• Do they use Twitter ads?

Find the answers and add them to your list!

Blogs Are The Gateway To The Sole

Companies are beginning to catch on to the fact that recruiting should be treated like marketing. And marketers everywhere are switching over to inbound/content marketing. One of the pillars of content marketing is the blog. Blogs allow companies to write in depth pieces that highlight their employment brand and connect with job seekers on a deeper level than the short form content shared on social networks. If you want to understand your competitor's message, their values, and their mission then their blog is your best resource. Their blog can also give you a deeper insight into their audience than studying their social networks. Read the comments left on your competitions’ blog posts to see how their audience is responding to their message. Check the amount of social shares each blog post receives to learn their most popular topics.

Find out if they use guest bloggers and if so who, then consider reaching out to those bloggers yourself.

Tying It All Together

Facebook, Twitter, and blog posts are my favorite sources for competitor analysis. If your competition is focused on other social recruiting channels, then you’ll want to monitor those as well. Here are 37 excellent tools to help you spy on your competitors across all of their different social networks! Once you feel satisfied with the information you’ve gathered, revisit your list and start piecing it all together. You’ll soon see what’s working for your competitors and what is failing horribly! You’ll also learn where your own social recruiting strategy is ahead of the curve and where you need to pick up your game. Either way, you now have the information that you need to win the war for social recruitment domination and crush your opponents!

It’s always a bit of a struggle trying to figure out what you, our readers, want to read. Facebook tips, social recruiting news, stats… There are so many different topics that fit with our demographic (you!) But just because the topic fits, doesn’t mean that you’re actually interested in it. Statistically speaking you should be extremely interested in articles about recruiting for diversity and talent analytics. According to our view counts, those statistics are wrong! You are, however, extremely interested in content creation. Our recent article, 11 Content Ideas for Social Recruiting, is one of our most popular to date. Which leads me to believe that you would like to learn more about how to improve your content marketing to candidates. This is a lovely coincidence because I am always trying to improve my content marketing skills. We’re in it together! This week’s Link Love features 5 articles that will help us all improve our content creation skills.

Brainstorm and Execute Killer Content Ideas Your Audience Will Love

- By Isla McKetta @islaisreading

This is a #longread that is definitely worth the time investment. Isla explains the process of brainstorming new content ideas, suggests helpful tools for the process, and then teaches you how to differentiate the right ideas from the wrong. She also covers audience profiling, competitor analysis, and what makes content valuable. Isla is a content marketing boss!

How to Write Social Media Content

- By Kelly Vo @kevowriting

These tips are so simple that they verge on cheats! I’m especially fond of step #4, “find a great quote,” because it really is one of the simplest ways to create engaging content. People love quotes! (You can quote me on that.) Kelly’s steps will get you sharing like a pro in no time.

21 Places for Finding Social Media Content to Fill Your Schedule

- By Michael Patterson The title of this article is somewhat misleading. Michael does not just suggest places where you can find content, he also provides you with tons of resources for creating your own. Including a tip that he calls Surprise and Delight.

The Blogging Tactic No One Is Talking About: Optimizing the Past

- Pamela Vaughan @pamelump

“Nine months ago, I analyzed a report that would transform not only my role on the HubSpot blogging team, but also the whole blog's editorial strategy.” How’s that for an intriguing opener?! In her article Pamela explains a content marketing strategy that she calls Historical Optimization, and how it revolutionized the content marketing at Hubspot.

Warning: These 58 Social Media Tips Could Explode Your Content Marketing

- By Scott Ayres @scottayres Talk about click bait! The title may ridiculous, but the tips are sound. Scott’s advice ranges from the super basic, “make use of hashtags,” to the wonderfully informative, “Page Post Targeting (PPT) is a new service from Facebook that allows you to handpick your audience, allowing you to deliver a clear message to a smaller group.” That’s all for this week. Enjoy the links, and stay social!

If you’re like the majority of HR professionals and recruiters that we meet, then you’ve recently taken on the task of social recruiting.

In today’s candidate-driven market, more companies than ever have turned to social in order to broaden their candidate attraction strategy.

Learning how to effectively and consistently attract qualified candidates via social media is the contemporary HR struggle.

And the struggle is real!

If you, like so many of the people that reach out to us, are struggling to make social recruiting work then these tips are for you.

5 Key Success Factors for Attracting Candidates on Social Media

These are the best practices that we see contribute most to our clients’ achieving their social recruiting goals time and time again.

1) Use photos, pictures, and video

Images boost social media engagement.

Visually appealing content gets more shares, clicks, and favourites than any other kind. So including images with your job posts is a surefire way to attract more applicants.

This is part of a growing trend to make recruitment more like marketing.

Our most successful users add YouTube videos to their Facebook Career Sites, Tweet photos, and share memes to their LinkedIn.

2) Make Your Words Count

Another way in which recruitment is becoming more like marketing is the copy being used for job ads and employer branding.

Boring job ads do not attract candidates.

Smart, engaging copy is what sells your jobs and your employer brand to potential hires.

Use exciting language, be direct, and add humour whenever possible!

Save specific requirements for the job description and focus on key points for your social shares.

Quickly sum up who you are looking for, then focus on why your company should be their first choice, and then finish with a call to action that prompts them to apply ASAP.

This simple formula works for writing effective job posts that convert on social media.

3) Use targeted ad campaigns

Social recruiting can be free, but you’ll get much better results if you’re willing to allocate some funds to Facebook Ads.

Organic reach has declined in response to the growing number of companies flocking to social media.

Targeted ads are the best way to counter this decline.

Take your best content and most important to fill jobs and turn them into targeted ads for Facebook and/or your target candidates’ other main social networks.

These ads will help you reach a huge talent pool that print ads and job boards do not. They will also help grow your employer brand and your social media audience.

If you’re not sure how to get started with social media ads, here’s a paper that explains how to create and use Facebook Ads for social recruiting.

And here’s an excellent blog post by John Loomer explaining how to budget for Facebook Ads.

4) Prioritize mobile

A substantial amount of job seekers conduct their search via mobile device.

71% of social media use is mobile, 86 percent of active candidates use their smartphone to begin a job search, and 70 percent of active candidates want to apply via mobile (Source).

You must make mobile a part of your social recruiting strategy!

Thankfully, all 3 of the previous tips will help you reach mobile job seekers.

Mobile friendly social recruiting is visual, includes short concise copy and employs targeted ads.

Facebook Ads perform 10% higher on mobile devices than they do on desktop and improve CTR (click through rate) by approximately 29 percent.

But, if your application process is not mobile-friendly, then you risk alienating the mobile applicants that your social recruiting strategy attracts.

At Jobcast, we’ve solved this problem by making it possible for applicants to upload resume directly from their Android device or by using Dropbox for iOS.

We also encourage our users to create a social recruiting call to action and pin it to the top of their Facebook Timeline.

Here’s a bit more about how Jobcast makes social recruiting mobile-friendly.

5) Emphasize employer brand

People are more likely to engage with companies that they know and trust.

This is as true for recruiting as it is for marketing.

When job seekers see other people engage with your company online it makes them more inclined to do the same.

This is called social trust and it’s a powerful way get more applications from qualified candidates.

The more recognizable and likeable your online employer brand is the more social trust you’ll build and the more applicants you’ll attract.

To build a recognizable employer brand make sure that all of your branding is consistent.

Use the same company colours, logos, and language for all of the content you share, on all of your social networks, and on your company website.

You’ll also want to share tons of positive content about your company and your employees as well as job posts.

Check out this article for more about what steps you need to take to improve your online employer brand.

If have tips for better social recruiting, please let us know in the comments!

Jobcast is one of the top three companies nominated for BCTIA’s Most Promising Startup award.

We are very excited about this nomination and the perks that come along with it!

One such perk was the recent article about Jobcast featured on Techvibes, Canada’s leading technology news site, events calendar, and job board.

In the article author Jonathan Woods highlights some of the key benefits of social recruiting and Jobcast. He also interviewed Jobcast’s CEO, Ryan St. Germaine about why he thinks social is the future of recruitment.

Here’s a snippet from Jonathan’s post:

Jobcast Transforms Recruitment in Age of Social

“Social is the new major channel for career success and talent recruitment.

Jobcast, a Facebook Recruiting App that makes it possible for employers and recruiters to build fully branded career sections on their company Facebook Page, plans to capitalize on this.”

Read the rest of the article, Jobcast Transforms Recruitment in Age of Social, on Techvibes!

Working with Facebook is both a blessing and a curse. You probably feel the same way as you try to navigate Facebook recruiting! You love the volume of job seekers that Facebook gives you access to, the ability to share job postings and recruiting videos, and the opportunity to highlight your brand. If you’re anything like me, you hate the constantly shifting rules, disappearing features, and declining organic reach! One specific thing that all Jobcast users and Facebook app developers struggle with is that Facebook hides third party apps from their mobile users. Our clients and other companies with Facebook Career Sites find this extremely frustrating as it makes it difficult for them to advertise their Facebook Career Site to mobile job seekers. And we all know that mobile recruiting is essential!

In response to Facebook playing hide and seek with our users’ Career Tabs, we added a mobile-friendly custom URL feature to Jobcast. Your custom URL is smart, so it can tell if a job seeker is using a mobile device or desktop. When the job seeker is using a mobile device, they are directed to a mobile-friendly version of your Facebook Career Site. Once the job seeker lands on your FB Career Site they can browse your jobs, and even apply directly from their mobile phone by using Dropbox (iOS & Android) or the upload button (Android.)

Check out this tutorial to learn how to create your mobile-friendly custom URL with Jobcast But you still need to advertise your custom URL to the mobile job seekers that land on your Facebook Page. Here’s how: Create a post that advertises your Facebook Career Site and pin it to the top of your Timeline! Start with a nice large image that fits your brand well. I like to use Pixabay.com for this because the images are free to use for commercial purposes (always make sure that your images are legal to use!)

Then find yourself an image editing tool. I usually go with Photoshop, but unless you do a lot of graphic design I would recommend using Canva instead. Canva is an excellent tool for making all kinds of great graphics for social recruiting! Use this tool to add text to the image that you’ve selected that let’s people know that you are hiring or that you’re company is a great place to work. Here’s an example of how to do this using Canva. Select Facebook Post from their templates:

Upload your chosen image:

Then add your text by choosing either the simple text editor or a template:

Download your image and save it somewhere safe :D

Now go to your Facebook Page and create a Post that features your custom URL and instructs job seekers to click the link and view your job posts:

Add your image and then click Post:

Once you have shared your post, click on the little grey arrow at the top right of the post and select “Pin to Top”:

A small bookmark symbol will now appear at the top right of your post and it will remain pinned to the top of your Page’s Timeline for 7 days:

After that it will return to the date that it was published. You now have the option to re-pin this post to the top of your Page or to create a brand new post advertising your Facebook Career Site. If you have the time, we suggest creating a new post to keep your content diverse and interesting!

Over the next the next decade Baby Boomers will leave the work force en mass.

62% of Fortune 100 companies believe that this will lead to a skilled labour shortage that will negatively effect their organization.

Companies need to start planning ahead and gearing their human resources department, recruitment, and retention efforts towards qualified millennial candidates if they want to avoid the negative effects of this “Baby Boomer Brain Drain.”

Gen Y’s employment patterns contrast significantly with those of the generations before them. They are more likely to job hop than Boomers and have very different expectations of their employer.

Software Advice recently conducted a survey that studied a sample drawn from the 1,355 applications that they received for sales positions in 2013.

Software Advice asked all of their candidates to answer a few longer-form questions, including: “What is most important to you in a job?”

Here's what they found:

#1: Money Still Matters Most (But Not by Much)

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given that the U.S. is still recovering from an economic crisis, “Salary and Benefits” was the most important thing to our Gen Y sample when looking for a job (mentioned by 34 percent of applicants). However, money didn’t win by much: Salary and Benefits was ranked the most important characteristic by just three percentage points.

Interestingly, several of those applicants who ranked Salary and Benefits of lesser importance noted they had previously worked in a high-paying job—and had discovered that money wasn’t everything. It seems that compensation may be of diminishing importance as Gen Y workers garner more professional experience.

“I’ve realized that a good salary is not worth it if it means sacrificing your happiness or doing something that truly interests you,” read one such response.

Similarly, the rest of the data stands in contrast to what previous generations deemed most valuable. “Stability” came in near the bottom of the list (6 percent), and even seemingly-vital qualities such as “Work/Life Balance” and “Good Management” (4 percent each) paled in comparison to the importance of, for example, “Having a Strong Team and Co-Workers” (about 20 percent).

#2: Culture and Atmosphere

Second to compensation, “Culture and Atmosphere” was ranked the most important aspect of a new position by our sample Gen Y applicants (31 percent mentioned this). This data suggests that for Millennials, it’s not enough just to have a well-paying job—they also need to like where they work.

Many mentioned wanting to be in a “positive,” “pleasant” or “friendly” working environment. They also cited a desire for a company culture that was “challenging,” “dynamic” and focused on achievement and recognition.

#3: Fulfillment and Satisfaction in What I Do

Thirty percent of applicants cited a need for “Fulfillment and Satisfaction in What I Do,” making it the third most important quality for our sample. Those who mentioned this characteristic noted that they wanted to enjoy the work they were doing every day, and wanted to do something they had a personal interest in.

Responses included “having a passion for what I do,” “loving my job,” being involved with “meaningful work” and doing something “rewarding.”

#4: Growth and Development

Mentioned by 25 percent of applicants, “Growth and Development” was the fourth most important characteristic. Part of this may be due to the fact that Gen Y applicants are, by definition, on the younger side of the age spectrum: many cited a desire for “learning” or to gain more on-the-job “experience,” and noted they wanted to “advance [their] career.”

Others sought specific opportunities for upward mobility, while some mentioned wanting to be able to set and achieve professional goals.

Gen Y Wants More Than Just a (Pretty Big) Paycheck

What Gen Y really wants is to make a good living—but these young professionals also want to find happiness, fulfillment and opportunity in their work, and to build the foundation for a career that rewards in ways beyond the mere financial.

Our data aligns with other findings about Gen Y in the workplace. A recent survey of 500,000 employees between ages 19 and 30 listed the top 10 companies for Gen Y workers. All of these companies pay their young employees very high salaries—median pay ranges from $55,800 at defense contractor SAIC to $92,800 at Microsoft—and boast ambitious yet flexible workplace cultures. But perhaps most importantly, a majority of workers at each of these companies feel that their jobs are “meaningful.”

For example, at mobile technology company Qualcomm, the survey’s number-one employer, Gen Y employees receive a staggering average salary of $90,000.

Not only that, 72 percent of these employees say they are doing meaningful work, 87 percent have high job satisfaction and 95 percent have a flexible schedule.

Google, the survey’s second most popular company, is regarded by many as the archetypal Gen Y employer—and small wonder, considering over 40 percentof Google’s employees were born between 1982 and 1993. (Birth years for when Gen Y starts and ends range from the early 1970s through the early 2000s.)

Average salary for these Millennial workers at Google is a whopping $80,000, and the company goes above and beyond to ensure that the culture and atmosphere is friendly and accommodating, employees love their jobs and there are plenty of opportunities to grow.

Examples of Google’s Gen-Y friendly perks include:

• Unlimited free food.

• Friday social hours with free beer and wine.

• A company gym with free fitness classes and team sports.

• A concierge service that handles employee chores and errands.

• The ability to bring pets to work.

• Maternity leave for moms and dads, plus on-campus daycare.

• “Massage credits,” which employees can give each other for good work and can redeem for a one-hour massage at work.

• The “80/20 rule,” in which 80 percent of employees’ time is spent on assigned work, but 20 percent can be spent pursuing “passion projects.”

• Lectures by celebrities and industry thought leaders.

So, if your company is looking to hire Millennials, make sure that you are offering positions with not only attractive pay—but also the kinds of non-monetary rewards Gen Y really wants.

For more about this survey and tons of other fantastic information about social job seekers, HRTech, and millennial candidates check out the Software Advice blog.

At Jobcast we have a pretty good Facebook following for a b2b business of our size.

According to Facebook’s Pages to Watch feature, only 1 out of our 6 main competitors’ Pages has more Likes than ours. Even though this competitor is winning the war for Page likes, when it comes to engagement our Page outranks them by about 20%.

But, of course, we would still like to see our Page grow and reach more potential users.

I think it’s safe to assume that you want the same for your company’s Facebook Page, especially if you are using Facebook for social recruiting.

More Page Likes and better engagement means reaching and connecting with more job seekers!

The problem with this is that Facebook’s organic reach has been on the decline, so if you aren’t paying for Facebook Ads it is hard to get your content seen.

You may be wondering how Facebook decides who sees what?

A proprietary algorithm decides.

This answer may be less than satisfying but, honestly, no one but the team at Facebook knows exactly how the social network decides what gets seen and what doesn’t.

What we do know is:

• Content with photos and video is more likely to get seen as Facebook prioritizes these posts.

• Newer posts are prioritized over older posts.

• The more a user interacts with your Page the more likely Facebook is to share your content with them.

• That Facebook hides posts from users if they have marked them as spam or not interesting.

• The device a user accesses Facebook influences what content they are show.

This is only part of the story and it doesn’t look like Facebook will be sharing the rest of it anytime soon!

Here’s and article by Sproutsocial that explains how Facebook ranks posts in more detail.

Full story or not, there are still a few proven ways to increase your Facebook reach and boost engagement!

Photos and Video

Facebook gives more weight to posts that include visual content such as photos and videos.

Use this to your advantage and share more visual content.

Recruiting videos are perfect for this because they also boost application rates!

Photos from staff parties, team-building exercises, and employees are excellent too.

If you don’t have a lot of original content to share, then you can post interesting YouTube videos, infographics, and even memes to your Page.

Here are 5 great tools for making visual social media content.

Twitter & Email

Promote Your Facebook Page using Twitter and Email.

Add a link to your Facebook Page in your email signature accompanied by a call to action that encourages your connections to Like your Page.

Then do the same with Twitter by sending out Tweets with a Link to Your Facebook Page and a similar call to action.

This is a great way to spread the word about your Facebook Page.

Join Groups

Find and join popular Facebook groups related to your field and use these groups to reach more Facebook users who are interested in companies like yours.

When you first join one of these groups it is important to post more than just selfish content (such as job ads and requests for Likes.)

Instead, start by posing a question or sharing a really interesting article to the group Timeline.

If you really want to make the other group members like you, then respond positively to the content that they have shared and engage them in dialogue.

People love getting this kind of recognition!

One thing to keep in mind is that you cannot join groups or comment on groups as your Page so you will have to do this from your personal account.

Get Help

Your coworkers and staff are one of the best assets at your disposal for growing your Facebook reach.

Ask them to help by sharing the content you post and encouraging them to ask their Facebook connections to Like your Page.

Your current team’s connections are very similar to them demographically speaking.  It is quite likely that they met at university or even at a past job and, as such, they have a similar skill set to your current employee/coworker and are an excellent group to target.

Making this both a great way to boost your Facebook Page reach and to get your employer brand noticed by a large pool of potential candidates!

Facebook Ads

If you have the budget for it, then Facebook Ads are the most effective way of boosting your reach.

Facebook Ads help you to specifically target the type of users that you want to connect with. This means that using FB Ads you will not only improve the size of your Page’s reach, but also the quality.

Better quality reach means that your content is getting seen by the people that you want to apply for your jobs.

When it comes to social recruiting, it is always better to make one high quality connection with a potential candidate than 10 connections with people who have little interest in what your company has to offer!

Learn how to use Facebook Ads for social recruiting in this white paper.

If you have any tips for boosting Facebook reach please share them in the comments!