Facebook recruitment is here
Facebook’s growing focus on recruitment will usher in a new era in online talent search as companies can now access more than 1.15 billion active users on the world’s largest social media site.
Representing almost half of the world’s entire 2.7 billion Internet population, Facebook’s sheer size makes it a substantial channel to reach talent online. In the US, 50% of employers are already using Facebook for hiring and of this number, 54% anticipates using Facebook even further.
In South Africa, Facebook currently has an active user base of 9.4 million people of which the most are between 22 to 55.
The channel develops powerful personal connections
Facebook’s core user base consists of young and unskilled or semi-skilled workers and it is particularly popular for graduate recruitment. Facebook’s highly social nature personifies the mindset of its users, who are looking for entertainment, opportunities to share and reinforcing their personal connections.
This gives strong consumer brands, whose online marketing teams have built up a substantial number of ‘likes’ for their corporate pages, an excellent opportunity to leverage the existing fan base for recruitment. For example:
- A fashion retailer with tens of thousands of ‘likes’ could easily expose their page fans to the company’s employer brand and relevant jobs that might interest them.
On the flipside, job postings will also pull in new website traffic to a Facebook page for the marketing team to leverage off. This cross-promotion can help HR contribute to the company’s marketing and sales efforts, versus its historic view as only being a cost centre for the business.
How can you target job seekers?
Create a careers tab on your Facebook page to post jobs from your applicant tracking system automatically. Next, HR can allow employee referrals, enabling candidates to apply from within their Facebook profiles, fostering additional engagement.
To entice top talent who are already employed elsewhere to join your company, the ideal is exposing them to the full employer brand experience with a Facebook careers presence. This could feature specially built page elements, rich media such as video testimonials, staff postings on certain topics, and pertinent conversations shared via Facebook’s instant messaging.
You can pull elements from your recruitment campaigns on other platforms into Facebook very easily to complement your employer brand.
Facebook’s strong search facility also enable HR professionals to search for candidates based on work experience, age and gender to place adverts on their Facebook profiles with leads channelled back to the applicant tracking system.
A word of warning…
The caveat for a full-force employer brand strategy is that you’re either in or you’re out. There is no half-measure in the focus, commitment and resources required as all engagements are taking place in real time. An inability to sustain this commitment can damage your brand.
Social media also means that job seekers may say things you don’t like, which is public. Think twice about whether you have the stomach for this interaction and have the plans in place to deal with any potentially damaging comments quickly.
As Facebook starts adding more jobs, candidates will start populating their profiles with more work-related information. Facebook is no longer just a social networking site and will become increasingly important for recruitment. HR professionals and recruiters should consider Facebook’s place as part of a comprehensive online recruitment strategy.
