Social recruiting or social media recruiting is the practice of leveraging social media platforms to advertise job openings, build professional networks, conduct background checks on prospective employees, and attract job candidates. LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network and as of 2023, the platform has 900.2 million users – explaining why it’s a top choice for companies in their social recruiting efforts. However, recruiters have also found that social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are also excellent for reaching passive candidates, targeting desired talent, gathering referrals, and showcasing company culture.

How Social Recruiting Works

Social recruiting allows you to increase job visibility, reach higher-quality candidates, improve employer brand awareness, grow engagement, and screen candidates. Therefore, the social media recruiting process depends on the goal.

If you’re using social media to get the word out on a new job opening, you can create a post on the job posting. While you can use a simple text caption, visual content has proven to be more effective at catching audience attention; they’re also more shareable. Many companies create a simple graphic that displays the job title and short job description. The ad would contain a call-to-action to apply by contacting the contact details that are provided or a link to visit the company’s recruitment page. When you design attractive and engaging job ads for social, you also amplify employee referrals. Your employees likely have followings or networks that include relevant talents, such as family, friends, and former colleagues that may belong to the same industry or worked at a similar company.

If your social recruiting goal is to identify potential candidates, you can use the social media platform’s search features to look for people by industry, job title, degree, or even school. LinkedIn and Facebook have this search feature, allowing recruiters to build a pool of potential candidates. Recruiters have found that reaching out to potential candidates is more effective when you send them a direct message within the platform.

Another goal of social recruiting is to build brand awareness and showcase company culture. It goes beyond marketing your company; rather than posts that highlight your products and services, you would be demonstrating why your company is an ideal employer. Therefore, the content you create would focus on highlighting why talent should choose your company over the competition. 

Through your photos and videos, potential candidates should be able to gain an understanding of your organization’s culture – allowing you to attract applicants that align with your brand’s core values. It’s important to be consistent about building an attractive corporate brand and engaging with your audience. It’s important to remember that the talent you probably desire is already working for another company and not actively looking for another job. Therefore, the goal is to demonstrate your company’s value so that even passive candidates consider your organization for future employment.

At RunnerEDQ, we can optimize your social recruiting efforts by helping you discover your contacts’ social media handles and the platforms they use the most. Just provide us with a list of names, addresses, and emails. Ask us how we can easily augment your existing contact list for target marketing, data collecting, and improving how you communicate with your audience.