What's your minimum effective dose?
When I was 20, my good friend Kiel taught me a fantastic life lesson in a completely ridiculous way. When he went to a pub, he would always walk straight up to the bartender and ask for a pint of their “cheapest-finest”. I thought this was a pretty odd thing to do, until I asked him why he did it, and he explained that he was just asking which beer would get him the most bang for his buck. Cheapest-finest meant the least he could pay without sacrificing taste. You can probably guess what I asked for the next time I went out for drinks!
This concept can be applied to most things in life, and social recruiting is no exception.
Being able to use social media for recruiting is awesome in so many ways, but even for the most tech-obsessed it can get a little overwhelming. There are new social networking platforms popping up all the time and everyone has their own opinion about how these are best used for recruiting. So, how do you figure out what your cheapest-finest is? What is the minimum effective dose for effective social recruiting?
I wish I knew! I would be a millionaire and writing this article from a sandy beach somewhere. I do have some suggestions though.
Start simple
Facebook first. Setting up a branded Career Page for your company and posting jobs on Facebook is simple, fast and effective. It gives you access to over 900 million potential candidates and posting jobs takes very little time or effort (there’s an app for that!)
After you’ve got a handle on Facebook, try Twitter and LinkedIn. You can use the same profile information for each and we’ve already blogged quite a bit about how to best use them for recruiting. If you’re feeling adventurous, you can give Pinterest a try. It’s my favorite, but is not as popular for job seekers as the other three, so you’ll probably want to focus on them first.
Exception! I love exceptions. If you’re looking to hire the artistically-inclined, then Pinterest is probably a more important tool than Twitter, due to its graphical nature. Oh snap.
The plan is: Stick to the plan
It’s tempting to try and utilize every new gadget or platform that pops up. This is an easy way to get totally overwhelmed and start to hate your job and the internet in general. My theory is that this is why I used to see so many smashed computer screens on the sidewalk when I lived in Toronto.
Social media attack plan: Pick a few sites to focus on, plan out how much time and effort you’ll devote to each one and carry out your plan. Give it some time, a couple of months even, so that you have a clear idea of what’s working and what isn’t. You can keep track of new social networking trends and include them (no, not all at once!) after you feel confident with the tools you’re already using.
Exception! Do sign up for new social networking platforms as soon as they come to your attention. This helps guarantee that you get the user name you desire, in case you do decide to use it in the future. Oh, I guess this is only kind of an exception… but having a sub-topic that repeats looks really great for blog layouts.
Measure your results
How else are you going to know if your efforts are paying off? Using tools like Google Analytics, Open Analytics or Crazy Egg will help you track your results. You can then use those results to determine the effectiveness of your social media attack plan! I like to use Pinterest to keep track of blogs and articles I need to revisit, as I find visual reminders very effective.
Exception! There are no exceptions. Always measure your results. Always!
So, what’s your minimum effective dose? Unfortunately, it is probably not a delicious pint of Guinness! Fortunately, our Jobcast app allows you to simultaneously post jobs to all the aforementioned social networking sites while tracking your results - We’re that cool. I only shamelessly plug because I love!
Speaking of love, here’s some relevant links:
