Social Recruiting

Candidate-matching is basically alchemy… Except that it actually exists in real life! The ability to match qualified candidates to the right job with the click of a mouse would revolutionize hiring in a way we haven’t seen since the introduction of online job boards. Imagine never having to sort through stacks of junk resumes again. Imagine submitting a job description to an online job board and instantly being connected to 10 qualified candidates. Now imagine what you would pay for a tool that makes this dream a reality. This is why every job board and HR tech company is chomping at the bit to offer effective candidate-matching tools. Many have tried, but for the most part, haven’t delivered, because effective matching technology is extremely difficult to develop. Even Amazon.com’s lauded recommendations are assisted by Mechanical Turks (humans that help machines perform tasks for which they are not suited.) If tech giant Amazon needs humans to help match their customers with the products they desire, then what chance does HR have at succeeding with candidate-matching?! According to companies like Zao, Elevated Careers, and BCjobs.ca, the odds are actually pretty good. HR tech may not have the money and genius that Amazon has, but what they do have is a much more specific data set to analyze, as well as a much more narrowly defined goal. Over the past year we’ve begun to see real breakthroughs in the way HR technology is using big data to solve the candidate-matching problem, and it looks like we’ll be seeing more shortly. Social media is already providing recruiters with a host of incredible tools to improve the hiring process. Companies like Zao are betting on the social graph to provide the next big advancement in candidate-matching. In their case, they run a traditional referral program with a uniquely social twist. Zao’s software accesses your employees’ social profiles, then sifts through their networks to discover which of their connections are a good fit for your company’s open jobs. Employees are then prompted by Zao’s software to reach out and make a referral. Zao claims that this automates and simplifies the referral process, which makes it easier for both employees and employers. It’s a little outside-of-the box and requires your employees to permit a serious amount of access to their personal social networks, but Zao’s matching technology is worth checking out. A more traditional solution to candidate-matching is soon to be released by Canadian job board BCjobs.ca. BCjobs.ca uses all the information gathered from resumes, applications, profiles and user behavior, both from employers and job seekers, to match candidates to specific jobs. This means that when an employer posts a new job ad on BCjobs.ca, the service will immediately connect them with the 10 most qualified candidates for the job. BCjobs.ca’s matching tool not only makes hiring easier by suggesting top talent, but it also prevents employers from missing out on qualified candidates who do not apply for their job posts. Another exciting candidate-matching service on the horizon is Elevated Careers.

Elevated Careers is the latest project from the matchmaking experts of eHarmony.com. Between 2000 and 2012, eHarmony was responsible for 600, 000 marriages. Even more impressive is their scant 3.8% divorce rate. CEO Neil Clark Warren hopes that Elevate Careers will do for retention rates what eHarmony has done for divorce rates. We’re excited to see if their candidate-matching tool can deliver on improving retention rates for employers and helping job seekers find fulfilling careers.

Number two on our list of HR tech game changers is the employee referral system. Employee referrals have stood the test of time as the most effective source for quality hires. - Click to Tweet

Employee referrals are the number one source for volume of hire and the top source for quality of hire, even beating out social recruiting! According to HR thought leader Dr. John Sullivan, if 50% of your company’s hires aren’t coming from referrals, then you need to get proactive with your referral program! Creating an effective employee referral program is no cakewalk. Employee engagement ranks highest on the list of human resources challenges according to a study by SHRM. Employee referral programs rely entirely on employee engagement! Employees must be aware of what jobs their company is looking to fill, understand what type of skills those jobs require, and then actively seek out and connect with qualified peers. That’s a whole lot of legwork on their part. Offering attractive rewards for their efforts will encourage employees to a certain extent, as will making referrals a part of your organization’s culture. But, this is still not always enough to overcome the natural instinct towards inertia. HR tech can help! New cloud-based employee referral programs are using gamification, automation, matching, and social media to make the referral process easier and more fun for employees. Bonus, theses programs make tracking and rewarding employee participation a breeze for human resources!

Careerify uses gamification to encourage employee participation. The Careerify employee referral system allows companies to create challenges based on the candidate, the type of job, the location of a job, and many other data points. The system administrator can also choose to create hidden challenges that employees can unlock by participating in the referral program. Zao’s employee referral system uses big data and matching technology to make the referral process easy for employees. Their system gathers data from employee’s social channels to find out which of their connections are best suited for open jobs. Then Zao will encourage the employee to reach out to these specific candidates, even providing them with an email template. The Jobcast employee referral system makes the referral process more social. With Jobcast, employees have a dashboard that keeps them up to date on all the open jobs that their company needs to fill. When they see a job that looks like a good fit for one of their friends, with one click, they can share that job posting through any social network that they choose.

All three of these employee referral systems automate the referral process through deep integration with Applicant Tracking Systems. Automation cuts down on repetitive tasks, ensures that employees are always aware of their company’s open jobs, and lowers the chances for human error. All three of these systems also make tracking and managing employee referral programs much easier by providing reporting on employees’ participation and results. If your organization is struggling to make the 50% benchmark for employee referral based hires, then using a technology driven employee referral system could be the game-changer you need. For a detailed analysis of the different platforms currently on the market, check out this employee referral systems comparison guide by HR Tech Advisor. To learn more about Jobcast’s social employee referral system, shoot me an email at samara@jobcast.net :D

Out of sheer curiosity (read, nerdiness) I spent my Sunday morning clicking through a Ceridian Slideshare presentation on the history of HR technology. Yes, my life really is that exciting! Comparing tech from the 1960’s to that used by HR professionals today made me feel an overwhelming sense of sympathy for the human resources departments of the past. Completely manual payroll systems, no ATS, no Excel... Oh the humanity! Access to personal computers and the internet has revolutionized HR and recruitment helping to facilitate the wealth of fantastic HR tech tools at our disposal today. As someone who works in the field of recruitment technology, it’s my job to stay informed about the latest trends and innovations in HR tech and what these changes mean for recruiting. By researching performance reports, surveys, and our own user generated data, I’ve noticed 5 key areas where HR tech is changing recruitment for the better: Candidate Assessment, Employee Referrals, Matching, Automation, and Reporting. This article is the beginning of a five part series on the most game changing innovations in recruitment technology. Starting with...

Candidate Assessments

Candidate Assessment is an interesting area of HR tech because it can go so very, very wrong! Take this example from an article in the Economist about “a case where the [assessment] software rejected every one of many good applicants for a job because the firm in question had specified that they must have held a particular job title—one that existed at no other company.” But, when used well, assessment tools are an effective way to boost retention rates and quality of hire.

Xerox used Evolv to mine their employee data in an effort to improve their candidate assessment process. Evolv found that the best predictors that customer-service employee will have a lengthy future at Xerox, is that they lives nearby their place of work and that they can get to work easily. Neither of these things were previously priorities to Xerox when assessing potential hires. Xerox used the information that Evolv gave them to cut attrition by a fifth! Another way that assessment tools are helping companies find the right talent is with intelligently designed survey tools. Surveys can measure soft skills by asking a series of indirect questions, such as “How good at computers are you?” followed up several questions later with “What does control-V do on a word-processing program?” Good assessment tools are linked to the actual performance of the people they are used to hire, so that HR can measure success, and better understand how to optimize their use in the future. These tools with help minimize bias in the recruitment process, analyze employees soft skills, and change how and what questions we ask to determine a candidate’s fit.

Recruiting with social media is the new normal. For years we’ve written (and read) about how social recruitment is the next big trend in HR, how it’s just about to take off, and we’ve worked pretty hard to show employers and recruiters the effectiveness of using social media to hire… Despite the positive statistics and encouraging research, social recruitment remained just a trend. Something people talked about but didn’t necessarily practice. I’m not sure exactly when that changed, but it has. According to Jobvite’s latest research, 94% of recruiters are using social media to hire. – Click to Tweet

Here are 7 reasons we think that social recruiting is here to stay:

1) Increases Job Visibility Facebook has over 1.35 billion active users, Twitter hosts job search chats, and Gen Zers are using LinkedIn. Your potential candidates are social! Using social media to broadcast your job posts makes them more visible and increases your odds of reaching top talent.

2) Improves Quality of Hire 59% of recruiters rated candidates sourced from social networks as “highest quality." – Click to Tweet

This stat makes a ton of sense to me because of just how targeted social media allows recruiters to get with their job posts. With Facebook you can target by demographic, interests, skills, and even by peer group. LinkedIn is awesome for targeting based on work history, and Twitter’s search is perfect for sourcing candidates based on interest.

3) Better Employer Brand Awareness Not only does social recruiting increase the visibility of employer brand, it strengthens it. Candidates want to work for employers that they trust. Establishing a strong social presence for your employer brand is and essential part of building this trust.

4) More Referrals Referrals are the number one source of hire. – Click to Tweet According to Guidant Group, employee referrals also lead to better quality hires, and improved retention rates. Encouraging your staff to reach out to their peers via social and share links to the jobs you post on line will simplify the referral process for employees and lead to in increase in referrals made overall.

5) Engages Employees Posting jobs to your company’s social media platforms and encouraging employees to spread the word makes them active participants in your hiring strategy. The same goes for encouraging them to interact and comment on your social career page.

6) Reduces Cost to Hire I’m not going to tell you social recruiting is free. It’s not. But recruiting-related transactional costs of social recruiting are almost always lower in comparison to other hiring sources. Running a Facebook Ads recruitment campaign will cost you less to reach a larger audience than many traditional newspaper ads and popular job boards.

7) Opens the Door to Engagement Social media allows you to connect, chat, and engage with people you might never come into contact with in “real life.” Many old school recruiters fear that social recruiting means less phone and face-to-face interaction with candidates. But, when used right, social networking is just another way to facilitate more personal interactions. Conversations that start on Facebook lead to phone calls, then interviews, then hopefully, your next winning hire! You’ve probably already begun using social to recruit, but keeps these benefits in mind when your planning your strategy to make sure you’re capitalizing on all social has to offer. If you want to simplify your social media efforts, then try the Jobcast social recruiting app. Jobcast automates the social recruitment process for you to save you time and stress.

Jobcast’s CEO Ryan St. Germaine was recently interviewed by Cheryl Morgan for Social-Hire. In his interview, Ryan talks about the reasons why he founded Jobcast, how social recruiting has changed since, and what not to do when using social media to hire! If you haven’t already checked out the interview, then head over to the Social-Hire website and read the Expert Interview with Ryan St. Germaine on the Benefits of Social Recruiting.

And, make sure to visit the main Social-Hire site to learn more about their awesome consulting services. The team at Social-Hire can help you build your employer brand and improve your social recruitment strategy.

Enjoy the interview, and happy New Year!

I love New Year’s. I love making resolutions (whether I keep them or not!), I love the whole fresh start thing, and most of all, I LOVE ‘best of’ posts. With New Year’s Eve falling on Link Love Wednesday, I thought it best to wrap up the year with a list of our favorite social recruiting blog posts of 2014. #Social Recruiting and the Hashtag

– Maren Hogen Maren explains hashtags, what they are, why they’re important, and how to use them for recruiting.

5 Ways Technology Has Changed Recruiting Forever

– Franklin Morris This article is a great read for both recruiters and job seekers, providing simple advice for adapting to today’s tech-centric hiring process.

10 Reasons Why There is a Disconnect on LinkedIn Between Recruiters and Candidates

– Andy Headworth Andy is a social recruitment pro and in this article he breaks down the reasons why recruiters often miss the mark when using LinkedIn as a hiring tool.

Are We Ready for Social Talent?

– Lilian Mahoukou Lilian reviews his experience at #rmsconf (the leading social recruitment conference in France) and gives his takeaways on how social media can be leveraged by both those looking to hire, and those looking to be hired.

How to Get ROI from Social Recruiting and Social Media

– Lisa Jones Lisa Jones is one of the leading experts in social recruitment. Her company conducts in-depth surveys on social media for hiring, and she works closely with recruiters and employers about social recruiting strategies. In this article, she reveals how to get measurable results from social recruitment.

The Benefits of Social Recruitment

– Interview by Cheryl Morgan Cheryl interviews Ryan St. Germaine about the past, future, and present of social recruiting. They go over why social media is so effective as a recruitment tool and how to leverage social networks for better results.

26 Social Recruiting Facts and Stats

– Samara Parker This was our most-read article of 2014. As the title implies, this blog post contains 26 easy-to-share statistics about social recruiting. And, of course, our favorite HR meme of the year

Those are our top picks for 2014, we’d love to hear about yours in the comments!

Hiring in 2015 is going to be more competitive than ever, here are the 7 recruitment trends that you need to pay attention to!

Recruiters Want Gen Z

As a millennial, I am sad to report that Gen Y’s time in the sun has gone dark. We’ve already staked our claim in the workplace, we’re even taking over leadership positions, and so recruiting us is old hat and not the shiny prospect it once was.

2015 is the time to prepare for Gen Z Companies, such as Microsoft and Facebook are prioritizing intern outreach in high schools, with Facebook going so far as to pay out thousands of dollars to these intern positions.

Gen Z will not simply be Gen Y amplified.

One thing that stands with this new generation out is a greater desire for structure, which is a quality that may run counter to the recent trend against hierarchical workplace structures.

Candidates Own the Market

2015 is a buyer’s market for candidates. – Click to Tweet

With unemployment at an all-time low, and the skills gap at an all-time high, qualified job seekers now have the upper hand.

Time to hire rates haven’t been this high since 2008 and unemployment rates are the lowest they’ve been since 2000.

Boomers are retiring en masse, leaving employers with a dearth of qualified talent. According to Career Builder, 50% of employers are unable to find qualified candidates.

This will necessitate more competitive recruitment tactics, an increased need to reach passive candidates, and a re-evaluation of what defines a qualified candidate.

The Definition of ‘Qualified’ Will Shift

With the previously mentioned skills gap raging, employers may finally be forced to face the fact that their ideal candidate doesn’t exist.

Instead of defining a qualified candidate by their past experience and job titles, it’s time to focus on their soft skills, their ability to learn quickly, and their motivation.

2015 will demand more in-house training for new hires, but the upside will be that employees will be groomed to work the way that you want them to, and an overall bump in retention.

Everyone’s Passively Seeking

The distinction between hunting for work and not hunting for work is disappearing. – Click to Tweet

Thanks to social media, it’s a lot easier to find a new job without ever having to put yourself on the job market. Gone are the days of employees having to sneak around so as not to alert their boss that they’re looking. With LinkedIn, everyone’s on the market 24/7.

As Dan Schawbel puts it:

“Employees are undergoing a continuous job search job and are never settling.”

Indeed Hiring Lab has found that 86% of employees are looking for better opportunities and are ready to job-hop. If this doesn’t make you nervous yet, remember that the growing skills gap and increased time to hire makes replacing lost employees tougher than ever.

Companies need to focus on creating tight-knit teams, bound together by culture and friendship, if they want to retain their top talent. They must also make social media a mainstay of their recruitment process, so as to tap into the passive candidate market.

 Recruiting Women in Tech Will Become a Priority

Women are entering more powerhouse roles across the globe in both politics and the workplace. Women are more likely than ever to be breadwinners for their family, and feminism is back in the spotlight.

Yet women are still sorely underrepresented in tech.

Considering that tech companies bear the brunt of the skills gap, it is illogical that so many companies haven’t made recruiting, retaining, and promoting women more of a priority.

In fact, if you look into women in tech, you’ll still find a shocking amount of evidence pointing to discrimination and exclusion of women working in the field of technology.

A recent article in Fortune by Kieren Snyder, Why Women Leave Tech: It’s the Culture Not Because Math is Hard, points an accusing finger at employers.

Snyder surveyed over 700 women who had left the tech industry. A shocking 192 of these women cited discomfort working in environments that felt overtly or implicitly discriminatory as a primary factor in their decision to leave tech. That amounts to over 25% of the women surveyed.

The women Snyder spoke with with suffered discrimination related to their age, race, or sexuality in addition to gender and motherhood.

2015 looks to be the year that tech smartens up.

Startups are already leading the way, with Air bnb boasting a 36% female staff and Shutterfly surpassing them with 38%.

A Google code initiative called Made With Code is giving women and girls funding and resources to learn how to code, there are also software development programs, and even summer camps.

I’ve actually started to learn JavaScript, something that I’ll openly admit felt off limits to me until very recently in part due to my gender.

Employers who are struggling to recruit tech talent need to start bringing women into the fold by offering more training, a female friendly culture, and benefits that support the specific needs of women.

 Mobile. Still.

83% of your potential candidates are mobile. – Click to Tweet

Jobcast’s most recent survey showed that only about 15% of career sites are mobile friendly.

But, we’ve also seen a huge increase in the amount of employers who come to us with questions and concerns about making their recruitment more mobile friendly.

In response we’ll be improving Jobcast’s mobile features, so stay tuned for some excited updates in the next few months!

 Social. Still.

Reaching Gen Z, succeeding in a competitive hiring market, finding top talent in spite of the increased skills gap, recruiting passive candidates, engaging with more female job seekers, and making your hiring process mobile will be the focus for HR in 2015… Social recruiting addresses all of these concerns.

• Gen Z are even more reliant on social media than millennials, so if you want to reach them you’ve got to get social.

• Using social media to grow your employer brand will make you more appealing to job seekers, social networks are one of the best ways to source talent based on specific skills, and passive candidates are doing most of their passive job searching using LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.

• Women are just as active, if not more active than men on social platforms, and as more of them move into the world of programming, you’ll want to start looking for them on sites like Stack Overflow.

• Mobile jobseekers are conducting their search using apps like Twitter and Facebook, so these apps are an essential part of mobile recruitment strategies.

All that and social media is the best way to reach more candidates, attract higher quality candidates, and showcase company culture.

To make 2015 the year that you master social recruiting, try the Jobcast app.

With Jobcast you can create a Facebook Career Page, and automatically share your jobs to Twitter, LinkedIn, and your Facebook Timeline.

Follow this link to try the Jobcast Facebook Recruiting App free for 30 days.

Social recruiting is no longer just a trend. As of this year, 94% of recruiters use, or plan to use social media for recruiting. This number has increased steadily for the last 6 years. (Source: Jobvite) Social media is now just another piece of the hiring strategy puzzle. But is this true globally? Yes, I would argue that it is. But, still the vast majority of the information discussed in HR and recruitment articles is based on data coming out of the US and the UK. This can lead to a narrow understanding of who is using social recruiting. The Jobcast blog falls into this trap more often than I would like. Especially considering that Jobcast is an international company. Not only is our team international, based out of Canada and the Netherlands, but the Jobcast social recruiting app has users all over the world! For example, Teleperformance uses Jobcast’s social employee referral program to recruit in Brazil, The Philippines, and India! They’re using Facebook to recruit and grow their employer brand in multiple languages and doing it just as well as their North American counterparts. Here’s an example of Teleperformance’s Facebook Career Page:

As you can see, effective social recruiting looks pretty similar no matter where you go, it’s engaging, well designed, and emphasizes employer brand. This example was taken from Teleperformance India’s Page. Teleperformance is at the forefront of a rising trend, as research shows that social recruitment has seen a huge surge in popularity with Indian companies. According to a study by Kelley Services, 56% of the people they surveyed in India were contacted via social media about an employment opportunity, and 25% said that they had secured a job through social media. The same study found that companies throughout the Asia Pacific region were using social recruiting fruitfully, with Indonesia and Thailand leading the way, followed by China, Malaysia, and Singapore. In Fact, according to the Chapman Consulting Group, 85% of recruiters in Asia Pacific are using social recruiting! With such a massive potential candidate pool to reach (there are 1,856,680,860 active social media users in APAC) it makes perfect sense that organizations based out of Asia Pacific have been so quick to adopt social recruiting.

On the other end of the spectrum there’s the tiny land in which I dwell. The Netherlands is a very small country. You can drive from one end to the other in a couple of hours. Yet there are a surprisingly large number of Dutch Jobcast users. And no, it isn’t because I’m advertising in Dutch, I only wish my language skills were that good! With such a slim candidate pool to draw from, Dutch recruiters and employers have to be extremely strategic if they want to find qualified candidates. This could be the reason why social recruiting is so popular in Holland. From what I’ve seen, Dutch companies have a great deal of success with Facebook recruiting. A fantastic example of this is Dutch clothing line FreshCotton. FreshCotton has brought their clean, young sense of style to their Facebook Career Page. The company’s employer branding, and use of social media is perfect to attract the attention of the stylish candidates that they are looking to attract.

There are also a significant amount of North American and UK companies using social media to reach candidates on a global scale. At any given time Oil & Gas People are advertising jobs to candidates located in over 70 different countries around the world. They use Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to get their job posts seen all over the world.

Social recruiting is a globally viable method for improving time to hire, targeting qualified talent, and increasing application volume. Jobcast is currently available in 11 different languages, and is a perfect tool for seamlessly integrating social media into your hiring strategy. Create a fully branded Facebook Career Page and automatically share the jobs you post to Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook with the Jobcast Social Recruiting app. Try Jobcast Premium for free by following this link.

The process of HR recruiting has changed dramatically over the past few years. While recruiters once had to meet candidates at career fairs or wait for resumes to get dropped off at the office, they can now target and communicate with potential candidates on social media.

Sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn have millions – even billions – of users. They’ve become the go-to resource for recruiters looking for top talent. And done well, social recruiting can have a big impact – in terms of hiring, but also in terms of reputation. Companies that succeed at social recruiting hire some of the best job seekers – and they create modern, tech-savvy brands.

So – which companies are succeeding at social recruiting? Here are 5 of the best:

Home Depot

Recognized as being an industry leader in social media recruiting, Home Depot proves its recruiting expertise by posting job openings both on Twitter, and on its dedicated company careers page. The company also builds interest in employment opportunities through its Facebook page. Home Depot doesn’t just send posts into a void, either – their Twitter account has 245,000 followers, while its Facebook page has over 60,000 likes.

UPS

UPS takes advantage of multiple social media platforms to recruit new staff members. They have a presence on the big three – Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn – but they’ve also expanded to Google+, Pinterest, and other social sites. The company is willing to explore new platforms – and they’re savvy enough to create dedicated careers pages on Facebook and Twitter. This combination of strategies has helped add over 14,000 professionals to their workforce.

Sodexo

This company knows the value of social media. Sodexo has been successful in its recruiting efforts because of the various social communities it has created such its Careers blog, Career Connections Newsletter, Talent Community, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Flickr, Google+, YouTube, and other in-house venues that applicants can join to stay up to date on everything Sodexo has to offer.

Zappos

The shoe retailer has made a big impact in the social media world with its bold stance on recruiting. Zappos has eliminated traditional job postings and online applications in favor of an Inside Zappos page, which it hopes will help applicants learn more about Zappos and choose the department or position that’s right for them. The Inside Zappos page, along with accompanying social media profiles, aims to give job seekers a real inside look at Zappos’ culture and help them get a feel for what it would be like to work there.

M9 Solutions

M9 Solutions is a strategic staffing firm within the HR industry, so it’s no surprise that the company is well versed in using social media platforms for recruiting, both for itself and its clients. M9 Solutions’ recruiters are able to gain leverage with candidates at an exponential rate using social platforms.

Their focus?  Using social media to build better relationships with more candidates, reaching out to thousands of people every year.

Social recruiting statistics

While these companies are well known for launching social media recruiting campaigns and building strong relationships on social platforms, statistics indicate that social recruiting is becoming more and more widespread every year.

According to Jobcast.net, more than 90% of recruiters have adopted social media marketing strategies to bring new workers on board. When integrated with a variety of high-tech and demographically targeted strategies, recruiters have a better chance of finding and hiring the highly skilled and talented applicants they want.

What strategies do you use to succeed on social media? What companies do you see leading the pack?

Abby Perkins is Editor in Chief at Talent Tribune, a data-driven blog dedicated to jobs, workplace culture, and HR software.

If you want to make social recruiting work for you, try the Jobcast social recruiting app. Follow this link to get a free trial of Jobcast Premium.

By now, many recruiters are familiar with the concept of social recruiting. But just having a Facebook and Twitter presence isn’t enough to really succeed—or stand out. You need to have a strategy that works well for your business need and complements the employer brand. Here are a few ideas to consider when making your 2015 plans to ensure you’ve got all your bases covered.

1) Use your employees and alumni.

Word of mouth continues to be one of the most trusted forms of advertising. If your employees (and alumni) aren’t part of your social strategy, make them a part of it next year. You can start by simply encouraging current employees to like your social recruiting presence. Then target employees with messages around employee referral, content they may want to share, and jobs, with messaging specifically encouraging them to share to their communities. Encourage employees to blog and share their perspectives. Consider integrating alumni into your social strategy through specific alumni groups on LinkedIn or Facebook, regular alumni newsletters, and integrating into the offboarding process. Depending on your company, you may focus on alumni recruiting or simply use them as a way to spread a message. Either way, seeing a job or piece of content endorsed by a current employee or alumni adds credibility and is likely to target candidates who exist outside of those who currently like or follow your social presence.

2) Get niche.

2015 is shaping up to be a year where the web is getting back to its roots. - Click to Tweet

Web 1.0 was about awkward design (remember under construction gifs?) but more importantly, it was also about niche communities that brought together like-minded individuals. This was typified in geocities, webrings, and AOL’s communities and chat rooms. Late 2014 saw the release of Facebook’s Rooms app, and more and more niche social networks devoted to specific topics including the continued popularity of Reddit and Quora. Although it shouldn’t be at the core of your social strategy, look into niche web forums and social networks, especially for hard-to-fill positions. There’s likely a community out there with exactly the people you need. Start by talking to your existing employees to find out what social communities they use, and encourage them to be an active voice for the brand on those platforms.

3) Have a robust content strategy.

It bears repeating that just posting jobs to a social page isn’t a content strategy. Nor is posting 1,000 articles on interviewing tips. Not to say these aren’t valid as part of a content strategy, but they’re not enough to really tell candidates what your brand is about. Enrich your content strategy through content that demonstrates the philosophy with which you create your products. Day in the life content that you generate, statements of belief (“We believe quality should be…”), and highlighting other companies who share a similar belief system (“We love what XXX is doing”), can help candidates identify with what you stand for and make you seem more human by not only talking about you brand. Another part of your content strategy may be to make candidates feel like they’re already part of the company. Tweet about what’s happening in the offices, use Facebook to share videos or articles that are making the rounds at the office, or film employee brainstorming sessions to give a fly-on-the-wall experience. R/GA is a great example of providing content that helps candidates understand what they do, and goes well beyond the typical job and tips experience.

4) Don’t Discount Consumers.

It’s important to understand how and what your candidate is likely to know about you. Too many brands forget that candidates often know you by your products and services first and then investigate further to understand why they might want to work there. If candidates are likely to know you by what you make, be sure your social presence is giving that behind-the-scenes view on how those products come to life. It helps link back to the consumer brand, and can begin to ease transition into your employer brand (i.e. why those products are so good to begin with—the people). More “how we make it” material is not only interesting to candidates, it’s the kind of thing that is more likely to be shared and content your consumer marketing teams may be able to help you create.

5) Email is social, too.

So many social strategies fail to include email. Think of the last time you shared a link or email with a friend by forwarding it on! Unfortunately, many companies don’t include it in their social plan. Bring email into your editorial calendar. Time it to coincide with social programming, and make it something that people will want to forward to their friends. Not only will you have a new channel, but a good email program will be able to track click-through-rates and even forwarding rates so you can get metrics on the effectiveness of your message.