As the talent market becomes even more competitive, many talent teams are exploring new channels for reaching best-fit candidates. When employees advocate for your brand, their social networks see your company not as a faceless corporation but as a humanized entity with which they share a connection. 

Think about your social media channels. Have you ever scrolled through your social media feed and spotted a job posting that felt tailor-made for you? That’s the power of social recruiting. Most of us know LinkedIn is the premier site for making professional connections. But what about Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or even TikTok?

One click on a shared post from an enthusiastic employee can put your company in front of hundreds of potential recruits. It’s like turning every staff member into a recruiter. This is more than just posting jobs online. This is strategic, engaging, and humanizing your brand to attract top talent.

Understanding the Power of Social Recruiting

Social recruiting is more than a buzzword. It’s an effective strategy that allows companies to find top talent by leveraging social media networks. Imagine your job postings being shared on job boards and online communities where potential candidates hang out – like LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter. That’s social recruiting for you.

This method gives you access to passive candidates who may not actively seek new roles but could be tempted by the right opportunity. According to Jobvite’s annual recruiter survey, 73% of recruiters have hired someone through social media.

The Relevance of Social Recruiting Today

In today’s intensely competitive job market, discovering and luring the ideal candidates can feel like attempting to locate a needle in a stack of hay. But here comes social recruiting as our modern-day magnet.

A recent study from Glassdoor revealed that 79% of job seekers use social media during their job search process. This means that if you’re not using these platforms for recruitment, there’s likely a large pool of talent you’re missing out on.

We’ve all heard it before: people buy from people they know, like, and trust. The same goes when deciding where we want to work. We’re drawn to organizations where we feel a personal connection.

Through social recruiting, your employees become your brand ambassadors. They give a human face to your company and share their experiences with potential candidates in their networks. It’s like word-of-mouth marketing but better and faster.

Consider that an employee’s post about job openings gets shared 24x more than when posted by the company. This demonstrates how powerful social recruiting can be for enhancing the visibility of job postings and attracting top talent.

The Role of Employees as Brand Advocates

Think about your company’s brand. It’s more than a logo or tagline; it’s the collective experience and impression people have of your organization. Now, consider who is best equipped to share that: your employees. They’re the living embodiment of your values, culture, and mission.

Your team members can be powerful brand advocates in social recruiting. Why? Because they humanize your company on social media platforms and foster connections with potential candidates.

The Humanizing Effect: Employees offer an inside look into what working at your company looks like. Sharing their experiences online adds a personal touch – something you don’t get from corporate posts alone. Content shared by employees receives eight times more engagement than content shared by brands themselves.

Fostering Connections With Candidates: An employee sharing a job opening within their network isn’t just advertising – it’s an endorsement. This approach can tap into passive talent pools – those not actively seeking jobs but would move for the right opportunity. Potential candidates are likely to trust recommendations from someone they know personally over generic corporate messages, so leveraging this trust factor is vital.

Making The Most Out of Employee Advocacy

• Showcase real stories: Encourage employees to share genuine experiences about life at work through photos, videos, or updates on LinkedIn or Facebook, for example.
• Celebrate success: Acknowledge team wins and individual achievements publicly. This can show potential candidates that your company values its employees.
• Provide guidelines: Ensure your team knows what is appropriate to share online about the workplace. This will make them feel comfortable participating in social recruiting.

Your employees are your best brand advocates in social recruiting. Their personal touch, sharing experiences, and endorsing job openings on social media get 8 times more engagement than corporate posts. Leverage this by encouraging genuine stories, celebrating success publicly, and giving guidelines for appropriate online shares.

Strategies to Encourage Employee Participation in Social Recruiting

Getting employees involved in social recruiting is like planting seeds. You’ll see your efforts grow into a forest of connections and potential candidates when done right. Here are some practical steps to make it happen.

Show Employees the Value: To kickstart participation, employees must understand why they should get involved. Show them how their advocacy can help attract top talent who fit well within the team dynamic.

A great way is sharing success stories from other companies where employee involvement has led to quality hires on the LinkedIn Talent Solutions Blog. These stories emphasize that better colleagues lead to a more productive work environment.

Create an Easy-to-Follow Guide for Sharing Job Openings: The path towards active employee participation should be easy as pie. So, create clear guides on how they can share job openings across different platforms such as LinkedIn or Facebook. This removes any confusion and makes it easier for everyone.

You could even have a short workshop session demonstrating this process using real-life examples from within the company (remember: keep it light-hearted).

Rewarding Employee Efforts Can Go A Long Way: Everybody loves rewards. And what better way than incentivizing employee participation? Consider establishing recognition programs that reward staff for engaging with recruitment posts or referring successful candidates.

This could range from simple shout-outs in company meetings to tangible rewards like gift cards or bonus days off. It’s a win-win: your employees feel appreciated, and you get help recruiting.

Making it Fun Makes it Work: We all know work can sometimes be serious, but social recruiting doesn’t have to be. Create engaging recruitment campaigns that encourage employee participation.

Consider setting up challenges where different teams compete to see who can attract the most candidates or whose post sparks the most engagement. This approach transforms social recruiting from a mundane task into an exciting activity everyone looks forward to.

Successful Examples of Social Recruiting Through Employee Advocacy

Social recruiting is not just a buzzword. It’s a powerful tool that can help companies attract top talent, and employee advocacy plays a significant role in its success. Let’s take inspiration from real-world examples of companies successfully using this strategy.

Zappos: Creating an Attractive Company Culture

Zappos, the online shoe retailer, has always been known for its vibrant company culture. However, it took things to another level when it decided to leverage its employees’ social media presence for recruitment.

The firm launched #InsideZappos, an initiative encouraging employees to share their work experiences on social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram using the hashtag #InsideZappos. This gave potential candidates a genuine peek into Zappo’s unique culture and workplace environment straight from the horse’s mouth.

L’Oréal: Turning Employees Into Brand Ambassadors

L’Oreal, one of the world’s leading cosmetics companies, recognized early on how crucial employees could be as brand ambassadors in attracting new talent.

In 2015, they launched Life at L’Oréal, a unique employee experience program that invited their global workforce to become “spokespeople.” These spokespeople were encouraged to share their stories about working at L’Oreal through videos shared across LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube, ensuring everyone knew why they loved being part of team L’Oréal.

Dell: Championing Transparency with Careers Page

Computer technology giant Dell is another excellent example of a company leveraging employee advocacy for recruitment. They set up their careers page to feature job openings and highlight stories from current employees.

This allowed candidates to see themselves thriving in such an environment. Dell’s culture became more transparent, attracting many potential candidates intrigued by the possibility of working in this dynamic atmosphere.

Measuring the Success of Your Social Recruiting Efforts

Knowing how to track and measure your social recruiting efforts is crucial. But you may be asking, “What are some key metrics and indicators I should keep an eye on?” Good question. 

The Role of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

KPIs let you understand if your social recruiting strategy works. Some KPIs that can help include:

• Candidate Quality: Are candidates a good fit for the role? Do they have skills matching job requirements?
• Time-to-Fill: How long does it take to fill open positions? The shorter the period to fill vacancies, the better.
• Candidate Source: Which platforms give you the most successful hires?

To gauge candidate quality effectively, use structured interviews or standardized assessments. Applicant tracking systems (ATS) are handy for tracking time-to-fill and identifying productive sources.

Social Media Analytics: A Goldmine of Data

Your journey doesn’t end with just posting jobs on social media; diving deep into analytics also gives valuable insights about performance. Each platform provides its own set of data, like LinkedIn Analytics, which lets you see who viewed your posts or engaged with them.

You’ll learn where potential applicants come from, what content resonates with them, and more. This data helps tweak your strategy for better results.

Employee Referral Rates: An Underrated Metric

When employees become brand advocates, they extend the reach of job posts through their networks. A high employee referral rate indicates that your social recruiting efforts bear fruit. You can track this by asking new hires how they heard about the position or using an ATS to log source information.

Candidate Engagement: More Than Just Numbers

A successful social recruitment strategy involves two-way communication. Engaging potential candidates on social media platforms not only increases visibility but also boosts employer branding. With analytics today, we can see exactly how much interest a job posting has garnered. It’s like an immediate feedback loop, giving employers valuable insights into the appeal of their listings.

Finally, tapping into your team’s networks can turn every employee into a talent scout. Remember, their shared posts on social media are powerful recruitment tools. Social recruiting is about making your brand human and relatable. It’s about leveraging connections for better hires. To stand out in the current crowded job market, it is essential to draw in top-tier applicants.

If you’re ready to revolutionize your hiring process, take those tips onboard, encourage employee participation, and start measuring success.