If you’re looking to fill a vacant position at your company, posting a job opening on social media can be a great way to find qualified candidates. Social media offers a lot of great benefits for attracting new and exciting hires. When you advertise for openings on social media you’re not only widening your net but meeting potential candidates where they spend most of their time. This is also a great way to get young and fresh talent into your business that you might not find by simply posting your job on Glassdoor or Indeed. These sites are great places to host the application information to link candidates back to but aren’t great for getting your job posting seen by candidates. But if you’re not sure where to start, don’t worry – we’ve got you covered. We spoke to a handful of successful business owners to share tips on posting a job opening on social media that will help you attract the best applicants. So read on and get started!
Decide What Platform(s) You’ll be Using
What kind of ad you want to place will help determine what platform to use. “The first thing you should determine is what platform you’ll be using to post your ad. Certain platforms such as Instagram and TikTok lean heavily on visual elements and are a great place to post engaging and entertaining ads for your open position,” offered Adam Reed, CEO of Crown & Paw. These platforms are great because you can also include a description and link to the actual application. This way you take a two pronged approach to attracting exciting candidates.
For creative talent, instagram is the place to go. “Instagram is an especially effective platform if you are trying to attract creative talent. The artists showcasing these skills are generally going to be circulating platforms like instagram that allow designers to showcase their work. Not only will you attract the appropriate audience but you will get a chance to vet their work before you decide to interview them,” added Michael Fischer, Founder of Elite HRT.
Set Up Multiple Accounts for Hiring
Keep your main account and hiring account separately. This allows you to work more specifically on the hiring process rather than mixing up general communications at your company. “Set up a separate account for your hiring process. This is both to separate your contacts and messages, but also to build the aesthetic of a multifaceted company. Having separate accounts gives the impression that there are multiple channels for a candidate to go through and this adds to the professionalism of your organization,” mentioned Andrew Ferenci, CEO and Founder of Comrad Socks.
You can use multiple accounts to your advantage by sharing across accounts and platforms. “When using separate accounts for your main business page and recruitment page, you can add more buzz by sharing posts across platforms. When posts go stale, reposting them can suddenly attract people to the job opening that may not have seen it before. It’s a continuous process of making sure your posting gets out to everyone it possibly can in the time you need to fill the position,” revealed Ashwin Sokke, co-founder of WOW Skin Science.
Social Media = Branding
Your social media pages are a place where your brand aesthetic is most important. “Social media presence for businesses means branding. Your brand message, tone and aesthetic needs to be clear, understandable and uniform throughout your platforms. It’s likely you’ll be using multiple social media platforms to deliver your job posting and the more uniform your logo and branding is, the more put together the job posting will look to potential candidates,” said Dan Potter, Managing Director and CEO of CRAFTD.
Have Multiple Team Members Running Accounts
Have different members of your management team run you various social media accounts. “Having multiple team members to help organize the recruitment process and run your hiring accounts is essential. This is important because one person will likely get overwhelmed with the amount of messages and applications to answer to. This is another reason why separate accounts with multiple admins is an effective way to create a multi channel system of hiring on social media. Plus, this helps delegate work to the people at your company who might be more skilled using media tools,” disclosed Tri Nguyen, Co-Founder and CEO of Network Capital.
Creates a Two-Way Conversation
Social media is great because it allows brands to communicate directly with their customers and potential hires. “Using social media to advertise your open jobs is a good idea because it creates a two-way conversation between you and the candidates you’re attempting to attract. For people applying, they will see that your company is transparent and wants to connect with their employees and customer base on as much of a one-to-one basis as possible. Social media adds the benefit of being able to answer questions and guide potential candidates directly through the initial process of applying,” suggested Kevin Miller, Founder of Kevinmiller.com.
Keep Reposting and Republishing!
If you don’t get desired responses right away, keep posting your job opening on social media. This is another great feature of social media tools, you can always post another ad! “Keep publishing ads on your job posting. Especially when you are having trouble filling a position, it may just be that not enough people have seen your post. Create three to four different postings advertising for the job so that you can easily spread more word about it if your initial posting doesn’t attract what you were looking for. Then you can continue to share your new posts across platforms and accounts to really get some word spreading,” said Jonathan Simkin of Swiftly.
Have Employees Repost on Their Personal Accounts
One way to get talent that you trust is by engaging your employees in the process and having them share the job opening on their own social media pages. “Engage your other employees in sharing and resharing your job postings! Social media is where tons of people, including friends and colleagues, spend most of their time. Having your employees reshare your job posting widens your net among the team people you already have and trust! This can potentially bring great recommendations your way when your employees are drawing from their circle of connections as well,” noted William Schumacher, Founder, and CEO of Uprising Food.
Respond in a Timely Manner
Don’t leave your responses unread! Things move fast, and it’s possible your candidates will move forward with another interview or job opportunity. “Make sure you don’t leave responses unanswered for too long. If you fail to get back to a potential candidate they could just as easily be moving forward with another position at that point. Respond quickly and efficiently to make sure you don’t lose any potential interest in the job you’re hoping to fill,” suggested Jefferey Noles, Founder, and CEO of Labstar.
Things happen fast, so make sure you’re getting your info out there as many times as possible to reach as many people as possible. “Remember that things happen fast on social media, so make sure you’re posting as often as you can if you’re trying to fill a position. If you can be diligent about getting the info out there, you can potentially fill your position as quickly as a day,” added Amanda E. Johnson, CMO of HIDE.
Make You Posting Available on Mobile
Many applicants may be viewing your social media job posting on their phones or mobile devices, so make sure that your application can be viewed on such devices! So much of our engagement with the internet is through our phones nowadays, so companies need to make their media accessible through those channels. “Your job posting should be easily viewable on all devices. Most of the time, people are engaging with social media through their mobile devices and oftentimes, companies don’t think to format their applications for mobile access. This will make your application process extremely easy for candidates and shows your company is adapting their practices for modern trends,” disclosed Chris Hetherington, Founder, and CEO of Peels.
When you post a job ad to social media, it’s important to take advantage of the many benefits this platform has. One way is by showing off your company culture and aesthetic through photos that are representative of what working there would look like. You can also share these posts across multiple platforms for even more exposure. At the end of the day, posting on social media will help grow your brand awareness as well as bring in fresh talent into your organization! Posting on social media means you’ll need to decide your favorite platform and how you’d like to present the information on the platform that you’ve decided to use. Whether it’s Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or TikTok, these all have different advantages and features that you can take advantage of and use when you download the apps. Make multiple accounts for your separate endeavors. For example, you could have a page that is for your main company and another, separate account page for hiring. These will have different names and probably different images so that candidates can differentiate between the two channels of communication. If you haven’t already done so yet, make sure you have separate accounts set up for all your different types of social media ads – Facebook, Instagram or Twitter – to maximize their effectiveness! Try posting a job on social media and see what the results are.