How to use social media to find the perfect employee
The recruitment process has seen some drastic changes in the past decade or so, while the age-old practice of campus placements is still intact, there has been a sea change in how you can get your ‘purple squirrel’. With more than 2.46 billion people dotting around on social media platforms throughout the world, the space does become an ideal platform to catch eligible candidates to join your workforce.
When you visit campuses, you need to pay for the travel and lodging more often than not, if you are going to find people through job portals, there is a lot of money that goes down the drain on subscriptions. Advertising on these job portals doesn’t reduce any cost either.
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Promote it on your social media accounts:
You’d say-“Duh!” Most times, companies forget to update it on all the accounts where they are active. It could be Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or even Instagram. Share the link with all your followers on these portals where the link gives more information on the job and perks involved. Most people share such updates to their immediate group or on their profiles itself making it visible to more people.
Use LinkedIn extensively
With more than half a billion registered users where the only goal is professional networking, it couldn’t get better for recruiters. To hire top talent, LinkedIn offers premium account but you can circumvent this fee by posting it on your account. If you have a decent following, it will get picked up fast.
Join relevant groups
As if groups on Facebook and Linkedin aren’t enough, you see messages like- “I am starting a group for entrepreneurs on Whatsapp, please comment with your numbers.” Not only is the cacophony of a Whatsapp group unsettling, but the fact that people share their numbers on social media indiscriminately is unwise on so many levels (The perils of sharing your contact details online deems a separate article). Find groups on FB and LinkedIn which are relevant, has very little spam, where there is a lot of activity and is a small-knit group. Join them and post your queries, be a part of the group by adding value first before you look out for favors from the group.
Get on those niche platforms
Sure, every second person you know is on Facebook or LinkedIn these days, but aren’t you missing out on candidates by not pursuing specific niche networks like GitHub or StackOverflow where you can find talented developers. You might find an influencer that you want to work with on Quora who is a top writer and has gained influence on the niche you are looking for. Marketers can be found on Moz, Warrior Forum, Hubspot, etc.
Encourage employees to share fun office events on their handle
If you ever want to know about creating a standout culture, I’d recommend reading Tony Hsieh’s Delivering Happiness. Tony is the CEO of Zappos, they even have a culture book called ‘The Zappos Culture Book’. Take the example of L’Oreal which encouraged its employees to talk about their working lives on various channels after it gained a lot of traction on Instagram. The hashtags #lifeatLoreal and #LorealCommunity was well received where it showed a glimpse of the working culture. What was the result of the drive? There were two lakh unique impressions on Instagram alone.
Create a social media strategy that works best for you when it comes to recruiting. You wouldn’t scout for an Ops head from Facebook but you’d rather go on LinkedIn for it, right? Remember, you can also filter out people by seeing the kind of posts and comments they indulge in on social media. Bad attitude can be easily unearthed through activities on these portals.
