In the past decade, hiring processes have changed drastically. It isn’t just about the qualifications, formal education, or work experience. For example, associate certification in project management might be required for leadership roles. Hiring managers are increasingly focused on cultural fit – which typically translates to better employee satisfaction and lower turnover rates.
One good way to make sure you’re attracting qualified candidates who would be a good fit is through your social media and blog posts. Applicants can tell a lot about their prospective employers by their posts – and a bit of humor or just the right messaging can make a huge difference in making your company stand out. So what can you get out of putting in that extra effort into your social media and blog posts?
Your Target Demographic is on Social Media
The key to hiring is to make your presence felt where your target applicants are. These days, the traditional ways to advertise job openings – bulletin boards, newspapers, flyers, etc – just won’t cut it anymore.
Social media has steadily been on the rise over the past few years, with statistics showing that 90.4% of millennials are active social media users, spending roughly 3 hours per day browsing and messaging. And with around half of the US workforce being millennials, you can bet your bottom line that a majority of your future employees are a part of that demographic.
Currently, the two giants of social media are Facebook and Instagram, with 2.6 billion and 1 billion monthly active users respectively. If you’re not already tapping these two platforms to expand and leverage your pool of prospective hires, chances are you’re falling way behind your competition. Read more for handy tips on using Facebook and Instagram to hire your next rockstar employee.
You Can Establish Company Culture
With social media and blog posts, you can easily set the tone for your company’s voice and messaging from the get-go – without your candidates even needing to step foot in your office or hop on a Zoom call. Your posts can be considered the “face” of your business, particularly during this time when in-person encounters are restricted, and it’s up to you to decide what that face will look like. This way, you can show the developer time tracking solutions you have, the background work going on in your team, and other important things.
In an industry that needs a bit more formality? Your copy may need to be more on the formal side. Do you like cultivating a free-spirited environment in your workplace? Injecting some humor into your posts can let candidates know what they can relax and enjoy while working for you. If you need inspiration, you can check out some really creative job postings here!
Your posts can also be considered a screening stage of sorts. Applicants who find your content relatable and entertaining, and engage on your platforms too, are the ones most likely to fit in best in your company.
You Can Reach More and Target Better
Traditional forms of job advertisements are not only outdated, they can be a bit restrictive as well. Put an ad in a newspaper, and its reach will most likely be limited only to those who pick up that particular issue. Post on your blog or social media, on the other hand, and that has a higher chance of being seen, shared among friends, or even going viral.
There’s also a multitude of platforms to choose from – and it’s up to you where to invest the most time and effort in order to get the best gains. You can try an experimental approach: post on several platforms and see which can get you the most engagement and applications. You can also select your platform based on the type of content you plan on publishing. Looking to push out long-form, educational articles? Your company blog might be the best place to house those. Hosting webinars or putting together a how-to? Head on over to YouTube to upload them.
Aside from choosing a specific platform, you can go even more granular and filter the audience of your social media posts by age groups, locations, or even interests. Of course, this is heavily dependent on what people list down in their profiles, but it still gives you a more targeted approach compared to classic methods.
You Can Improve the Employee Onboarding experience
Social media can play a huge role in your employee onboarding process. Letting new hires join your company’s social media pages and communities gives them a sense of belonging in their new job. It also gives them a great opportunity to network with their peers and colleagues, particularly if you have a remote or hybrid work model where employees don’t get to interact in-person regularly.
You may also want to use social media for some background research on your new hires to understand their interests and passions. This will help you build better relationships during the initial onboarding stage, which may be facilitated with the use of an employee self-service app.
You Can Tap Your Following
When you post ads on your social media, people who engage with them tend to be your loyal followers: they’re already familiar with your products and/or services, and are likely to be your customers as well. These people are also known as advocates – and they are one of the most effective forms of marketing in this digital world.
Brand advocates (not to be confused with influencers or endorsers) are people who actively endorse or speak up about your company. And aside from them being loyal customers, they can be considered an informal part of your recruitment team as well. Let’s say for example that you post a job ad on your social media. Minutes later, one of your advocates could already be sharing that post within their network. After all, they already love your company – they are most likely to spread the word if there are job openings as well.
You Can Increase Brand Awareness
This is a great example of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. When you post a job ad on your social media or blog, you’re doing more than searching for prospective employees. You’re also giving the world a glimpse of your business, getting your brand in front of fresh eyes, and showing potential customers that you’re growing despite uncertain times. While not an easily measurable metric, brand awareness is key in staying top of mind for both customers and applicants alike.
Bonus: You Can Cut Back on Costs!
Placing ads in newspapers or printing out a job flyer can get pretty expensive over time, but posting on your own company blog or social media accounts will cost you only the amount it takes to boost a post. You also have perfect control over your boosting budget, and can pause or edit a social media ad whenever you see fit.
These benefits await you when you decide to leverage your own blog and social media accounts for job postings. Keep in mind that we’re not advising you to turn your back completely on the more traditional methods of advertising. In fact, what seems to work best for most companies is a combination of the two strategies, in order to properly cover all the bases.
Author Bio
Desirene is a marketer and content-writer at Workstream. Despite graduating with a major in Psychology, she found passion in everything marketing related throughout her part time jobs and internships. She’s currently with the Workstream team for over a year and is based in Singapore.