How to Use Facebook Ads to Hire for Fit

March 10th, 2014

Hiring for fit is awesome.

In case that last week’s article wasn’t enough to convince you of this, then how about this:

“50% of hires fail within the first 18 months on the job”

Okay, so that stat doesn’t actually say anything about hiring for fit… But when we look at why those hires typically fail, we see that it’s almost entirely due to the (ex) employee’s inability to mesh with their company’s culture and get along with co-workers and superiors.

In fact, only around ten percent is due to incompetence or lack of skill, while the rest is entirely due to a lack of fit.

Hiring for fit is pretty tricky though. You need to have a solid understanding of your own company: the management style, the culture, and the different personality types that exist within your team already. Bonus points if you can identify some personality types that are missing from your current team dynamic that would improve productivity or moral. Then, you’ll need to figure out what it is that makes employees excel at your company, what makes them fail, and how to find candidates who will fall into the former category.

Exhausting!

Thank goodness for 7 Geese.

Bet you thought I was going to try and tell you how to do all of this myself, didn’t you? No way. That is so not my area of expertise. This article, by the good folks over at 7 Geese, will give you a killer strategy for figuring out how to identify your company’s values and culture, and then how to interview effectively for cultural fit.

What I’m going to try and help you do is use Facebook ads to hire for fit.

Let’s go!

Create a candidate profile

What does your ideal candidate value? What kind of skills do they have? What kind of interests might they have? You can profile your best employees to help you get ideas on this. The same traits that make them so successful, are traits you may want to look for in new employees.

Just be careful not to hire clones of your top performers; Dig deep and figure out an assortment of personality traits that make these employees such a great fit for your company.

For example:

On employee may be a great fit because they are passionate about their job, and they have a communication style that meshes with your clientele. Another employee’s success may be due to their emotional intelligence, organizational skills, and the fact that their personality type fits nicely with the management style of your leaders.

Once you have this information all written out, you can figure how best to target for these traits using Facebook ads.

Appeal with visuals

Start slow. Do this by selecting some images, preferably of your actual staff, that showcase your company culture, specifically the aspects of your culture that will appeal to your ideal candidate.

For example:

If you are looking to find tech-savvy talent, who are always up on the latest gadgets and trends, then use pics that show off some of the awesome technologies that your company has to offer: Imagery, perhaps, of staff working on high quality laptops, showcasing interactive technologies that facilitate collaboration.

If you have the option, showing a recruiting video, geared specifically to candidates who fit your culture, is one of the best possible tools you can use to boost engagement and, in turn, your reach.

Or, just offer them an iPad mini… Up to you!

Use demonstrative language

Express your company’s values clearly in your ads, and use behavioral terms. If ambition is a key value that your employees must posses in order to succeed at your organization, use a call to action that conveys this.

For example:

“Are you the kind of person who loves to set lofty goals? More importantly, are you the kind of person who actually reaches them? If so, apply now. We want to work with you!”

Use ALL the tools

Facebook ads allow you to target candidates based on their interests, Likes, and other key personality traits. This is a bit more advanced than the previous options, but according to Facebook’s metrics, narrowly targeted Facebook ads reach the right user 90% of the time. Don’t be afraid to get specific.

For example:

If you are looking for candidates who are extremely driven and hard working, try searching for people who “Like” the Pages of like-minded experts, such as Sheryl Sandberg (not to be overly obvious) and have interests that demonstrate drive. Triathlons, for instance.

If you are looking for a team player to fill a creative role, then target candidates who play team sports, and who have chosen to follow creative types, like Seth Godin.