Stay Connected: How to Leverage Social Media for Job Listings

If you’re an employer who wants to locate the best talent for a position, you would be completely remiss if you don’t utilize the resources available through social media. You don’t need to be an expert on SEO or web traffic to get the most out of sites like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.

There are various ways to use these channels for social media recruitment and attract candidates to your listing. As you do so, also consider the ways recruitment tracking software can help streamline the process—especially if you use an online application tool. These systems can help you build a balanced pool of job candidates.

So without further ado, here are the three primary avenues through which you can promote your job posting using social media.

1. Finding the right audience
If you’re seeking the largest possible response for your listing, you can feel free to post the job on every Facebook or LinkedIn group relevant to your job opening. Be mindful that some groups require permission to post. More than likely, you seek a specific kind of candidate with the right experience level and background for your position. For those purposes, you should be a little more discerning about where you advertise—but there’s no doubt that social media is the perfect arena.

With a little research, you can discover where the talent you seek prefers to hang out on the Internet—Chirag Nangia, CEO of Reppify, gave the example of GitHub for engineering talent in an interview with Forbes. These areas aren’t just for active job seekers. More frequently, recruiters can use these channels to find ‘passive’ candidates—those who are employed but open to new opportunities. It’s on employers to locate these potential applicants and present them with an exciting new offer.

2. Promote your brand
As Fox Business points out, “social media is a two-way street.” As much as you’re seeking the right candidates through the online channels, you can be sure those candidates are actively looking for the best employers with which to apply. That means even as you conduct your own applicant search, you must leverage your brand to compete with others doing the same thing.

By creating your own pages and profiles on the major sites—LinkedIn, Facebook, and so on—you can give candidates an easy portal into your culture and values. You can also consider posting company information on those more specific forums like GitHub depending on what type of talent you’re trying to attract.

3. Networking is King
Job seekers are often told networking is the best way to get into the top companies. The inverse is also true—organizations can locate the best talent by growing their network and interacting with the right people. Social media is, if nothing else, a networking tool. It is a way for two people or groups who may have never otherwise met to interact in a mutually convenient location—the Internet.

In this day and age, it’s just about impossible to avoid social media. Instead, use these sites as tools to give your job posting and organization the visibility it deserves. For more information on how to improve your recruitment process and get the hire you desire, check out this blog post, “Ease Your Recruitment Process with Strategic Recruitment.”