Tips to hire the right candidates through various social media networks

Online recruiting is fast catching up the attention of the recruiters of almost all the companies, whether big, small or medium. What was just a buzzword, a few years back has now become a trend for companies to hire and connect with the right candidates

Recruiting online is all about finding the best candidates and forging meaningful connections with them. And social media has become the best platform to interact and share ideas with each other. It is estimated that an average user has more than 5 social media accounts, wherein people easily share and express their ideas online and even make new connections.

With social media sites including LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter leading the trend for social networking, HR managers are exploring great opportunities to connect with the candidates, which otherwise would have been impossible using conventional sources. Though most organizations are leveraging social media to hire potential candidates, however, still some companies struggle to recruit via online sources. In this article, we will present a few tips that can help get the right candidates for your company, apart from the benefits that you can accrue with social media hiring.

Key tips to connect with the right candidates

There are no defined specifics for proceeding to hire via social media, though every company should develop its own social media recruiting strategy. Here are the few tips that help to connect with the right candidate:

1. Be proactive and send the right message: The main crux of recruiting on social media is to connect with the right people with the right message. You need to be active on various LinkedIn groups and post the job openings that can reach the right candidates. For instance, you can use keywords like #javajobs or #HYDhiring on Twitter to help connect with the Java developers, who are actively looking for jobs in Hyderabad.
2. Don’t be too informal: Instead of using a formal language to reach out to the potential candidates, be informal and friendly to promote your culture. It’s not just about posting the jobs from your company account. You should also share information highlighting your company’s achievements and also promote your company’s brand, culture and work environment to generate a good impression in the minds of the potential hires. People love to work in companies that value employees and hence this type of content garner maximum likes and shares.
3. Try to reach out to niche networks and forums: Another way of connecting to potential candidates is through niche forums such as GitHub and StackOverflow or even sites like Quora. These sites provide a rich pool of talented resources from where you can connect and choose the right candidate.
4. Make every employee part of your hiring process: This is a great idea, wherein you can share the job postings with your employees. As most of them are active on Facebook and Linkedin, it could help your fellow employees to connect with their friends and peers, thereby generating a positive social media presence. In fact, make every employee your company’s brand ambassador to help them get the right hires.
5. Make the best use of LinkedIn: Among all the social media networks, LinkedIn serves as the best place to get the potential candidates. Almost everyone with a strong career has a profile on LinkedIn, which is the world’s largest professional network. In order to let your page show up on LinkedIn, you need to fill in all the information of your brand without leaving even the minutest details. This way, candidates can search your page, view your openings and get a snapshot of your organization. When looking for potential hires, look for candidates with the combination of talent and passion. Reach out to candidates, who are passionate about their jobs.

Benefits of social media hiring

1. Track the complete history of the candidate: On LinkedIn or even on Facebook, you can get the complete snapshot of a candidate’s professional and academic profile, without even viewing his/her resume. This helps to easily assess whether he/she is the right fit for your organization or not.
2. Get the right cultural fit: Social media is not just about tracking the professional history of a candidate, but also helps you evaluate whether the potential hire is a right cultural fit in your organization or not. You can understand the hobbies and the overall personality of the candidate to judge whether he/she has the right attitude and can adjust in your work environment.
3. Filter out unsuitable candidates: Based on the behavior of the candidate on social media in terms of sharing the content, you can even filter the best candidates out of the worst.
4. Save money: The biggest takeaway of social media hiring is it’s absolutely free, unlike traditional recruiting platforms, where you need to spend a huge amount to post a single job opening.

The bottom line is what works for your organization may not be relevant to another organization. The secret of success is to have a strong social media recruiting strategy that is tailor-made to the requirements of your company and the jobs you are hiring for. This way, you can build your brand in the market, hire the right candidates and also ensure they stick to your organization for a longer time.

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