The Right Way To Recruit With Facebook

When recruiting online, many companies head straight to LinkedIn as a place to find serious professionals. However, Facebook should not be overlooked as an equally fertile source of quality candidates. LinkedIn has a reputation for professionalism, but Facebook has five times as many members and its users share information, including job recommendations, at a higher rate than any other social media site.

48% of all job-seekers (63% of those with a profile) used Facebook to hunt for a job last year. If your company isn’t recruiting on Facebook, then you’re missing a huge opportunity to find young, vibrant talent.

How To Recruit On Facebook – The Right Way!

1. Leverage “Shareability”Since one of the main benefits of Facebook is sharing rates, you want to make your company information as colorful, interesting, and easy to pass along as possible. As Mark Zuckerberg himself said, “Nothing influences people more than the recommendation of a friend. A trusted referral is the Holy Grail of advertising.” Try to include humor and personal details about your company in your posts so people will be more likely to share them with friends.
2. Utilize the Facebook Job BoardIn November 2012, Facebook launched its new Job Board. The interactive job board aggregates millions of openings from recruiting companies like Work4Labs, BranchOut, DirectEmployers, Jobvite, and Monster.com. Facebook users can search for jobs by location, industry, and skill. They can apply for positions directly through Facebook and share postings with Facebook friends. By posting your openings on the Facebook Job Board, you can get your company in front of over a billion users, more than any other site on the web.
3. Use Facebook Ads To Target A Specific Category of ApplicantOne of the most annoying things about recruiting is sifting through the hundreds of resumes you don’t want to find the people you’re looking for. Facebook Ads allow you to target specific demographics with your job postings. You can specify the age, sex, location, and relevant keywords for your preferred group, and Facebook will only display your ad to users that fit in that category. You can advertise via pay-per-click or pay-per-impression, and you can choose to run your ad continuously or only during peak hours.
4. Recruit Using The ApplicantPro Facebook AppDid you know ApplicantPro has a free Job Board App for Facebook? Your company Facebook Page is another resource that can be used to recruit new employees. The app creates a full-integrated job board that lists all of your current openings, along with the ability to instantly share job listings. You can see Kneaders Bakery & Cafe utilize the app here. Leverage the traffic you currently get from your Facebook page and show the latest postings. Best of all – it’s free!
5. Use Facebook To Examine Potential CandidatesOne of the largest benefits of recruiting through Facebook is that you have access to potential employees’ Facebook accounts for pre-hiring reconnaissance. A full 73% of employers check out candidates’ social media profiles to determine everything from membership in professional organizations to grammar skills. What most companies are really looking for is evidence that a candidate will fit in with the corporate culture and peer personalities. Turnover is a huge expense, so you want to ensure that potential employees are a match in goals and values as well as in technical skill.

As the stock value for traditional job sites like Monster.com continues to plummet, more and more recruiters and job-seekers are using social media to find jobs. If your company is looking for tech-savvy, socially connected employees, then Facebook should be your prime hunting ground for recruitment.