Every good recruiter knows that social media is more and more important when it comes to finding a great niche candidate. Just days ago Mashable reported that a social media monitoring service Reppler found that 90% of recruiters and hiring managers have visited a potential candidate’s social profile as part of the hiring screening process, and 69% rejected a candidate because of something found on social profile.
Not only do social profiles work well for recruiting, so do respective social career channels open a significant opportunity to cast a wider net when it comes to analyzing and finding candidates. Each of the major social networks are different:
- Twitter: Utilize keywords and make sure you are subsequently using hashtags (#jobs). Also make sure that you tweet out your job openings at optimal times by using tools such as Hootsuite to help show you when your target audience is using Twitter.
- Facebook: Create a your own company branded career page on Facebook so that candidates can easily find your listings through Facebook Search. Keep your pages active so you candidates can engage with your talent acquisition efforts. Use your social timeline so your Likes can see and follow your engagement.
- LinkedIn: This is the largest professional online network. Take advantage of it by creating a recruitment rich profile containing on point keywords and keyword diversity for your specific recruitment efforts. Meaning if you recruit for IT candidates then be very specific with your keywords like SQL Technical Recruiter. Make sure you join groups that match up with your recruiting efforts. Did you know you can join 50 groups maximizing your recruiting efforts? Make sure you display your business contact email within your profile summary section so your candidates can engage with you.
- Google+: This network is the quiet hidden recruiting social channel gem for highly skilled and technical profiles. Just use Google+ Search by keyword and you will find thousands of specific skilled candidates you are looking for. Also using Google+ Circles to group and communicate with your specific candidates by location, skills, etc. with further assist your recruiting. Because you can put anyone in your circles, you have a better chance by really targeting to your industry or skill set will see your job postings.
These are usually seen as some of the biggest social networks, but there is a network that is seldom spoken about for recruiting: Pinterest. Pinterest is one of the fastest growing social networks with daily unique visitors increasing more than 145% since the beginning of 2012. Today there is over 200 million profile accounts with 80% of these profiles being women. In addition, Pinterest is retaining and engaging users as much as two to three times as efficiently as Twitter was at a similar time in history. This then begs that inevitable question: Are you using Pinterest as a recruitment tool?
How Recruiters Can Take Advantage of Pinterest
It is no secret that Pinterest is a very visual social network. In fact, this is likely the number one reason that companies look the other way when it comes to using the site as a way to help the recruitment process. It can be easy to assume that Pinterest will only work if you’re looking for a candidate in design or in the fashion industry, but this is far for the truth. Pinterest is a network used by people from all different backgrounds, and although not everyone goes to Pinterest to specifically look for a job, it isn’t a good idea to assume that they wouldn’t be interested in finding one should a company give them the option. The fact is with 200 million profiles you can bet there is a significant number of candidates who would engage with you on this network.
On that same note, a Pinterest user could come across your job listings or career content because so much time is spent on the network. According to PR Daily, American users of the social network spend an average of one hour and 17 minutes on the site, well ahead of Twitter (36 minutes), LinkedIn (17 minutes), and Google+ (six minutes).
This is where your company comes into play. Below are a few ways that you can make sure you’re ready for any Pinterest user that is passive or active in their career transition:
- Visuals – You want to use visuals to catch the attention of users. Use infographics and videos from your employees, recruiters and hiring managers, which tell the story about your company or your industry in order to lure people to your career website.
- Boards – Create creative boards. You do not need your boards to always be about a specific job posting, but rather have them center around things in your company. Have a board about the decorations in your company, what you look for in an ideal candidate, and pictures of company events that illustrate why your business is the place to work.
- Links – Everything you pin on your boards should link back to your actual company career website. This makes it easy for candidates to read more about the visual that they saw on Pinterest and of course to apply.
Have you ever considered using Pinterest as a recruiting tool? Do you have any success stories about utilizing Pinterest? Let me know in the comments below!
To learn how SourceMob Media Services can enable your Pinterest recruiting just drop me an email at jeff@sourcemob.com or ring me up at 952-417-6955.
To check out our latest Webinar Education schedule go to SourceMob.com and look for the Events link off the navigational bar http://sourcemob.com/events/ Look for our July 1st Webinar 50 Recruiting Tips in 50 Minutes http://bit.ly/1QQbPFR
ABOUT SOURCEMOB: SourceMob integrates Internet, social, talent community and mobile recruiting solutions to help talent acquisition professionals recruit the very best candidates for tough-to-fill positions. SourceMob’s IT, Analytics and HR Media Services distributes job content and conversations providing a job posting springboard to over 3.5 million candidate profiles on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+ and all of the major search engines. We help you engage with your candidates and capture niche Passive candidates. Our solutions also enable Mobile Quick Apply and candidate application management services to create efficiencies and lower recruiting costs.
Looking forward to hearing from you,
Jeffery
Jeffery Giesener
CEO/Founder
SourceMob.com
jeff@sourcemob.com
952-417-6955
Posted by Amanda DiSilvestro edited for Talent Acquisition by Jeffery Giesener