Social Media Recruiting FAQs

Written by Allison Reilly | Sun, Nov 11,2012 @ AM

Social media recruiting is still very new for employers. Most are experimenting, or avoiding it all together because it’s hard to find answers to questions or to know whether or not you are doing it right. The thought of getting started with social media recruiting is overwhelming by itself. To help you pull in more high quality candidates through social media, we asked Joel Capperella, vice president of marketing at Yoh, to answer some of the most frequently asked questions about social media recruiting.

Should I start with one tool, or should I consider starting with multiple tools?

“The tool to use will become more evident as the employment brand is built and defined,” Capperella said.

Capperella suggests Twitter because it has the lowest barrier to entry, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s the platform that will reach your target audience. He used an example of recruiting rocket scientists, who might be more receptive to a longer form outreach, such as a blog. The tools you use in social media recruiting depend on your employment brand and your target audience.

Time wise, what can you expect to spend developing a successful social media strategy? Three months? One year?

“It doesn’t take a lot to get going,” he said. “The challenge is to find somebody who is very adept and understands the science and art of recruiting, but also understands the nuance of communicating and engaging with the community. The trickiest element, however, is having a working sense of the platforms themselves.”

Capperella suggested that if you know the level of commitment that you want, but want to commit a full-time staff to creating your social media footprint for recruiting, then it’s best to partner with someone who can manage that for you. If you are willing to hire or to commit staff, he also suggested that recruiting is one of the easiest aspects to teach. Knowing the platforms and how to engage with the community are much tougher to train someone on.

As for timeframe, he says that, on average, it takes about a month to really get going. He also said that it’s best to have at least one full-time person (or to have 40 hours a week) devoted to creating the content that’s going to be presented on social media.

How much of your recruiting time do you want to spend on social media versus the other channels?

Capperella clarifies that it’s not a matter of how much time, but how the communication platforms should be used to advance your recruiting.

“The point is not the tool… [the point is that] the communication shift requires you to communicate and to engage in a much more detailed level with much more purpose,” he said.

What about Hootsuite? Is that a good social media management tool to use?

Hootsuite is a great tool for managing multiple accounts, while the social media recruiting tools that he’s previously discussed are typically good for beginners. Capperella does recommend Hootsuite if you do end up with multiple social media accounts (for recruiting or overall), as the tools does make it easier to post across multiple accounts and platforms.

Could you share an example of a company that has implemented a successful social media recruiting strategy?

Capperella says that Yoh does an excellent job of practicing what they preach. Below is a list of their accounts so you can take a look at their social media profiles as examples:

Facebook:

Twitter:

LinkedIn:

Yoh, a Day & Zimmerman Company

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