Nowadays, social media are very used on a daily basis, however, lately, companies have been using it for different purposes, mostly for recruitment, and it turns out it is the right place to find specialists for your company. This is one of the most positive sides of social media.
But, how did social media begin in the first place?
Social media’s rise began in the early 2000s (the first social media site to reach a million monthly active users was MySpace), since then, numerous social media platforms held out / extended to everyone and became very popular. Not to mention the mainstream it became and the important impact in today’s society and everyone's life.
The rapid adoption of technologies and new trends is changing the way we get to contact or find our potential/future partners in work. These connections that social media provide, can help with a variety of things like seeking a new job or recruiting new employees, promoting a new product or service of your business, accessing news and information from the other side of the world and all that in real time and so on. Social media are now being seen as more than just social media. A lot of job seekers are using it as an opportunity to find jobs because now recruiters post their jobs online, on different platforms.
Social Media in the Recruitment Process as The New Recruitment Tool
In the last decade companies (and still) used to recruit new candidates through traditional forms of recruitment which naturally would be more expensive than the recruitment process through social media. It also took more time for job seekers to really know what they’re looking for because they had to search all over the place. But, networking and social media have become the new place where most of today’s recruitment takes place.The social media has changed how the recruiters work now. And that is the most positive thing about social media, that you can actually find jobs there, and a lot of other good opportunities.
It’s true that the take-up of social media has obviously led companies to consider its use as a recruitment tool. As of this year, the number of people using social media is over 3.96 billion worldwide and with more people engaging with social media, it is worth exploring its importance/relevance to the recruitment process or the membership of social media websites among job seekers and employers. The numbers have gone up because of the pandemic that we are facing right now. A lot of companies are still working remotely, despite the fact that the pandemic started in 2020 and it's now over for quite some time.
First by highlighting and keeping in mind the popularity and usage of different social media sites it becomes easier and simpler to see where we should target our human resources. It is also important to know what social media platforms you have a profile on, what would be your preferred method of finding potential employees etc. With today’s evolution of technology and the requirements of clients to handle social media, there are a lot of companies that offer digital marketing services.
Social Media Recruitment is a Must These Days
Social media should now be an integral part of your recruitment life cycle. With the help of social media platforms, you can target the particular qualifications, demographics, and skill-sets to find the right candidates for your company. There are a lot of different social media that provide a lot of information about a lot of things, such as Reddit, Quora, Medium, etc. However, these days, to run recruitment ads you can use and take advantage of the big four dominant networking sites: LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Let’s see down below these networking sites and compare some of the top social media platforms and find out which of the following social media platforms is the best for digital recruiting. Take a look for yourself and why not decide on your own which one is the best for you.
LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional social networking site with nearly 740 million members in more than 200 countries worldwide for those who are looking to develop business connections. As we mentioned above, the mission of LinkedIn is to connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful. LinkedIn growth is going up each day, because a lot of recruiters are using it for job purposes and people are becoming more aware of the usage of it.
The foremost reason for all the users that are active on LinkedIn is for job recruitment efforts. For example the huge number of companies around the world that are listed on the site with an enormous number of open jobs. It’s no surprise to realize that a big percentage of recruiters use LinkedIn for this purpose. Also, you can now update your LinkedIn based on your preferences, for example if you’re looking for a job you can upload your LinkedIn profile with ‘Open to Work’ tool and you can let recruiters know that you’re willing to work. Also, for recruiters there’s a new tool that you can set your profile to ‘Hiring’ to let job seekers know that you’re hiring. How good is that?
One of the biggest benefits that you’ll get to gain from LinkedIn is that it helps you to reach both active and passive candidates.
Facebook is one of the biggest social networking sites worldwide with over 2.7 billion monthly active users. Starting in the early 2000s, Facebook is one of the most used networking applications at the moment. Facebook is considered more as a personal social network by users and employers that generally helps people connect with their friends and family rather than a professional one. However, recently a lot of companies are using it as a recruiting tool, because of the huge amount of the users it has. There are a lot of different groups and pages that are created in order to help people find jobs. This large amount of people that use Facebook help it become a key strength if you’re willing to use Facebook for recruitment. Especially, it will help the company to reach the demographics it seeks.
Unlike LinkedIn that helps you reach both active and passive candidates, using Facebook as a recruiting platform allows you directly to reach the passive candidates.
Twitter is a mini-blog site where you can tweet whatever comes to your mind with the big audience and interaction it has, but after all, it’s not just a “mini blog site”, it’s a lot more. Following people that have the same interest as you, is a bonus for you. Also, a lot of companies are publishing job offers via Twitter, because of the amount of users it has. You can always follow and interact with the latest news and latest trends that are going on. Apart from that, many companies use it for marketing purposes and recruiting.
For recruiters, if you decide not to use it for posting jobs, you can consider checking your future employee profile. Checking their tweets, retweets and likes allows you to find out more about the personality of candidates. It can really help you to give a good indication if the candidate shares the same values you’re seeking for.
This one may have come as a shock to you, but yes, Instagram is being used as a recruitment network tool as well. As we know, Instagram is mostly used for media purposes, such as posting pictures and videos. However, lately, this is being changed by different companies that use Instagram as a recruiting tool. And it is gaining its own credits. Instagram is a platform that helps people share their creativity in different ways. One way that Instagram is really popping out in the recruitment process is because of the popularity it has. The story feature in Instagram is a very powerful tool to use because this way you boost your business more.
Recruiting process should be easy with Instagram because of the amount of users it has which is 1 billion users, and sharing the content in Instagram is a very easy process.
Be Innovative with the Way you Recruit With Social Media
Whether you use full cycle recruiting or common hiring methods, you still need to be aware of the growing social media recruitment trends. As for the overall answer, it depends on the recruitment strategy that you’re thinking to do. Social media is very popular right now, and the best thing is that they are free, at least at the moment. It really depends on the type of platform you’ll choose, which one you will choose will be a smart decision. It will all depend on the unique recruiting objectives of your business. Hopefully, we really hope that this article has given you a better idea of how important social media is in the recruitment process. Growth Hackers is a growth hacking agency that helps small and medium businesses gain sure success through various growth marketing strategies including social media marketing, video and content marketing, SEO, email marketing, branding, paid ads, and more. Contact Growth Hackers now and let us help you implement the marketing strategies that will propel your business.
Benjamin Walsh
I am a graphic designer with more than 5 years of experience. I am currently working on several projects. My favorite hobbies are going to the gym and writing.
