I am sure by now we have read enough about the importance of Facebook for recruiting, especially considering that it has just reached 900 million members. We also need to realize that recruiting via Facebook is not just about posting jobs or creating fan pages. It is more important to look at an overall 360 degree approach to Facebook recruiting by including all of the possible connectors to make Facebook really “work” for you. It is also worth investing some time to look at some technology and apps which can be used in Facebook strategy. And while, most of these apps are start-ups, Google was once a startup too.
Here is the list of few ways to uncover true potential of Facebook for recruiting. I’ll be happy to see if you have any additions to the list.
Job Posting Broadcaster
Posting jobs via Facebook is one of the most popular activities by Recruiters. It is easy, direct and viral. You can easily share your LinkedIn advert, careers page with your personal OR company page. In fact, even Naukri/Monster (Indian job boards) have already started providing options to share jobs once they are posted. It is also worth looking at what constitutes your Facebook network and if you are adding your candidates here. Please do not expect returns if you have no target audience in your network.
You may want to consider using specialist tools for the same like Bullhorn which gives you few additional features.
Bullhorn ReachIt is one of the better applications to post your jobs via various social networks including Facebook. Interestingly, this tool lets you keep tab on your network for possible movement looking at profile changes. It also helps you to track traffic from the jobs you have posted.
Employee Referral Apps
You might have heard many of us saying that your employees are the best brand ambassadors for your company than anyone else. Then why not use their networks to spread a good word about your jobs into their own network? Make your employee’s social network work for you. We have some good apps selection in this section on Facebook which can post jobs, track responses and provide reports. This option can very well complement your current “Employee Referral” programme by tapping into your employee’s social graph. Here are a few apps in this space:
Jobvite- GooodJob
- TalentMinded
- MyParichay (India)
The online social employee referral tools are surely making good noise with many newbie’s in this category. Interestingly, I also came across Wipro’s very own app for employee referrals.
Careers Page – A Branding Talent Community
You can build an effective talent brand community on Facebook. Creating community around your brand/technology helps you proactively reach your intended talent pool and get them to “Like” you. However, please do not expect returns in short term. This is a long term talent strategy and needs consistent and focused efforts to engage your audience in your groups. You need a very strong and interesting content, original contribution, activities that create buzz and your business leadership to support you. One also needs to be open about talking with external people to solve their queries and involve them in meaningful discussion. Have a look at some pages I’ve found interesting:
Careers at Oracle- Accenture in India
- Marriott jobs and careers
- Dell Careers Asia Pacific
- Capgemini India Careers (Managed by me and our marketing team. You can decide weather it’s interesting or not)
Jobs and Fan Page Integration
Facebook Fan pages are increasingly becoming a standard in recruiting and employer branding for corporate talent acquisition groups. These pages are in constant danger of becoming “Job Robots” without any compelling content for potential job seekers. Hence rather than continuously posting jobs, you can add a “Job” functionality which works quite well. You may want to look at some apps which can integrate with your ATS to provide direct feeds into your fan page.
Work4Labs is a good example for job search integration. Career pages such as Accenture India and UPSJobs has used them.
Monster’s BeKnown has cleverly now added a functionality of posting company’s job feeds directly from Monster to their Fan pages. Worth exploring!
Professional Networking
OK – so professional networking on Social Networking? Yes, bingo! Facebook has always been regarded as personal networking channel. For Recruiters, connecting these dots between professional and personal is easy now. In short, you can have “LinkedIn” like functionality on Facebook wherein you can connect to your target audience and get access to their network without having to sacrifice your “personal” identity.
Aspiring to be a “LinkedIn on Facebook”, BranchOut is good attempt to utilize your Facebook social graph to socialize your job opportunities and connect to your target audience. Recently, they have an interesting addition by “RecruiterConnect” which lets you proactively search Facebook network – just like LinkedIn.
Relatively lesser “Known” and used application by Monster; BeKnown is very similar to BranchOut. However, it was launched with some hype without too much success.
This concept is still in early days of launch and do not compare to LinkedIn. It will take some efforts and patience before them providing you any returns.
Facebook as a social media recruiting source provides you various entry points to connect with people. It is important to make sure we have right channels and tools to use these entry points for publishing jobs, creating employer brand awareness, engaging them in regular conversations and stay connected.
Next time you think you have covered Facebook for Recruiting, think twice!
What other innovative tools are you are using to recruit on Facebook?