10 Do’s and Don’ts of Social Recruiting
If you’re new to using social media to attract tech talent, all the platforms and possibilities can seem a little daunting. But it doesn’t have to be that way. In this guide we offer you some do’s and don’ts for creating a social media presence that can help all recruiters build or improve their social skills.
What is social recruiting? A recruiting strategy that consistently incorporates data from social social networking sites to source, evaluate, and contact candidates.
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DO establish goals and objectives
DON’T focus on number of followers
Using social media to recruit tech talent be-
It’s tempting to measure progress by
comes less daunting when you’re intentional
followers. Think again. For example, some
about establishing goals and objectives. First,
early followers on Twitter will turn out to be
find out where your target candidates spend
spam bots.
time. Tools such as Dice Open Web provide insight into the social accounts that tech pros
Check your followers’ profiles with an eye for attracting quality,
frequent.
can help you tailor your content.
not quantity. Learning more about who follows you (and why)
Second, have a goal in mind. It could be a number of leads per week, posts published, articles shared or conversations started (see below for more tips on content strategy). Start small with a couple of simple, doable goals and build from there.
TIME-TO-HIRE Canvassing social sites to find qunique candidates helps reduce your time-to-hire.
HIRE QUALITY It gives you access to both active and passive, candidates, increasing your quality of hires.
COST-PER-HIRE Knowing what makes your candidates tick makes engaging with them easier - lowering the cost-per-hire.
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DO establish a content strategy and schedule
DON’T be a “Pointless Sharer”
We recommends using the 3-2-3-1 approach
resulting conversations.
to investing time in social media. Every week:
Be sure to monitor comments and participate in any
• Post three pieces of fresh content. Invest 30 minutes per
Don’t just share something and then ignore
conversation the post may stir up.
week in this effort. • Start conversations with two new influencers. Invest 10 minutes per week in this effort. • Share three links that others have posted on each social channel you’re on. This should take about 15 minutes per
Take some time every quarter to meet with your team to discuss emerging social media trends including what the competition is doing.
week. • Comment on at least one group thread. Spend about 10 minutes per week doing this.
Pinpoint your company’s culture and what traits make up your ‘ideal’ candidate - don’t forget to include your hiring manager in these discussions. Identify the soical sites that are most important to your business. You don’t need to know the ins and outs of each one, but you should know the basics of a few key sites.
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DO formally block out time for Social
DON’T just tell the boss “I spend an hour on social”
To ensure you spend time on social activities
Social media can be a great recruiting tool,
every day, block time on your calendar. And
but a lot of bosses fear it’s a productivity
be thoughtful about defining each
vampire.
appointment. Sharing your plan with specific goals and time allotments with For example, instead of putting “Get on social” from 8-9 a.m., schedule small timeslots that include specific details on what
your manager can alleviate his or her worry that you’re just browsing Facebook.
you want to accomplish.
Use social media as an opportunity to learn more
Tweak your recruiting strategies based on what
about your candidates. Find out what motivates
you learn. For example, use keywords that relate to
them - what they love and what they don’t.
the passions and interests of your top performing hires to strengthen your sourcing and pipelining.
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DO be ‘Professional’
DON’T be juvenile
There’s no need to have two separate social
It goes without saying that your social shares
profiles for personal and professional needs.
should be free of spelling, grammar and punctuation errors.
We recommend that a recruiter be transparent online; also, keep things to a single online profile. When recruiters attempt to have two profiles, 98 percent of the time, the professional account is incredibly dry and just spews spam.
We also advised against using emoticons, gifs or excessive slang. Be friendly—but only to a point.
Social media is based on
Meet with your team to
Remember to converse
a simple concept: people
discuss how you can tell
on social media as well as
expect to connect with
your brand story in 140
post original content.
other people.
characters, pictures and short videos. 10 Do’s and Don’ts of Social Recruiting
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DO proceed with caution when talking politics and religion
DON’T stop researching adapting
If you follow our advice to be “professional”
proposition. Where your target audience is
and have one social media profile for friends
most active, the list of major influences and
and professional acquaintances, including
hot keywords and hashtags all constantly
tech pros you’re targeting, religion and poli-
shift and evolve.
tics is a tricky area.
Staying committed to continuous research and exploration is
Social media is anything but a one-and-done
critical to staying current. Be careful about alienating and turning people away. Though you may be very passionate about a certain topic, weigh costs versus benefits by asking: “Is this statement so important to me that I’m okay if it costs me some followers?”
By keeping these do’s and don’ts in mind and taking an intentional, sustained approach, you’ll build valuable skills that will increase your social recruiting success.
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Social Data
Connect with candidates via the site on which they spend the most time
Data from hundreds of sources
Common targeting methods
Location Location
Location + Keywords
Proprietary Technology & Rich CV data Job Title + Skills + Company + Experience
Keywords
Hyper-targeted Find candidates with specific skills and experience
Optimised Multivarriate testing to dribe best results
Guaranteed
Lengo Lengo
A minimum of 500 interactions guaranteed per campaign
Hyper-targeting audience Matched and served where tech pros are active online
words 10 Do’s and Don’ts of Social Recruiting
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Tools for uncovering hidden talents We from Dice have a number of great tools giving you access to tech professionals. Open Web is an award-winnning platform that aggregates data from over 180 soical and professional networks, providing you with a single lens on tech professionals. Open Web does all the heavy lifting for you, saving you time and effort. Open Web enables you to understand the passions, interests and hobbies of tech professionals. Get an instant enriched picture of a candidate and understand their suitability for a role. Is also provides the ability to craft a tailored message and connect via multipe channels including email and social. Overall Open Web helps speed up your sourcing process.
Benefits of Open Web: Access to 15 million tech profiles in the UK Profiles enrichted wiht over 300,000 Dice CVs Ability to search across 180 social and professional sites Profiles that show you a candidate’s behaviour across the web Multiple content points Help with crafting a personalised approach
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Contacts us +44 (0)20 7292 3899 ukcontact@dice.com