We currently have a generation of digital natives who are entering the workforce, millennials are transitioning into leadership positions, and their lives revolve around social media, posts, likes, and tweets.

Reason enough to know that social media is and will continue to be a valuable provider for organizations when looking for new talent and a valuable way to expand the pool of candidates appropriate for each organization, therefore, they should be included in the marketing mix of their recruitment strategy.

SIX STEPS TO DEVELOPING A SOCIAL RECRUITMENT PLAN

• DEFINE YOUR GOALS

 Do you want to attract the best talent, have a better pool of candidates, or increase brand awareness in a specific target audience?  It is wise to keep a goal in mind before you begin because these goals will guide your social recruitment plan.

• CREATE THE “CANDIDATE PERSONA” 

Make sure you are clear about the type of people you want to attract to the company.   Are they recent graduates or senior professionals?  What is your ideal candidate look like, what does he want or what value does he add to the position in your company?  And finally, who is the right match for your corporate culture?

Establishing the candidate persona is a fictitious representation of the appropriate talent for each position, defining background characteristics, qualifications, hard and soft skills, level of education, objectives, and experience. The more information you have, the better the content you are going to develop, and it also will help you choose the right social media platform.

Creating the candidate persona will not only help you gather the right information, but will also help you make better decisions when designing the recruitment campaign.

It is important to research the candidate’s profile and consider where they are most likely to spend their time on social media.  (See our blog post: Recruitment Marketing: An Ideal Ally to Find the Right Talent.)

• CHOOSE THE RIGHT PLATFORM

 Choosing the right platform for the position offered by the company will be directly related to the profile of your candidate persona because the recruitment process in social media

is more personalized.  While you can use Facebook to search for a video producer, you’re more likely to find a talented video producer on YouTube.

To find high-quality employees, you must take advantage of the right platform for the available vacancy. Have a list of all the channels and evaluate the content and formats, choose the one that works for your recruitment campaign and the position available in the company.

It is good to have a detailed plan that focuses on the best social media platforms for your ideal candidates and optimize your social strategy by choosing the right channel for each specific position.

• DEVELOP THE CONTENT

Content is the backbone of any social media strategy, people today want to be informed, entertaining and connected in real-time. Therefore, to be successful, it is important to find out what kind of interaction potential candidates are looking for and how the company will provide it to them throughout the content they create.

Establish the voice of your content, having a distinct voice can help you interact with your candidates in a way that business jargon can’t.

In a social recruitment campaign, the company’s voice should be friendly, helpful, and empathetic, using positive and inclusive language that makes your future employee feel comfortable and welcome. Put yourself in the shoes of your candidates.

Finally, there are components to think about when developing content such as hashtags and “call action.” Hashtags increase the chance of being seen by your audience by adding context to the post. Call action plays a very important role in social media recruitment because it encourages candidates to contact the company and submit their resumes.

• EXECUTE THE PLAN

Once you have the profile of your candidate persona, set your goals, have already chosen the channels and written the copy, you are ready to execute the plan! Execution requires enormous attention to detail; solid execution is based on a large social media presence and a successful recruitment campaign.

Make sure you’ve created enough recruitment content weeks in advance, an editorial calendar will make it easier to manage content across different platforms, and you can even automate such content through social media to go online later.

The more often you post, the better the chances of being detected, but make sure you do not overdo it because you can get on the spam list.

Remember that social media is a two-way communication process, people are likely to ask for more information about the available position and want to ask specific questions about the job offer, please do not ignore these messages, respond as soon as possible.

Great execution also means paying attention to social interactions, building connections, and focusing on building relationships with the people you want to hire.

• MONITOR AND MEASURE RESULTS

What works and what does not?  One advantage of automation is that it usually comes with data available for analysis. You can track likes, clicks, followers, and all the data generated from the traffic in your account, allowing you to improve your social recruitment strategy.

Measuring your social media campaign can give you a good feedback loop and help you:

• Understand the effectiveness of your effort and adjust what is not working
• Discover the trends you can use to improve your recruitment campaign
• Opportunity to analyze the level of engagement and content of interested candidates
• Demonstrate the value of social media for the recruitment process in your organization