The social media universe is expanding beyond Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. The good news is this means there are now even more online channels with the potential to bring in your next great hire. Many of these new social media avenues are increasingly heavy on visuals — none more so than social giant Pinterest.
Why should you extend your recruiting strategy to Pinterest? Possibly because it’s one of the fastest growing social networks of all time. By early 2012, after having launched in 2010, Pinterest had already accumulated 10.4 million users. Compare that to Facebook, which only gained 6 million users in a similar timeframe and you can see how quickly Pinterest is growing. And the site continues growing at an exponential rate. According to comScore, Pinterest is still the fastest growing social media network and one of the top influencers when it comes to click-throughs.
With so many new users spending an average of approximately 16 minutes on the site, Pinterest is obviously an untapped well of talent waiting to be explored. But as a new social media network, and a primarily visual one, recruiting on Pinterest is different than using LinkedIn or Facebook.
Here are some of the best ways to pin down the best talent with Pinterest:
If you want to recruit for an open position on Pinterest, you might want to consider giving the job it’s own pin board. On the board, you can post images summing up some of the attributes you’re looking for in your ideal candidate. You can also find visual representations of tasks your new employee will be expected to perform.
You might also want to screenshot your job description and include it at the top of your board, but make sure your board can stand on its own without this written list. After all, the candidate will have plenty of time to look at the job description if the board catches their eye. Give every image an interesting description linking it back to the open position. You’ll also want to make sure to use targeted keywords and hashtags in order to make it easy for talent to find your pins.
An attractive board is great, but it’s important to make sure all pins link back to your company career site or job description. You want to make sure your Pinterest strategy is more than a gimmick by giving potential candidates actionable steps they can take to apply for the job.
You might even want to consider putting the link to your job description, online application, or career site directly in the description section of your pin board. This way potential applicants can easily find their way back to your site to apply for the job.
It’s said a picture can tell a thousand words, so use your images wisely to tell the story of your company. Great images can really tell the story of your company culture better than writing a novel about it on your career page.
Take pictures at your company outings and pin them to a specific board showing off your company culture. Take pictures of the fun you’re having in the office, even if it’s just the day someone brought in homemade cookies. Pinterest can be a great resource for showing off what it’s really like to work at your company.
Pinterest is all about image, but incorporating moving images can also be a great part of a Pinterest recruiting strategy. Utilizing video in your Pinterest recruiting is a good idea and is likely to help you show off your company to interested applicants.
If you make a great recruitment video and pin it, you might just find the repinned video opens your company up to more talent channels than you could imagine. With the use of online video on the rise in the hiring process, from video interviews and resumes to recruitment videos, it’s smart to make multimedia a part of your Pinterest recruiting plan.
While Pinterest is a rising social media platform, there are still many more women pinning away than men. In fact about 80 percent of Pinterest users are women and the site skews younger, with most users in the 24-to-34 age bracket.
You’ll want to keep this in mind when putting together your recruitment pin board. Don’t be afraid to tap into trends, have fun with an Internet meme, or even pin some work-appropriate fashion. The name of the game is to get repins and click-throughs, so make sure you know Pinterest’s target demo in order to attract engagement.
Pinterest might be an emerging social media giant, but it can also be a great resource if you know how to tap into it’s potential. Follow some of these tips and you’ll be sure to pin down top talent in no time!
What are some ways you use Pinterest to recruit? Share in the comments!
