Social Recruiting

Recently I've been working with several new Jobcasters on their social media branding. This has got me thinking a lot about just how difficult it can be to get started with social. There's just so much information out there, so many different "Must Use" social platforms, "Best Practices", and gigantic lists of "Essential Apps" that you "Can't live without!" It's terrifying. One of my favorite blogs, BufferBlog.com, recently put out a list of the 61 best social media tools for small business. This is awesome... For me, and community managers like me.... But I would never send something like this to a client who has just begun the process of building their organization's employer brand! To be honest, Buffer's list left even me feeling somewhat overwhelmed, and I use at least 20 different apps to optimize my social media efforts before lunch. I know a lot of our readers are in a similar position to Michael. So I thought I would share a short list of apps that I think will help you guys, and some quick tips on how to use them.

5 Apps to Help You Get Started with Social

A Content Calendar When starting out it really helps to plan out your content strategy in advance. This will mean you are never scrambling to figure out a blog post, forgetting to share enough image based content, or missing the opportunity to promote a new feature, or event. I'm not going to recommend a specific content calendar app, as I haven't found one that I like (if you know of one, please share it in the comments!) Personally, I use a combination of Trello app (more on Trello farther down the page!) and Google Calendar for organizing content. I sync my Google Calendar to Sunrise for my phone and tablet. Sunrise has a much better mobile experience than the Google app, it is beautiful and very simple to use, and I highly recommend it! Here's what the setup for our Trello content calendar looks like (I've hidden the content we plan on sharing so as to maintain our element of surprise!)

Check out this fantastic article on setting up a content calendar with Trello.

Hootsuite

I have a love/hate relationship with Hootsuite. It is ugly, and doesn't let me view RSS feeds from within the app, but after experimenting with Sprout Social (so much prettier, so much pricier!) and Buffer for Business (love it, but it's too buggy for me), Hootsuite is the clear winner. Hootsuite allows you to manage all of your social channels from a single dashboard, which is a must! You can also track metrics reasonably well, keep on top of Twitter lists, and collaborate on your social efforts with co-workers from within the Hootsuite Dashboard. With Hootsuite you create "streams" as a way of monitoring your social channels. I used to keep separate streams for all of our social platforms, but this meant far too many streams to track. Now I just use two streams that I label "Pending" and "Activity". Way easier to manage! Here's what our Hootsuit looks like before we add content:

Our pending stream displays the scheduled content for all of our social platforms (Twitter, Facebook, G+ etc...). Our activity stream shows mentions, Likes, comments and other interactions we get throughout the day.

Feedly

I've written about Feedly before, and I'll probably write about it again!

Feedly is a reader app that organizes your favorite web sites into a single, comprehensive location so that you have a constant of diverse content to share on your social channels. There are tons of reader apps out there, and I have tried waaaay too many of them. From Zite (the worst) to Flipboard (pretty, but not practical) to Digg (love it for personal, not for work!) and none of them even come close to Feedly. To use Feedly, add blogs and websites that publish content appropriate for your social brand to the app. Then categorize the blogs you've added based on what type of content they provide. At Jobcast we like to share posts about HR, recruiting, social media, productivity, and work life, so I have divided the blogs we follow into these categories within Feedly. For example: TLNT is in the HR section, Co Design is in our social media section, and Tim Sackett's blog is in our recruiting section... And our hilarious bloggers section, of course! Hot tip for Feedly: Create a competitors section to keep track of the competition. - Click to Tweet!

Here's what my Feedly looks like this mornin':

Pocket Another app I've written about in the past; Pocket, is an essential part of my repertoire and has been for over a year! That's basically forever in app years.

Pocket is a simple bookmarking tool that allows you to track and save the content you wish to share. It integrates seamlessly with Feedly, which is a huge bonus, and also has an extension for your desktop web browser. It looks like this:

Basically, instead of just randomly posting content as you come across it, with Pocket you can save the content you find throughout the day to one location, and then add all of it to your scheduling tool in one fell swoop! Using Pocket to bookmark the links, articles and images you want to share will save you time, and give you an overview of everything you wish to share throughout the day, ensuring that the content you post is varied in topic and source. One of the best ways to make Pocket more effective is by using its "Tagging" feature to separate the content you save. I like to tag content by our previously mentioned categories: social media, HR, and the like, or by what platforms I plan on using it for: Facebook, Twitter, the Jobcast blog, etc...

Trello

Trello is my favorite social media management app by far. It is actually the BEST organizational app I have ever used... In fact, I would go so far as to say: Trello is my favorite app of all time! Yup. I even like it more than Instagram, which is saying a lot considering Instagram provides me with a steady stream of adorable pictures of my friends’ pets. At Jobcast, we use Trello to manage all of our projects, including our content calendar as mentioned above. Trello’s visual card-based interface is easy to use, and its intuitive design is second-to-none. Their mobile experience is incredible. I am just as happy using Trello on iPad as desktop... When does that ever happen?!? Their "alert" system keeps our team members up to date on any changes made to projects they are a part of. Their tagging system is incredible for prioritizing tasks. You can also use filters to view only top priority tasks for any given project, or only tasks assigned to a specific team member... Oh, wait... We're supposed to be talking about social media management, oops! Trello has made my social media efforts significantly less time consuming. I use their "boards" to track each network Jobcast uses separately, and then create checklists within each board to make sure I stay on top of sharing content, responding to comments, updating our status, and interacting with our community. Here's what my Trello social media management checklist looks like:

We'd love to here about your favorite apps for social media, time management, productivity, and making life more awesome in general. Let us know in the comments!

I’ve been doing some recruiting over the last few months. 3 people, to be precise, all of them infinitely more social than me (I’m nearly 40, social for me involves being able to sit down with the missus for more than 20 minutes in the evening). They’re teaching me more about marketing than I’ve learned in the last 15 years, but above all, they’re teaching me that if we want to recruit more people like them, we’ve got to get our social on.

Candidates are choosy

I can yak on all I like about how millenials are not millenials and they’re just real people, but they are slightly different in their approach to their careers. And this is stereotyping older generations a little, but bear with me… in “days gone by”, people had defined career paths.

They sought security that came with internal promotion, they sought stability in ‘solid’ jobs and very specific career paths that came with, for example, graduate schemes.

My own generation started to tear this up, jumping around from job to job, but still with the same idea of career path at a very early age – but less reliant on one single employer. What we didn’t do was feel that we were empowered enough to “choose” our own employer. The very idea! Employers choose us!

Even in a world where youth unemployment is at an all-time high, the most talented young employees are choosy about where they go.

They want ethical employers, they want CSR portfolios, they want somewhere they can grow as a person and somewhere they can make a difference. They’re reading your Twitter feeds, they’re watching your output, they’re on your Facebook page, they’re probably even pinning your stuff on Pinterest.

The ease with which people younger than I take to technology is frightening (you should see my 3-year-old daughter on an iPad). They see it as a natural extension of their lives, and that explains why they see social as a natural extension of a business. Candidates are choosy, so if you’re not providing the evidence they want to see that you are the kind of people they want to work with, then you’re getting it wrong. 

You should be choosy first, though 

In order to get the people you want, you’re going to have to understand the future profile of your business a little better.

Simply replacing employees as they leave isn’t the way forward. Understanding the kind of people who are going to help you grow – whether they join today, next year or in five years’ time, is the way forward in this social world.

This is where HR and Marketing need to get round a table and talk. The way you talk about your business is the way you project yourself not just to prospects (hello, marketing), but to prospective candidates (hello, HR).

Who do you, the recruiter, wish to hire in the next few years if you’re going to grow the business? And therefore, how are you going to project your employer brand through the social channels that are currently in the hands of your marketers?

You have a stake – and a business case – for getting involved and shaping that message. Your candidates are stalking you – a lack of output, or the wrong kind of messaging can result in a top candidate saying “you know what, they’re not half as interesting an employer as I thought, I’m going to go with the other guys.”

Crack the whip (metaphorically)

It’s one thing to decide to take control of your social employer brand, it’s another to get it on.

What’s your plan? One great thing we’ve decided to implement is a social “wall of fame” (not shame), but it’s giving us the opportunity to highlight who has blogged, who has tweeted, who has shared, who has pinned stuff, etc. in a week. The winner gets out of making tea for the next week.

How very British. We don’t crack whips, we leave them on display.

But it’s a great incentive to get people more active, and if your brand relies on the expertise of your people, putting your people out there through social channels (and ensuring that they’re using personal-business handles) displays not just expertise, but atmosphere. It shows candidates that you want to profile your people and advance them.

And that you’re a good place to work.

So get yer social on – it’ll pay off. – Tweet it!

Do you like an underdog? I know I do! Last week’s blog post on choosing the best social network for your hiring, covered the major players in social recruiting: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Google Plus. It explained how each of them could be used for recruiting, and how you can determine which of these platforms best suits your needs. We did not cover LinkedIn because LinkedIn is a recruitment app in its very essence, so we thought it might be a little too obvious! We did not cover uniquely visual networks, Pinterest and Instagram, for the opposite reason. These platforms are the underdogs of social recruiting. They are not underdogs because they are unpopular, underdogs are almost always popular, but because they’re just not as universally strong when it comes to recruiting as the previously mentioned networks. Any business can use LinkedIn successfully for their recruitment endeavors. Plumbing companies, accounting firms, and government organizations can hugely improve their hiring strategy with LinkedIn. No problem. Try using Instagram to recruit accountants. Or Pinterest to visually express how exciting gov jobs are… Problem! But, like all the best underdogs, when matched with the right opponent, these two social networks bring the Pain, and by pain I mean awesome results (note to self, lay off the UFC for a bit!)

When to use Pinterest for recruitment

You want to hire professional creatives:

•  Bloggers

• Interior Designers

• Food photographers

This type of candidate will often use Pinterest to display their portfolio, you can find and connect with them on the network by using Pinterest’s awesome search function. Here’s an example of what you can find when searching “Interior Design”:

You want to hire more women:

• Pinterest is predominantly female, go where the candidates are!

Your company has an extremely visual brand:

• You sell a compelling lifestyle, easily conveyed with photos

• Your product is visually appealing

• You are in the fitness industry (abs are a Pinterest favorite)

If you are recruiting for a gorgeous lifestyle magazine you’ll have a ton of great images to pin. If you are recruiting for an accounting firm, you’re either going to have to take a ton of high quality photographs at your next staff party, or buy stock photos of happy office workers to fill your pin boards. Unlike with Facebook, where you can get away with posting only one or two pieces of original visual content per week, Pinterest is entirely visual so you’ll need a lot of pictures to draw on. (If you think Pinterest makes sense for your recruitment strategy, this article will teach you how to use Pinterest for hiring) Speaking of original image based content…

When to use Instagram for recruitment

You want to hire youngsters:

• 90% of Instagram users are under 35

You want to hire young women:

• Like Pinterest, Instagram’s user base is predominantly female, but they are on average younger than those found on Pinterest

You want to hires hipster creatives

• Hipster fashionistas

• Bearded bloggers

• Hotspot travel writers

Instagram still has a lot of indie cred. If you’re company has an “edgy”, hip brand, or is based out of Portland, Instagram is for you! Check out Kinfolk for a perfect example of the kind of company that tends to excel with Instagram:

You are in the fitness or healthy living industry:

• The Insta fitness community is huge

• Abs are highly visual

• Healthy food photos are almost as popular as pictures of coffee!

If you are looking to recruit for a fitness clothing store, for a gym, or for a healthy food/supplement company. Instagram is a perfect place to grow your employer brand, just try searching #fitfam and you’ll see what I mean… Or check out Lululemon’s awesome brand presence on Insta.

(If you think Instagram recruiting is for you, this article will help you get started) I love both Pinterest and Instagram for recruiting. Would I use either network to recruit for Jobcast? Nope! Hopefully this article has helped you decide whether Pinterest or Instagram makes sense for your hiring strategy. Happy social recruiting! Do you use either of these networks to recruit? Are you thinking of trying them? Let us know in the comments!

Role models are great. I don't know about you, but I have lots of them. There's Nia Shanks, who is my fitness role model, Charles Francis Xavier who is my super hero/life ethical role model, and let's not forget my blog role model, Passive Aggressive Notes! When it comes to social recruiting, there are a whole lot of fantastic role models to choose from. This is terrible because choosing is hard. But never fear, I am here to help rescue you from the stress and torment caused by excessive choice. I have narrowed the list down to 7. This was a harrowing experience, but your well being is worth the pain, tears, and hurt feelings. Feel free to send Reese's Peanut Butter Cups as a token of thanks though.

7 Awesome Social Recruiting Role Models

Lisa Jones - Lisa is a director at Barclay Jones, she writes for all the best HR blogs (including the Barclay Jones Blog), and gives killer social media recruitment advice. Oh, and she has really pretty hair... That's an important trait in a role model right? (Says the girl with hair envy.)

Ashley Lauren Perez - Ashley's blog, The Social HR Connection, is a breath of fresh air. She is extremely honest, intelligent, and well written. Ashley is also the Talent Acquisition Content Strategist at Wilson HCG and can definitely teach you a thing or two about social recruiting. Andy Headworth - Andy is hilarious, and the Social recruiting Strategist and Managing Director for Sirona Consulting. His blog posts tackle even the most controversial social recruiting topics deftly. And they are hilarious. Maybe he is my blogging role model... Stacy Donovan Zapar - The most connected woman on LinkedIn and Recruiting Strategist & Chief Trainer at Tenfold Social. She has founded multiple businesses, runs a very successful blog, and is a genuinely awesome person. Susan Wright-Boucher - Susan is the perfect combo of old school and new school because she writes about all the latest trending social recruiting topics on her blog, Plugged In Recruiter, but all of her posts are perfectly edited and of magazine level quality. Glen Cathey - When I do not understand a concept related to social recruiting or HR tech, I turn to Glen's blog: Boolean Black Belt. Glen is smart, direct, and pulls no punches. Now if only he would release a Cliffs Notes version of his blog. Laurie Ruettimann - Laurie is great role model material. She's smart, successful, and a very well respected social recruitment consultant. Most importantly, she has fun doing it, checkout Laurie’s blog and you'll see what I mean. Happy role model/Link Loving and stay social!

You want to brand yourself as a social recruiting pro. Developing your social media skills is a fantastic way to advance your career. If you don’t believe me, ask me (connect on Linked in and ask away; it’s fun!) Or read this blog post about how adding social recruiting to your resume is an excellent career move. To start getting social you've got to decide which platforms you’ll use. There are so many social networks out there and you don’t have to stick to just one. What is important is that you select platforms that match your organization’s goals.It is also important that you keep an open mind about which networks those may be. Most recruiters fixate on LinkedIn and job boards because they are very obviously recruitment oriented and they are already familiar with how those platforms work. Basically; most recruiters play it safe. But, if you want better results, to stand out from the crowd, and to take your career to the next level, you can’t just do what everyone else is doing. Not only that, but most of the data we have on job seekers shows that they are actually far more active on other social platforms, Facebook in particular.

Here are team Jobcast’s top 4 choices for social recruiting and employer branding:

Facebook:

• Only 65% of recruiters are using Facebook to recruit, compared to the 96% percent who use LinkedIn = Less competition for you!

• 83% of job seekers use Facebook, compared to the mere 36% who use LinkedIn = More candidates for you!

• 81% of job seekers want to see job opportunities posted to Facebook career pages = Improved candidate experience from you!

• Candidates are more likely to update their professional information on Facebook than either Twitter, or LinkedIn = More information at your fingertips!

Facebook is a great choice for general recruiting and employer branding. Facebook’s user base is broad, but their targeted ads allow you to narrow your focus when looking for candidates with specific skill sets. No matter what field your organization specializes in; expertise in Facebook recruiting is highly valuable, and implementing a Facebook recruiting and employer branding process is a sure way to make a name for yourself as socially savvy!

Twitter:

• 2 Million Jobs are posted on Twitter per month!

• Reaching out to candidates through Twitter is less invasive than adding them on LinkedIn or Facebook and the casual nature of tweets makes engagement more casual.

• Twitter is an ideal way to promote your other social channels or your company career site

I firmly believe that every company should use Twitter. It is one of the easiest ways to communicate with clients and customers, promote your events, or handle complaints. It is also a great network for driving candidates to your job posts. Use relevant hashtags such as #location (the location of your job), #hiring, and #retail (or whatever type of position you are hiring for, to announce your new job openings, then link to your Facebook Career Page, job board postings, or company career site. Twitter and Facebook is basically the perfect recruitment combo! But, that doesn't mean you shouldn't try...

Google+:

• G+ has over 540 million active users, but no job posting facility = Lots of candidates, but very little competition for you!

• The ability to create “Circles” that are specific to your talent communities which makes it easy to create content strategies customized to specific candidates = A more personalized touch, and more effective content strategy and candidate targeting for you!

• Google Plus boosts organic SEO = More candidates eyes on your online job posts, shared content, and employer branding!

Google Plus is a great general recruiting choice as well, but not quite as good as Facebook. Where it wins out is technical recruiting. If your company is tech related, or you are looking to brand yourself as a specialist in that field, then Google+ is the network for you. YouTube or Vine:

(YouTube has a broader audience, but if you are looking for younger recruits, Vines your network!)

• Job postings that include video receive a 36% higher rate of application = More applications and greater selection for you!

• Content that includes video is 53% more likely to appear on the first page of a Google search = Better SEO for you and your organization!

• Mobile video ads that include social media buttons drive 36% higher engagement (interesting how the engagement stats mirror application stats huh?)

Does your organization need to improve its overall engagement, brand, and online reach? If so, then showing off your video recruiting skills is a great way to make a splash. Video centric networks are also an easy sell if your superiors are socially reluctant, because using online video for recruiting improves your organizations SEO, which is great for marketing and branding overall. It’s a win-win situation! We’ll delve into some more niche platforms next week, but for most organizations, focusing on a couple, or even all of these networks will see the best return on investment. Become an expert in social recruiting, and you’ll brand yourself as an innovator in no time. I believe in you! Happy social recruiting!

To attract top talent you have to show them that your company is a place they want to work. You must express this in your job ads, as that's the first place job seekers get to know your organization. Recruiting expert and Jobcast guest blogger Susan Wright-Boucher wrote about how to craft job posts that will make candidates want to work for your company in her recent article: Transform Your Job Ads from Ho-Hum to Aha!

But, as important as they are, it’s not just your job posts that sell candidates on applying for your open positions. Your entire social media presence will influence how potential hires feel about your company and determine whether they click ‘Apply now’ or run for the hills. Here are 5 great articles about how to make candidates like you! - Click to Tweet

• Make them like you by giving them what they want: a fantastic mobile recruiting experience!

• Then make them like you even more by giving them more of what they want: straight talk

• Make them like you by NOT doing these 7 things when recruiting

• Check out this survey of over 200, 000 job seekers to learn what makes an employer brand likeable

• Since we are all about social recruiting here are 6 ways to be likeable on social media

• Oh and bonus link: check out the Likeable HR blog, it's pretty new, but very well written and informative

Happy Link Loving and stay social!

Great job ads stand out from the crowd. They engage applicants on an emotional level by answering their top questions and creating a clear and compelling picture of what’s on offer. In this article, I’ll show you a quick way to assess ads and give you two tips you can start using today.

Take This Test For this test, you'll need a real job ad. I recommend picking one that's not from your own company -- competitor ads are marvelous for this. Using someone else's ad will eliminate defensive thinking so you can focus entirely on seeing the content from an applicant's perspective.

Reading only the job title and first two or three lines of text, can you answer these questions?

• How does this role impact the company's larger goals?

• How will the new employee be measured?

• What is the culture like in this company?

My guess is you can't answer any of those questions yet, and possibly you never will, even if you read right to the bottom of the ad. It isn't that companies are being secretive; I blame a faulty writing formula that has somehow become the go-to job ad style. You know the one -- the first lines of text are reserved for marketing hype about the company, followed by a redundant statement announcing they have an opening, and then comes a laundry list of must-haves that reads more like a legal contract than an attraction piece.

Here’s What Applicants Want To Know 1. How does this role fit into the company as a whole? 2. What is the position responsible to create or make happen? 3. What's it like to work there? How do you fit all that into the small amount of space available? First, get ready to drop the standard job ad formula and second, make friends with the two most valuable pieces of real estate in your job ad: the job title and the first 20 words.

Prime Real Estate #1: The Job Title When faced with a page full of search results consisting of job titles only, most applicants won’t take the time to click on each one to verify their assumptions about the role. They’ll be drawn to the ones they understand and the ones that grab their interest. I suggest you remove your corporate or agency hat and pick a job title that truly describes the role. Don't feel obligated to use your actual internal job title if it doesn't give outsiders a fair idea of what the position entails. Here are two examples showing exactly how an ad can get off track.

• CAM Manager. This is a real job title I found this morning. From research, I discovered that CAM can stand for Community Association Manager, Certified Apartment Manager, and Corporate Account Manager. This job ad would do better if the title were spelled out in words or changed to something completely different that describes the functional responsibilities.

• CSR is another job title that will cost you dearly in lost candidates. The initials CSR stand for Customer Service Representative, typically an entry-level position in a call centre or order processing environment. The junior people most likely to be interested in this role may not understand that they qualify to be a CSR.

Prime Real Estate #2: The first 20 Words Now that you’ve got your job title working for you, it’s time to drive interest and curiosity by making the first 20 words all about the applicant and what they’ll get from this role. It’s the best way to cut through digital noise and get past short attention spans. It’s also an effective way to net those passive candidates. Let’s jump right in and compare two ads:

Old Style A) Acme Spuds is one of the world's most trusted producers of French fries and winner of the Bell Food Service Prix d'Excellence. For more than 30 years, we have provided North American restaurants with the best and highest quality foods at fair prices. Due to continued growth, we are expanding our team. We are now accepting applications for Customer Service Representative II. Candidates must possess 2 years' experience in a service capacity with a demonstrated commitment to excellence and have strong written and oral communication skills. New Style

B) Be part of the team that puts smiles on customers' faces and the world's best fries on dinner plates. We don't know which is better; the open work environment, the relaxed dress code, or the free fries every Wednesday. Do you love talking to lots of different people? Is good service part of your DNA? We want to hear from you. Tell us what you do to delight customers and what you've learned from past experience. See the difference? The old style is all about the company. The newer style leads with candidate interests. Now it’s your turn. What can you do to make your job ads stand out from the crowd? Check out more of Susan's work at Plugged In Recruiter and connect with her on LinkedIn.

OK – show of virtual hands. How many of you have googled a candidate to see what comes up?

I’ll admit it. I’ve done it, and it’s not very HR of me – but some candidates who may have thought they were perfect will have ended up on my “do not invite” list because of their terrible Twitter feeds full of booze and profanity. Some had written blogs full of poor grammar and spelling mistakes.

Yeah, we google everyone.

And they’re googling you back, if they’ve got any sense. But what if they’re desperate to work for you, and they just don’t know it. How are they ever going to find out?

Sure, you can post on job boards and you can get a great recruitment agent on board – but sometimes the best people are the ones that have targeted you, and not the other way round. Being findable is half the job these days – so here’s our quick & easy guide to ensuring that you can be found – cutting down the hassle of going out & doing the finding!

Optimising your career pages

This is a simple quick win. A lot of people search for the job title they want, and many search for the company they want to work for.

For instance, they might be searching for “PHP Developer London”, or they might be searching for “Your Company Careers” – so make it easy to find the right page first…

1) Ensure that your page title (meta title) includes Job title + location + Company name + “Careers” – so it could be “PHP Developer London | Your Company Careers”

2) Ensure that the H1 includes the Job Title and the Location. Search engines tend to read pages from top to bottom, looking for key information. The page title and the H1 are two of the first things they look at.

3)  Ensure that you put the job title within the body of the text, and write at least 200 words. ‘Thin’ content doesn’t tend to rank well. Be as descriptive as you can.

4) You’re going to be competing in the search engine results – so make your Meta Description as captivating as possible. Add in a call to action, and you could gain a larger proportion of the clicks from the results page.

Optimising for users

A lot of SEO these days is actually about optimising the page for your users. Google know when a high proportion of your visitors bounce back from your page to the search results within just a few seconds. If that’s happening a lot, you’ll get demoted in the rankings.

It’s only fair.

So do what you can to make the user experience a nice one.

1)  If you have a video promoting how great it is to work in your company, use it. My former employer did this & significantly increased time on site. It’s cheesy, but it works.

2) Make the text readable. Nobody likes big blocks of text. Separate out paragraphs, use sub-headings, let people skim-read (because that’s what they do).

3) Be clear with your calls to action. Don’t hide them, don’t exaggerate them, just be clear about what visitors are going to do & what they’re going to get.

4) Make it quick. Page load time is a ranking factor – if you have big images on the page, or lots of fancy code, you may be slowing yourself down, and pushing yourself down the rankings. Keep your pages as light as possible.

Everyone’s googling each other, and it’s your candidates’ responsibility to ensure that they’re keeping their own online profiles clean. It’s your responsibility to ensure that a) you can be found, and b) your careers pages are read.

PS

This awesome post was written by guest blogger Gareth Cartman.

Gareth is director of digital marketing for Clever Little Design, and has experience in HR, marketing & publishing. You can find him @clevergareth on Twitter or on the CLD blog:http://www.cleverlittledesign.co.uk/blog.

Gareth’s blog is a wealth of information, and extremely fun to read. He’ll be contributing his expertise and clever ideas regularly on the Jobcast blog, so if you have any questions for Gareth, let us know in the comments!

Last week we featured content marketing pro, Megan Lunetta, on the blog. She shared her tips on how to use research and data to create a content strategy that resonates with your target market/ideal candidates.

Megan explained that you cannot simply post “selfish” content, i.e. ads and job posts, and in order to grow your reach, talent pools, and employer brand, you’ll need to have a strategy that includes varied content which provides value to your desired audience.

One of the best ways to set up a content strategy that provides real value, and doesn’t bore your audience to tears, is by following the 4:1 rule. The 4:1 rule is, exactly as the name implies, a ratio for determining what to share, when.

Basically, for every one selfish post that you share, share four “unselfish” posts.

We all know what a selfish post looks like: It’s a job post, a Facebook Ad, or a referral contest, but it’s the unselfish content that often gets neglected in many content strategies. Yet  it’s this unselfish content that is usually the most enticing to potential hires. It’s the type of content that shows visitors what your organization is all about, and gets them excited about the prospect of joining your team.

Even more importantly, unselfish content is awesome because it is the most fun to create… How very selfish of me!

There are so many different kinds of content that you can create to give your audience the value and variety they crave, but I have a few favorites.

Here are the 3 most effective kinds of content for social recruiting:

(In my not so humble opinion!)

Employee Profiles

What

A simple write-up about one of your current team members, preferably accompanied by a quality image, or even better, make it a video! You can present employee profiles in question and answer format, or as a story.

Why

Employee profiles show potential candidates, and your current team, that you value your staff. It’s also a really nice, feel-good way for potential candidates to learn about your business, without having to listen to a recruitment version of a sales pitch!

How

Do:

Make it about the employee, who they are, what they’ve achieved, and what are their goals.

Include a visual. Visual content almost always outperforms text and links. Video is awesome, but a flattering pic of a smiling employee is always a win.

Get them talking about what they love about their job. It’s always nice if you can include some flattering commentary about what makes them a great employee.

Don’t:

Lead with selfish questions, such as: “what do you love about working for our company?”

Shout Outs

What

Again, the name says it all: simply give a shout out to one of the bloggers, experts, or social media accounts in your field (or at least in a similar ballpark) that you think is doing a really good job, and that your audience would benefit from learning about.

Why

Social sharing is caring. People love finding out about cool Twitter accounts and helpful blogs, and your potential hires will love you for helping them to do so! There’s also the added benefit of forging connections with the people whose content you share, and you get a little social media karma to boot.

How

Do:

Follow social media accounts and bloggers in your field, so that you have a wealth of great content to share.

Include personal commentary when you post links, such as a quick note about why you loved the particular article you’re sharing.

Post a variety of content: video, blog posts, re-tweets, all from a variety of sources.

Give credit, and let the person that you are “shouting out” know by tagging them in your post. Then they can re-share it to their own audience, or maybe they’ll even share one of your posts in return.

Don’t:

Share content you haven’t actually read. This can get very, VERY messy. Trust me. At least skim through everything you post.

Don’t shout out terrible content, even if that content’s creator promises to promote you in return. Just like mom, your audience can always tell.

How-Tos and Guides

What

Step-by-step instructions for accomplishing, or becoming better at accomplishing, a task, or a thorough explanation of a topic relevant to your audience.

Why

How-tos are one of the most popular forms of online content. Think about it: why do you use Google? Because you need a question answered or you want to learn how to do something. Same goes for your potential candidates!

How

Do:

Make sure your guide or how-to is relevant, timely, and helpful. To do this, simply ask yourself: Is this a topic that is important to my audience? Is this topic still somewhat unknown, or confusing to people? Does the content I am sharing actually shed light on this topic? If you answer yes to all three, you’re good to go.

Example: “How to get hired by your dream company?”

Don’t:

Dumb things down. If you’re ideal candidates are highly-skilled graphic designers, create the kind of guide that highly-skilled graphic designers would find useful!

These are my top choices for diversifying your content strategy, but there are so many more great types of content you can share. We’ll save those for a separate post though, because another key to creating valuable content is: shorter is sweeter. (And at this rate you may start calling me the sour patch kid!)

Happy social recruiting, and remember to sign up for our awesome newsletter!

I fear I've been neglecting a very important part of blogging. A part of blogging so fundamental, so important, and so substantial that I shudder to think how upset with me you must be, dear reader. I have been neglecting to write holiday-themed posts. For this, I am sorry. But hear me out: I've been living overseas,and the holidays here are, quite literally, foreign to me. Usually, they involve a lot of the color orange, and toast covered in celebratory sprinkles. Check out Stuff Dutch People Like and you'll see what I'm talking about! All of that changes today! Today, I will write a themed post about one of the most meaningful holidays that man has ever known. Saint Patrick's Day. In honor of this glorious celebration of drunken mischief and debauchery, we're going to tackle a very meaty issue. How to prevent a recruiting hangover. Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about. We all know the stats on failed hires (46% of hires fail within 18 months). I'm talking about those hires that cause you nothing but a throbbing headache, nausea, and an overwhelming feeling of regret. And it's all because you didn't take the necessary preventative steps when sourcing, recruiting, and on-boarding these candidates. Unlike the kind of hangover that is synonymous with the day after St. Patrick’s Day, an aspirin, pancakes, and spending the day in bed won't help cure recruiting hangovers. Although it couldn't hurt! Instead, try implementing these three tricks to insure that you keep recruitment regrets to a minimum.

1 - Look Beyond the Resume

Sure a candidate's resume might be top-notch, but if they are stubborn, refuse to take direction, or have no passion for the work that you're hiring them to do, all the credentials in the world won't make them a quality hire. I'm not saying that you should ignore resumes. They are an important way to assess your potential hire's hard skills. What I am saying is that you need to read between the lines in order to get a better idea of what their soft skills are. This is a great argument for checking out a potential candidate's LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter profiles – you may just find a diamond in the rough, or rule out a hangover in the making!  2. Interview with Fit in Mind

By the time the face-to-face interview stage comes along, you should have a pretty good idea of a potential candidate's technical skills. Use this time to get a better understanding of whether or not your candidate possesses the personality traits that will make them succeed at your company 85% of candidate failure is due to attitudinal shortcomings, so one of the best ways to curb your failure rate is to assess a candidate’s temperament, motivation, emotional intelligence, social skills, and coach-ability. Ask your interviewee to describe workplace experiences that will give you insight into these aspects of their personality. You can also bring members of the team they will potentially work with into the interview process. Your current employees have a pretty good idea of what characteristics make for a good co-worker. I mean, honestly, no one wants to work with a jerk!  3. Measure, Assess, Progress

Record the questions you ask, the answers your candidate gives, and as many other details about your hiring process that you can. Look back over all of this information every six months or so, with the success of those candidates you have hired in mind. You can then get an idea of what questions work the best, what kinds of answers should set off alarms bells, where your best candidates found you, or where you found them, and much, much more. This data will allow you to make informed decisions about the future of your hiring process. I feel much better now... Could one of you guys please remind me to write an Easter Bunny post? May your Saint Patrick's Day be a lucky one, and well worth the unpleasant aftermath! For more great tips about preventing recruiting-induced headaches, sign up for our newsletter!