Prior to the days of the internet, job recruitment was a very different practice. It was mainly dependent on face-to-face interactions, such as when a recruiter visited a college. The digital age has made the process far more efficient. It’s social media, however, that’s truly revolutionized recruitment. Here are the four top ways the recruiting game has been completely transformed by social media.
-
Hashtags Make Recruiting More Efficient
Hashtags on Twitter are very useful, both for recruiters and job seekers. Companies attracting qualified candidates can broadcast messages using hashtags related to the company name, type of job, skills needed and other criteria. Hashtags may be very generic, such as #jobopening or extremely specific, as in #Microsoftneedsengineers. Hashtags are widely used on Instagram as well as Twitter. This tactic is especially effective for recruiters seeking to hire millennials, who love hashtags.
-
The Growth of LinkedIn
LinkedIn, the premier business social media platform, has singlehandedly transformed the recruitment game. While other social sites are also powerful recruiting tools, this is one of the primary functions of LinkedIn. Virtually every large business has a LinkedIn company page, which includes job information. Recruiters can search for the candidates who possess the right skills. Job seekers, meanwhile, can make it easy for recruiters to find them by posting optimized profiles that list their qualifications and experience.
-
More Precise Targeting
Before social media, recruitment was slower and less precise. Today, it’s easy to target prospected based on extremely specific criteria, including education, experience, skills and geography. Suppose, for example, you’re looking to recruit someone with an MBA or someone with a master of public administration degree. By searching social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, you can quickly find candidates with the appropriate degree. You can even target specific schools.
-
Social Media Reveals a Great Deal About Recruits
Today’s recruiters can find out a great deal about people by checking social media profiles. That’s why today’s job seekers are often advised to be careful about what they post. If a candidate has too many photos that portray drinking and partying, for example, it may disqualify them. This is a plus for recruiters, who can use social media as a tool for building a comprehensive profile of a recruit. It forces job candidates to be more cautious and circumspect about their social media behavior.
Social media has made recruiting simpler, faster and more efficient. It’s now easier than ever for recruiters to locate the kind of job candidates they need. Job seekers, meanwhile, can make themselves visible to recruiters by using hashtags on Twitter and posting optimized LinkedIn profiles. Recruiting is a very different game than it was before the days of social media.
