Social, mobile, and digital technologies offer great opportunities for recruiters and sourcing professionals to get deeply personal with candidates. But many organizations find their social recruiting efforts are not fostering substantial engagement.
It’s not a matter of presence; most organizations have a career site, Facebook page, LinkedIn page, Twitter stream, or company blog. But without a content strategy tying it all together, many social recruiting efforts will fall short and deliver lackluster results.
An effective digital strategy requires making an emotional connection with candidates and generating personality-fueled brands that are connected to the business. Digital technologies give organizations the chance to have personal, individualized relationships at scale, but getting there requires going beyond superficial social promotion.
Candidates are hungry for information about prospective employers, but they won’t buy manufactured messages; instead, they are turning to their network and extended social graph to uncover the appeal of working for an employer. When considering a company, before visiting their career site, candidates look to their peers to better understand if there are job openings that align with their interests, what the work involves, and what the culture is like.
Recruiters can join the conversation with contextual content that is interesting and personalized, allowing candidates to gain deeper insight and see firsthand why your organization is a great place to work. Many, however, are not doing it well. How do you know if it’s time to elevate your digital strategy?
Your content is made up of manufactured messages. Authenticity is a social media must, so show rather than tell what it’s like to work for your organization through the voice of employees, prospects, partners, and peers. Engage a network of ambassadors and actively encourage them to deliver a more personalized, individualized experience with every interaction.
You’re only thinking of the target audience – When designing social experiences, websites, or other content, it’s typical to approach it with the site visitor in mind. But consider how the content will be shared and who else might find it of interest. Powering the sharing of information with friends, family, coworkers and others is how your messages can increase followers and expand the talent pool.
You fail to prepare a sentence that can be tweeted with your content – Creating sharable content requires understanding what your audience likes to share and then making it accessible. Serve up a sound bite that can be used in front of a tweet, link or status update and keep it short and simple so it’s easy to use and understand. For example, I recently shared an article on individuals who exclusively use their mobile device to access digital content. I included the word “MOBILE” at the front of my tweet so followers would understand that the content contained information about mobile technology.
You’re not operating with the big picture in mind – It’s difficult to get – and keep – a candidate’s attention. Studies show most people have a shorter attention span than a goldfish, so it’s important to think about what you want your audience to do. Join your talent pool? Share contact information? Register for an event? Give your audience something to do, be deliberate, and make it easy for them to participate.
Your candidate experience isn’t consistent – What happens offline often ends up online, so make it a priority to deliver a consistent and superior candidate experience in both face-to-face and digital interactions. Listen to your audience, understand their needs, and ensure every interaction adds value.
You’re not taking a service-oriented approach – Service industries know it’s not enough to capture a customer – they need to keep them for life. Exceptional customer service means doing something helpful beyond what’s expected. Sourcing professionals can put the spotlight on a more value-based approach and raise the return of their social interactions by suggesting information or links that help candidates reach personal and professional goals.
You’ve not optimized for mobile – You can’t hit your social potential if you’re not mobile. A mobile experience that gathers and synthesizes located-based candidate data creates opportunities for a better candidate experience. Mobile-friendly websites, optimized job postings, and recruitment-specific apps can reach an on-the-go audience and deliver information in a way that meets candidate expectations.
Delivering consistent, optimized, personalized and – most of all – relevant messages to candidates requires more than lining up a series of tweets in Hootsuite and pushing a button. And while a significant amount of work is needed to develop your social recruitment content strategy, the potential reward is huge. Recruiters dream of sourcing candidates who fit both their organizations’ business needs and their cultures. With the right social recruitment strategy, those dreams can become reality.
Digital strategy image from Bigstockphoto.com
