How Social Media Can Change The Way Your Company Recruits

Social media is constantly integrating in new aspects of our life. Whether we are using Facebook to chat with friends, Twitter to share our latest news, or Instagram to follow our friends lives through photos, it is everywhere. With the evolution of smart phones, social media is now literally at our fingertips and constantly in our lives. Many businesses now use social media as a means of self-promotion and a point of contact for customers and potential customers. In terms of recruitment, social media has taken off successfully as a competent method for employers to recruit and job hunters to seek suitable positions. Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin have all had individual roles to play in this transition, each with respective, individual approaches on spreading the recruitment word. If you are recruiting or job hunting for an accountancy job, a healthcare, construction or media position it is essential to broaden your eyes to world of social media to potentially find you ideal job or employee. In this article, we outline the relevant social media you should follow and how to utilise them for recruitment purposes.

Twitter

Recently, Twitter has become a key tool in the recruitment process. The use of the hash tag #jobfairy has played a significant role in this process. The hash tag has generated huge engagement by employers, recruitment companies and job seekers. Companies seeking new staff use the hash tag in tweets advertising available positions. Job hunters can search for the #jobfairy hash tag. All tweets that include the hash tag will be listed together. The tweet normally includes a short description of the position as well as a link to their website with more details on the position. The hash tag is actively used across all industries including healthcare jobs, corporate finance jobs and posts in the creative and construction industries.

Facebook

Late last year, Facebook launched its very own job board. At the moment it is primarily active in the US, however like all useful social media tools it is likely to grow. The job board works alongside the American Department of Labor and other government agencies who came together to form the ‘Social Job Partnership' one of the main outcomes of this partnership was the creation of this long awaited job board. The board aggregates openings from over 1.7 million recruitment companies and is a great resource for Facebook users across the United States. Users are allowed to search for jobs by various fields including location, industry and skill. They can then applied for suitable positions directly through Facebook.

Linkedin

Linkedin, the professional network is probably the most competent of all social media channels in terms of recruitment as recruitment is one of its main features. In essence, Linkedin is a professional social media outlet where individuals can platform their professional profile. Recruiters are able to target candidates by their location, industry, education and skill set. For recruiters, Linkedin is useful for finding the specific candidate you are looking for. Employers have the option to contact potential employees through InMail, Linkedin's own messaging system. Job suggestions will often appear on a Linkedin user's profile page in their given area. Linkedin can detect when a user is actively looking for a job and more job suggestions will appear on their profile.

The world of recruitment is definitely based online. Traditional methods like newspaper advertising are becoming obsolete. Last year, 98% of recruiters used Linkedin to find the top candidates in their hiring process. Over 80% of recruiters are expected to use Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin over the course of this year when hiring new candidates. So whether you are a job hunter or recruiter you are bound to find yourself online and in the realm of social media to find your dream job or ideal employee.