How To Recruit Rockstar Employees With Twitter

Social media is rising in popularity as a source for quality job applicants. In 2013, a study by Software Advice, a resource for recruiting technology reviews, showed that social media has become the 3rd most popular source for recruiting, delivering the highest quality of candidates outside of direct employee referrals.

Social media can be more effective at recruiting star employees than job boards, company career pages, staffing firms, job fairs, and even professional headhunters – if you do it right.

Recruiting through social media is both advantageous and cost-effective, yet the method remains underused at firms where HR managers aren’t familiar with the process. So what’s the best way to recruit through social media sources like Twitter?

How to Recruit Job Seekers Through Twitter:

1. Branch Out From Job Posts

If you only Tweet job postings, you won’t attract many followers or gain much traction with your posts. Twitter is a platform for expressing personality. You need to express the “personality” of your corporate culture. Use Twitter to send news updates, share events and celebrations within the company, Tweet interesting trivia about your company’s growth, and highlight the accomplishments of notable employees.

Try to include tips and information that will appeal to a broad audience, like words of wisdom from your CEO or helpful advice relating to your industry or products.

2. Use Hashtags to Attract Job Seekers

Hashtags are an important part of Twitter. They allow people not already following you to search and view your Tweets. On each Tweet, add hashtags likely to be searched by job hunters in your industry, as well as a few funny or quirky hashtags to help express your personality.

3. Communicate Directly With Job Candidates

Twitter allows you to speak directly to potential job applicants. You can answer questions, sell your company, even joke a little. You can also use Twitter to examine candidates prior to the application process. A look an applicant’s Twitter feed will give you a more nuanced view of their personality than the artificial parameters of your average interview.

4. Enlist Your Employees To Tweet Job Postings

Like testimonials, positive Tweets from general employees carry more weight than Tweets from managers or HR staff. When your employees Tweet about the perks of working for your company and the great job openings available, they’ll pique the interest of friends, acquaintances, and random followers. You’ll widen your range of influence while increasing your credibility. This type of recruiting is similar to direct employee referrals, the source for the highest caliber applicants.

5. Add a Recruiting Applicants Video

Twitter can be linked to videos on your website or on sites like YouTube and Vimeo. Video is a powerful recruiting tool. There is no more effective method to showcase your corporate culture – when applicants watch a video, they feel like they’ve actually met you. And videos are shared more than any other type of media, so video is the best format to get your job postings passed around.

Twitter is the most flexible, diverse, and wide-reaching social media source for recruiting. If your company isn’t already taking advantage of Twitter to attract young, tech-savvy employees, then now is the time to start!