Nowadays, social media is a vital component of the recruitment process. Your clients may find it helpful to know what social media is the most valuable for finding and hiring top candidates. Contrary to popular belief, LinkedIn isn’t the only social media platform that is handy for recruiting employees. There are many other platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, that can be as, if not more, effective for promoting a brand and targeting specific roles, demographics, and skill-sets. Should the efforts be put into Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or Instagram when recruiting? The answer to that will depend on the recruitment strategy being pursued and the time and resources the hiring team can put in.
The type of social media platforms that are used should be based on the unique recruiting objectives of a particular business.
Facebook allows for versatility in an extensive recruitment campaign, which is essential to create real results. Facebook is popular for those between 18 to 65 years of age, which makes it especially helpful in attracting candidates from a wide demographic range. For the most part, Facebook is viewed as a personal social network rather than a professional one. This is a strength that can be played on when using it for recruitment.
It offers a broad base of passive and active candidates to engage with and target, which will improve the chances of finding the right candidate for a role. With Facebook’s flexible job alerts, passive candidates can be targeted based on location, interests, and likes – all key in running large-scale campaigns. Often, an excellent fit for a role may not be looking for a job – but they could be convinced. When you can directly reach those ‘passive’ candidates, it opens up a whole new candidate pool, and the larger the pool, the more chance of finding the perfect candidate for a specific role. Plus, no other social media platform comes close to reaching the same range of demographics than Facebook, making it very useful when recruiting for a company with a wide range of roles available.
However, with the broad demographics that are active on Facebook, there must be a clear recruitment strategy to attract the candidates with the specific skills, experience, and attitude to the needed roles. Examining which demographics to target and the skills and interests needed are essential for finding the right candidates. Without time to do this, the results will be pretty sloppy. Also, Facebook is so flooded with content so the recruitment content will have to cut through the digital noise when trying to recruit on the platform. Creating recruitment videos and blogs tailored to the specific type of candidate you’re trying to attract will help. All in all, Facebook is most useful for large recruitment campaigns geared towards many demographics.
Twitter combines a healthy mix of personal social media networks and professional social media networks with few boundaries, allowing for the connection of professional candidates looking for more of an informal environment role. It also allows for examining candidates’ personalities in greater detail, for a more in-depth indication of whether they’re a good cultural fit for an organization. To target young professionals (millennials and Gen Y), Twitter could be the best platform to use. Twitter mainly differs from competitors because spending big bucks is normally not needed to get a high level of reach. It’s significantly cheaper to use this platform for recruiting, and it’s easier to get in touch with both active and passive candidates directly, without needing to send a friend request.
Although, Twitter is mostly a reactive platform with content reacting to current events in real-time. It is not commonly used to document key stages in life as done with LinkedIn or Facebook. It is better to develop content with a short life span when using Twitter to recruit, rather than focusing on one big piece of long-life content. Twitter calls for sustained posting and some clever targeting to make the content as effective as possible in reaching the targeted candidates. Directly reaching out to passive candidates may consume too much time and resources. Twitter is most useful for small, targeted recruitment campaigns.
LinkedIn is still by far the most popular social media platform for digital recruitment, and most employers view LinkedIn as the best channel for recruitment, mostly due to the fact that it is a professional social network. Its purpose is for professionals to present their career history, network with others, and look for new opportunities, making it the perfect recruiting source. It also gives recruiters the references for a candidate. Most people active on the site use it passively, so it can be an effective method to target the ideal candidates who may not be looking for a job. LinkedIn is unique because it focuses on professional development, potentially making it easier to navigate than other social networks and having highly-focused and relevant content for recruitment. This may assist with engagement in marketing a recruitment campaign.
With this platform, as most of the best candidates are likely to be passive candidates and reaching out to them can be an intensive process, this process can be draining on time and resources if not executed carefully. It is also the most used platform by most recruiters as part of their recruitment strategies, so there’s a lot of competition amongst employers to net those high-quality candidates. This requires a focus on the advert’s appeal, the persuasiveness of the job description, and the marketing to make an impact. LinkedIn is best for traditional digital recruitment campaigns.
Instagram is a potentially powerful tool to recruit from if recruitment is focused on creative industries. Since younger demographics mainly use Instagram, it is an excellent platform for passive and active Gen Z and Millennial recruitment. It has recently become more popular with recruiters, but remains an unsaturated talent pool, offering a great opportunity to engage directly with candidates in an informal way.
Instagram is a visual platform requiring that recruitment content be image-focused to be effective. Depending on the specific type of roles that your clients are recruiting for, they may need to look toward a more text-heavy option. Gen Z mainly fuels Instagram and Millennial audiences, so recruiting for senior roles is not recommended.
About World Wide Specialty Programs
For the last 50 years, World Wide Specialty Programs has dedicated itself to providing the optimal products and solutions for the staffing industry. As the only insurance firm to be an ASA commercial liability partner, we are committed to that partnership and committed to using our knowledge of the industry to provide staffing firms with the best possible coverage. For more information about Staffing Professional Liability Insurance or any other coverage, we have available to protect your staffing business, give us a call at (877) 256-0468 to speak with one of our representatives.