The “drought.” The “war.” The “perfect storm.”
Over the years, our industry has come up with dozens of ways to describe recruiting challenges. But right now? Many of our clients are calling recruiting downright IMPOSSIBLE.
Here’s what’s making it so tough – and expensive – to fill open jobs:
- Jobs are back.
- Unemployment is dropping.
- Return-to-work anxiety is real.
Bottom line? Increased labor demand, reduced supply, lingering fears and (thanks to the stimulus package) a strong incentive for people to remain on unemployment is making recruiting a real nightmare.
Tired of the cliches – and ready to tackle recruiting challenges head-on?
We have you covered. The team at Haley Marketing brainstormed “50+ Ideas for Social Recruiting,” and I’m going to share them in a 6-part series. What’s up first? Tried and true strategies that focus on getting your message in front of the right people.
Consider Your Audience
- Create audience personas. A persona is a profile that defines common demographic characteristics, personality traits, interests, challenges and attitudes for each type of candidate you want to recruit on social. When you take the time to define personas, you can better target your recruiting messages.
- Post where your audience hangs out. Job hunting professionals are on LinkedIn. The under-30 crowd is mostly on Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok. Their parents are on Facebook (well, almost everyone is on Facebook!). Typically, direct job posts won’t get much response (unless you’re promoting them), so rather than post jobs, create “stories” about your candidates, your culture and the cool clients you serve.
- Leverage your ATS. Export all the candidates you have placed over the last few years and use that to build a look-alike audience you can target with your content and brand advertising.
- Use paid ads. There is a misconception that social media is free. It can be, but your reach will be limited. To get your jobs and career-focused content in front of more of your ideal candidates, add targeted paid advertising to your social posts.
- Get proactive about reputation management. In staffing, negative reviews on Google, Indeed and Facebook are inevitable (you can’t place or please everyone). To combat negative reviews, implement a proactive feedback collection program with every candidate you interview. Collect testimonials and ask for reviews from the happy ones…and provide a PRIVATE feedback look for the people who aren’t so happy. Need help with Reputation Management? We do that! Haley Marketing’s Reputation Management services make it easy to get the feedback you need!
- Use advertising for direct response and organic social to build your employer brand. Ads can target people by location, interest and job title. You can even target ads specifically to candidates already in your ATS to re-engage and reactivate them. Use your organic posts to showcase your brand—who you are, the value you bring to the community, and how you help job seekers and employers.
- Post Facebook Jobs. Facebook jobs are FREE to post, and there are even automation tools to post all your jobs from your Career Portal to Facebook! (Yup, this is something Haley Marketing can do for you!)
- Build a remarketing audience on Facebook through the amount of time a user watches a video. For example, if someone watches 50% of a video, they go into your paid advertising audience.
Up Next: Big Ideas for Social Recruiting Part 2: Create Images and Videos
In my next post, I’ll share strategies to engage potential candidates with compelling and creative use of visual media. If you can’t wait to learn more, you can read “50+ Ideas for Social Recruiting” right here.
