4 Tips to Optimize your Recruitment of Tech Talent Through Social Media
Posted On: Thursday, June 2, 2016
In today’s business world, if you are not active on social media you are considered out-to-date and old-fashioned. Unfortunately, that will not fly when trying to recruit top tech talent who value innovativeness, creativity and progress.
In the current war for tech talent, top candidates are being bombarded with messages from recruiters every day via various communication channels. Just as the field of technology is constantly changing, so should the nature in which we recruit. So while the traditional cold-calls and emails have been sufficient in the past, it is time to adopt a complementary social media recruiting strategy to accompany it.
After interviewing our senior agency recruiters here at Mindcircuit, here are 4 tips they suggest implementing after years of trial and error, investigation and research.
- Use Social Media as a research tool to discover more about your candidate: “Professional Creeping”
Social media is a rich and valuable tool that many recruiters are ignoring. Social Media allows us to get a glimpse of how the minds of potential candidates work, what they are interested in, and what their personality is like. A social media page is a reflection of one’s self, and may provide a first glimpse regarding how they may fit into your office culture. Also as I mentioned before, recruiters are constantly bombarding them with emails; by evaluating their interests and shares you may be able to tailor a more personalized email that will stick out in the minds of these highly sought professionals. We suggest doing at least 10 minutes of social media research before contacting a candidate. This may sound time consuming, but we find it very beneficial!
- Consider social media sites other than LinkedIn
While our recruiters agree that LinkedIn is the best social media platform for recruiting because of its business focus, Facebook is still a viable option for discovering candidates. In a recent webinar by Allison Kruse , “How to Brand Yourself on Social to Attract Tech Talent”, she said 83% of job seekers use Facebook as part of their job search tactic. Facebook is especially important in recruiting millennials. Shockingly, in a recent survey conducted by Jobvite, 86% of millennial jobseekers use Facebook to find positions, while 36% use LinkedIn. Lastly, Facebook has 1.23 billion users as compared to LinkedIn who have 433 million. The odds may be in your favor to use Facebook.
- Make sure you have a “Real Profile”
While social media is a professional tool, the very definition of the platform is to be social in nature. So be social! Like and share candidate’s posts, engage them in conversation about something other than the job listing. Do not have a boring page that is only used to continuously post job openings, that is a quick way too lose followers. Make your profile interesting while maintaining a professional tone. Along with job listings and other recruitment posts; share posts related to the technology field, share uplifting stories and sayings, appropriate jokes, pictures of your team at work outings and more. Let your personality shine through your profile, so you can attract those passive candidates (professionals not currently looking for work) intrigued and following you.
- Don’t be too swift to send a friend request
While being actual friends is very different from the depersonalized act of being “Facebook Friends”, we urge you not to be too quick in trying to connect on any social media site. Messaging a person about a job posting and asking to be friends are very different. Messaging is a necessity in our field for trying to communicate to new talent. On the other hand, friend requesting can sometimes be seen as intrusive, and invading into a stranger’s personal life. We recommend you make a relationship with the candidate first, whether its sending a few messages back in forth, or even better, ask for their permission to connect. Remember, you never want to offend the candidate!
A Webinar that we found extremely helpful in updating our social media strategy was, “How to Brand Yourself on Social to Attract Tech Talent” by Allison Kruse and we have articulated some of her ideas in this article. If you have the time, I would highly suggest watching this 50 minute video all the way through.
So while today social media can hardly be considered a new concept, it is time to utilize it to its full potential. Despite the prevalence of social media in our day-to-day lives, Kruse claims that only 17% of recruiters consider themselves social media experts. It is a tool that involves constant research and updating, but is utterly effective.
So, get social, get connecting and start placing.
Samantha is receiving her Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Marketing with a minor in Sociology, from the Isenberg School of Business at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She started as an agency recruiter for Mindcircuit in 2014 and transitioned to a content writer for the business in 2016. Feel free to reach out to her by email, connect with her on LinkedIn. Subscribe to her FREE weekly Recruiting Newsletter for more tech recruiting advice, here: http://eepurl.com/b3SicH.
Sources:
De Lara, Kathleen. “Techniques for Recruiting Millennials.” Web log post. Entelo Blog. 2 Mar. 2014. Web. 25 May 2016. <http://blog.entelo.com/techniques-for-recruiting-millennials>.
Fallan, Nicole. Weblog post. Business News Daily, 27 Aug. 2014. Web. 17 May 2016.
Kruse, Allison. “Http://insights.dice.com/2016/04/26/how-to-brand-yourself-on-social-to-attract-tech-talent/.” Video blog post. Dice, 12 May 2016. Web. 19 May 2016. <http://insights.dice.com/2016/04/26/how-to-brand-yourself-on-social-to-attract-tech-talent/>.