Social media has proven to be a space where you can reach practically anyone. That includes prospective employees. By establishing a strong social media presence, you can create a viable vehicle to post job opportunities and reach potential hires.
But even if you have a good social media presence, for you to reach the ideal candidates on social media, you still need to promote your job opportunity the right way.
In this article, you’ll learn three tips on advertising jobs on social media. Let’s get started.
1.Choose the Right Social Media Platform
Choosing the right social media platforms should be at the center of a recruiter’s social recruitment strategy. Pick the wrong platform, and your job posting will never attract the right candidates.
According to SHRM, 84% of organizations use social media for talent acquisition. Many more brands are planning on doing the same. So should you.
Before you choose a social media platform to promote your job, ensure you have clear company goals, company values, and company vision.
When advertising jobs on social media, sharing details about what your company stands for can make you stand out. This will improve your social recruiting strategy considerably.
Popular social networks like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn allow you to reach practically everyone, from programmers to course creators, digital marketers, and more. But you still need to be strategic when using them to promote job postings on social media. You need to determine which platform/s can help you best promote the job opening.
For this, you’d have to look at the audience of each platform then decide based on the target candidate you have in mind. For instance, Facebook is best for creating community forums where you publish your jobs. Alternatively, it’s a good place to advertise more informal jobs.
On the other hand, Twitter is best for targeted niche recruitment campaigns, while Instagram is best for hiring millennial and Gen Z candidates. LinkedIn, meanwhile, is well suited for traditional campaigns since it’s primarily catered to professional networks.
If you pick more than one platform, ensure that the brand voice you use in your social recruiting strategy is consistent across all platforms. It should be the same as the one you use on your website, marketing collateral, and even in your business contract.
2. Post Content to Engage Passive Candidates
Social media is full of both active and passive candidates. While it’s easy to engage the active candidates, it’s more challenging to reach the passive ones who aren’t looking for jobs.
The best recruitment marketing guide should have a strategy on how to target passive candidates. This is the only way you can attract enough pool of candidates to ensure you get the best talent for the position.
To reach passive candidates on social media, you need engaging content. Once you get them to engage with your brand’s content, it becomes easier for them to read your job post opening.
Engaging content on social media can be in the form of:
- Your brand story in social media posts
- Your company culture
- Personal testimonials from current employees
- Images of your employees at work
- Stories of the current employees’ career journey
For instance, Dell Technologies constantly shares the career journeys of its employees on LinkedIn. It’s also part of their strategy to build their employer brand.
The point is, when creating content, aim to get passive candidates engaged, too.
3. Craft a Clear and Engaging Job Description
SEO experts optimize content with relevant keywords, headings, etc., to ensure it matches the search intent of users. Similarly, recruiters must understand that candidates typically look out for specific items when scanning job descriptions. Unless your description includes those elements, chances are you won’t attract a lot of qualified candidates.
Remember, a job description is not just the stipulation of crucial roles and qualifications. It is also an opportunity to tell your company’s culture, values, and growth opportunities.
It’s important to ensure that, as you create your job description, do not leave out marginalized communities. Inclusivity in your job description increases the number of people you can engage with on social media.
McKinsey indicates that 39 percent of applicants prefer not to work in companies that do not include the marginalized.
As you create your job description, use easily understandable language. The use of simple language creates better engagement than industry-filled jargon. Check out the 4FC Productions job posting below.
The company even included an image that can help people understand what they’re looking for.
Moreover, be clear on what you’re offering for the promoted job. Present your position description as an opportunity for growth and upward career mobility. That’s well-illustrated in this job posting by Texas Roadhouse.
To make your social media job post more engaging, you can include the faces of current happy employees, like in the Cultured South recruitment post.
Writing a curated job description makes you more likely to get the best candidate suited for the job. With the best candidates, you can ensure culture fit. That can boost your employee retention efforts while ensuring that you keep a healthy environment even for current employees.
In Closing
You can reach more prospective employees and a more diverse pool of potential candidates on social media as a recruiter. Reaching more prospective candidates optimizes your chances of finding the best fit.
However, you must ensure you use the right social media platform depending on the candidates you’re targeting. Curating your brand and making it engaging and attractive can help you reach a wider community, significantly improving your job post-conversion.
While curating the brand, do not forget to craft a detailed and engaging job description. In addition, increase your capability of reaching even more candidates with paid ads. Use engaging content to reach passive candidates.
The bottom line? Social media is an invaluable resource for any recruiter. Use it to your advantage.
David Pagotto is the Founder and Managing Director of SIXGUN, a digital marketing agency based in Melbourne. He has been involved in digital marketing for over 10 years, helping organizations get more customers, more reach, and more impact.
