Advantages of using Social Media as a Recruiting Channel:
- An almost immediate response time over social media, in addition to its high penetration and usage rate, make social media a highly effective recruitment medium
- Social media eliminates the geographical boundaries for sourcing talent, which reduces cost and time to fill up vacancies
- Talent available on social media sites can be narrowed down using desired and specific parameters, which gives a more accurate search for desired candidates
- Hiring through social media helps employers increase their employer brand visibility and create a brand image that gives easy recall by potential candidates
Let's take a look at the 3 most important social media sites that are most widely used by employers for sourcing and recruiting talent - LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Let's find out the significance of each of these tools in your recruitment process.
LinkedIn: LinkedIn offers business networking opportunities- business networking with those whom you know and whom these people know. For job-seekers, LinkedIn gives news and job postings of employers they are following. For employers, it gives information on a candidate's career profile, which includes his/her qualifications and work experience, which helps them screen potential candidates not just in their own networks but also from their employees' networks. LinkedIn allows employers to create their company profiles that can be regularly fed with interesting posts, new happenings and job postings to reach their potential employees. Employers also have an easy and quick, fee-based option to find the right candidates for their job vacancies on LinkedIn.
Facebook: Starting as a tool for personal networking, today, more and more businesses are creating their presence on Facebook for business networking and also to find the right candidates for their job posts. Facebook gives an opportunity to interact one-on-one with the contacts or to interact with the community at one go. Employers can post industry news, community news, give an insight into their company culture, create polls, post tips on career advancement techniques, and of course, post job openings.
Twitter: Twitter's tweets are short, 140 character messages that give opportunities to employers to post their job openings to those who are following them on Twitter. It helps employers increase brand exposure and advertise jobs to quickly close openings in their company. Dedicated Twitter accounts are created by some employers to communicate with interested candidates.
One word of caution to employers using social media for recruiting is that these sites may bring to you only a fraction of the total available talent pool in the market. It is unwise to completely rely on social media to fill up important positions in your company. Majority of employers still don't risk ignoring the traditional methods of recruitment when it comes to recruiting a candidate for a critical role.
Conclusion: Social media sites are a great way for employers to search for candidates for their job openings. Social media helps employers give an insight about their company and work culture to a community of job seekers within no time and with minimum efforts. Employers can use this media to build constant interaction with the available talent pool in their industry.
