Social Recruiting for startups

To start a company, your biggest challenge is hiring amazing people. It’s not raising money, closing deals, doing sales, finding partners. It’s hiring People.

And one of the best ways to improve your odds of finding people is to build a Strong Employer Brand. Employer Branding is defined as the process of placing an image of being a “great place to work” in the minds of potential employees.

To convey a brand successfully in a rapidly expanding global marketplace, you need to create a good Employer Brand – it is not about attracting customers, but about attracting talent to the company. Your employees are living, breathing ambassadors of your employment brand. A strong employment brand can provide important competitive advantage, and employees who reflect your brand to talented job seekers can be a true competitive differentiator. Engaging top talent through as Attractive Employer Brand is just as important to your organization’s success as a solid corporate brand. 

People will be coming to you for a job. That’s right, people will be asking you to hire them, even if you haven’t posted job openings; people will be referring their friends, recommending your company and more.

Listen carefully. Social media will instantly expose the gaps between what you say about working in your organization and the reality, so you need to know what people are saying. ‘Social media means transparency at speed,. Listen to what’s being said and put things right quickly.

Talent Acquisition is an integral part of human resource planning of an organization. Companies use various sources – internal search, advertisements, employee referrals, employment agencies, Internet etc. – for carrying out the recruitment activity. Amongst various sources, Social Recruiting has become quite popular. It has become an indispensable part of the recruitment mix of organizations as well as job seekers. It is believed to be the most effective way for spreading information about the availability of jobs as well as people to fill those positions.

The Internet social media platform is growing exponentially. If your organization doesn’t have a voice in this channel, your employment brand is being left behind. Since most companies face talent shortages at some point, incorporating social media and networking into your talent-acquisition strategy is paramount.

Your employees, future employees and competitors are inter- acting on social media and networking sites. Why not you?

Social Recruitment has a wide geographical reach wherein employers can access a vast and diverse pool of candidates. Also, it is more cost-effective. It is estimated that Social Recruitment as a recruitment tool costs one-twentieth of what it would cost to hire through want ads or through other traditional sources of recruitment

Social Hiring also diminishes the role of intermediaries in the recruitment process as interaction happens directly between the employer and the candidate. Using the social networking sites, employers can also approach the so-called ‘passive candidates’ – talented candidates who already have jobs. These people need not apply for jobs as they can easily get many good job offers. But they are not willing to leave their current positions and it is hard to convince them to change their jobs. Therefore, it is difficult to find the resume of such people on job sites. Given the benefits, employers are increasingly using the social networking sites for recruitment.

Social Media when used strategically, they can serve as an excellent tool in hiring. When you’re developing your organization’s social media and networking strategy, start by exploring the big three platforms: LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. It’s important to remember that LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter just scratch the surface of social media. There are others like YouTube, Glassdoor, Google+, SlideShare and even Whatsapp.

Some benefits of Social Hiring:

1. It increases your reach beyond local candidates to those nationally and internationally.

2. Social media recruitment has low costs with a high return on investment.

3. Job candidates can be searched geographically and found with higher accuracy.

4. Available job openings can get filled quickly. This will reduce vacancy rates because social media has high usage and fast response times.

5. Access to top job candidates will be faster than your competitors’.

6. Social media increases the employer’s brand visibility online and establishes a front-line image for the company to attract qualified candidates.
Shweta works with companies to help them improve their Recruitment Strategies, Recruitment processes, Talent Attraction, Employer Branding and recruitment content marketing strategy. Has been Quoted in: “India’s Top 100 HR INFLUENCERS you must follow on TWITTER” and in the list of ” Top 100 Human Resources and Recruiting Leaders (globally) to follow on Twitter in 2014 & 2015″ .  You can follow and reach out to her on twitter at @shweta_hr

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