How To Recruit Online: Finding Talent with Facebook & Twitter (STUDY)

Online recruiting offers a unique way for companies of all sizes to find and attract quality candidates for hire. With a considerable surge in social media users, HR departments are finding ways to utilize this global resource to attract top candidates for open positions. In this study, Jobvite found that recruiters leveraging social media to reach candidates are at an all-time high. 92% of the recruiters surveyed claimed they use or are planning to use social networks/social media for recruiting.

Many recruiters are adopting the use of Facebook (66%) and Twitter (54%) for talent search, while the usage of LinkedIn becomes nearly universal this year, at 93%. The companies leading the way in online recruiting are seeing positive results in terms of the quantity and quality of candidates. Regardless of the size of your company, it is extremely important to reach out to talent through a variety of online resources. We recommend a mix of organic and paid search initiatives. After all, with recruiting, there needs to be a balance between the recruiter finding the candidate and the candidate finding the recruiter.

Recruiting with Facebook

Compared to the 89% of companies who found a hire through LinkedIn, only 26% of companies added someone to their team through Facebook. Companies not utilizing Facebook to recruit are missing out on a huge opportunity. Why? Because Facebook has more active monthly users than Twitter and LinkedIn combined.

For larger companies and brands, we recommend executing a paid search campaign to capitalize on this massive audience. Facebook ads allow you to target potentials within a broad or specific scope. This targeting can include age, education, geographic location and interests. This makes it easy to only allow a specific group with specific qualifications to see your posting (as opposed to traditional job boards online). Think of it as an exclusive message sent out to the best potential fit for the position. For example, you can create an ad campaign that targets only recent graduates of Harvard with a degree in Law living within the New York area.

Recruiting with Facebook ensures a more qualified, interested potential candidate. These people are more likely to accept an offer than potential team members recruited through more traditional measures. Because Facebook ads charge on a pay-per-click basis, it is likely that you will have a low spend and high return on investment. Only candidates with interest in the position will be inclined to click and apply.

If nothing else, recruiting with Facebook will increase interest to your company’s fan page. Those who connect with your page are likely to have genuine interest in what your company does or what it stands for. Those who “like” your page will be sent updates on future job postings and other information regarding the page. You never know, these followers may serve as future employees.

Recruiting with Twitter

While some recruiters fear that Twitter is only for young people without much experience, it has been found that it is actually the exact opposite. Twitter attracts professionals with progressive skill sets. Using hashtags allows your message to be instantly searchable. Twitter has a unique way to reach the members of distinct communities with specific interests: the hashtag. Hashtags offer an easy and quick way to find engaged users with a particular interest or skill set. Including hashtags with the city or state of the job location, along with a hashtag referencing the type of job available, is a good place to start. It is also important to include a link to a landing page the job seeker will find useful.

The idea is to offer a short message that redirects job applicants to your company’s website. Make this as easy as possible. If your company does not have many followers on Twitter, and you fear that not many potential candidates will see your message, there are always ways to build your network. Start by running a simple keyword search on Twitter to find conversations among users within your industry. Allow these conversations to lead you to a worthy candidate.

As more recruiters discover how to recruit online using social media, there will be an increase in quality applicants. As advocates of social communication and quality search, we couldn’t agree more. Internet users are seeking information and opportunity. It is your responsibility to provide this information and make it easily accessible. We believe that all business decisions should be based on data analysis, and the same holds true in the search for talent. Keep in mind that it is important to share links across each of these social channels to further increase your chances of finding the perfect hire. The better you understand how to recruit online with Facebook, Twitter and other social platforms, the greater chance you will have of connecting with the qualified candidates you are looking to hire.

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