4 Social Media Recruitment Strategies You Aren't Using — But Should Be

We already all know that LinkedIn is the leader in online recruiting, but have you thought about Pinterest? What about Vine or Facebook? In addition to posting six-second videos and sharing status updates, these social media networks allow you to identify influencers and reach a new pool of candidates.

Here are four unique ways to leverage social media in your recruitment strategies:

1. Run Facebook Ads: You can use Facebook Ads in two ways. First, Facebook’s powerful targeting capabilities allow you to show job postings to people who have the exact skills you’re looking for. You can tailor the ad to candidates who live in a certain city, have interests in a certain subject/industry, are a specific age, or who have worked at a certain company. Secondly, you can retarget ads to people who have already visited your Careers page. You know these people are already interested in your company, so Facebook retargeting ensures that they keep seeing your brand.

2. Create job-specific Facebook pages: L’Oréal’s Facebook pages are an model of recruitment success. Its L’Oréal Careers page has almost 215,000 Likes and has become a dedicated hub to post job openings, answer questions from candidates, and share behind-the-scenes photos to give a sense of the company culture. L’Oreal still has a consumer-facing Facebook fan page (with almost 20 million Likes), but having a separate page for jobs creates a community for candidates and strengthens L’Oréal’s brand.

3. Use Pinterest to highlight culture: The visual nature of Pinterest makes it the perfect place to feature company culture, employees, and your brand personality to attract people who could really fit in. Pin photos of company lunches or happy hours, your office space, or latest projects. Have employees represent themselves and their work, adding a personal touch to the board. Sure, Pinterest isn’t as effective as LinkedIn in finding superstar candidates, but you are guaranteed to expose your brand to a new audience and share your culture in an authentic way.

4. Explore Instagram for portfolios: We don’t mean this in the literal sense—candidates are not uploading their actual portfolios to Instagram or Vine (RIP, Vine). But you can definitely find snippets of their work if you know where to look. Are you hiring for a videographer or content producer? Search Instagram Stories to find people with experience creating content in different niches (comedy, food, travel, sports, etc). If you’re looking for an illustrator, graphic designer, artist, interior design, or chef (among many other things), search hashtags on Instagram to see pictures of their work (the hashtags can be as simple as #interiordesign or #veganchef).

Social media can be an endless resource for your recruitment strategies. Networks like Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook can be a powerful addition to your arsenal. Why? Instead of waiting for amazing candidates to come to you, you’re going to them. Now that’s a #CompetitiveAdvantage.

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