Social Media for Recruiting: Top 10 Strategies, Tips, or Best Practices

social media for recruiting
Social media for recruiting is crucial or an effective hiring process in today's highly competitive job market.

Key points:

  • Strategic use of social media for recruiting is vital with multi-generational candidates. This is especially true for Gen Z, the dominant demographic by 2026.
  • Companies need to post fresh, relevant content on their websites and on social media platforms like LinkedIn.
  • Involving employees in social media recruiting results in higher-quality candidates and lower turnover.

In 2023, it’s vital for businesses to use social media for recruiting and establishing a pipeline of enthusiastic potential candidates. Even satisfied employees in their current roles could be potential future applicants. These employees represent an important social media audience for recruiters. A company with a strong social media presence will see ongoing engagement from their whole industry—not just from job seekers. 


Why use social media for recruiting? 

Social media is crucial for recruitment because of today’s highly competitive job market where the best candidates tend to be off the market in 10 days. However, using social media for recruiting is much more than a company simply posting a job opening on a few social platforms. It involves using the platforms to share job postings, network with professionals, research potential job candidates, and engage passive job candidates. 

According to Zippia, 84% of organizations will use a social media platform for recruiting employees in 2023. Popular platforms for attracting, sourcing, and hiring qualified candidates include LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. 

What are the benefits of using social media for recruiting?

With multiple generations now in the workforce, utilizing social media for recruiting allows companies to reach a huge pool of candidates. It’s a great way of sharing open positions at your company and promoting your employer brand. 

Promoting your company culture on social platforms builds a positive image of your organization. Corporate culture is a top factor when it comes to attracting and retaining talent. In fact, consulting firm EY Americas conducted a survey that reported 92% of employees stated corporate culture has an impact on their decision to remain with an employer. 

Social media for recruiting: best practices 

When using social media to connect with potential employees, there are several elements to consider. According to industry experts, here are the best practices to use in 2023:

  1. Build an online reputation for your company. Qualified Staffing, a recruiting firm, recommends claiming your business pages at top sites such as Glassdoor, Google My Business, and Facebook as a good place to start building your online reputation. Once those pages are up and running, be sure to monitor comments from both customers and employees.
  1. Be active on multiple platforms. While most recruiters use LinkedIn regularly to search for viable candidates, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are also relevant. Be sure to try out new platforms too! For instance, posting a livestream recruiting video on TikTok may capture the attention of Gen Z applicants, the fastest-growing demographic in the workforce
  1. Tap into the power of hashtags. Hashtags help track and categorize content on social media by making key terms searchable. Hashtags often add some context to a post and help bring your post to a wider community. It’s also important to use relevant hashtags to ensure that your social media posts are reaching the right audience. Popular examples include #hiring, #jointheteam, and #jobvacancy.
  1. Optimize your social media accounts. This includes your LinkedIn profile, Twitter profile, and Facebook page. Use keywords and post fresh, relevant content, to ensure your company remains top of mind in your industry. In addition to maintaining your excellent reputation, this optimization will likely attract both passive and active job seekers. 
  2. Experiment with paid advertising. With unemployment rates at all-time lows, filling job openings—especially senior-level ones—can be challenging. By using paid ads on your preferred social media channels, potential candidates who are not currently in your network will see your ads during their job search.
  3. Involve your employees in your social media posts. Today, most companies are concerned about employees’ personal use of social media (especially during working hours) and choose to implement a social media policy. That said, involving employees in your posts can be a good strategy. When HR posts a job to the company’s LinkedIn page, 30% of the engagement comes from their employees. These employees are 14 times more likely to share internal content versus other types of information. 
  4. Employee networking is vital for recruiting and employee referral. As employees return to in-person work after the pandemic, they are once more attending professional networking events and meeting potential candidates. In-person networking leads to social media networking, and later to potential referrals. These referrals are golden. In fact, 88% of employers rate employee referrals as the best return on investment (ROI) for sourcing talent, according to Zippia.
  5. Engage potential candidates through evergreen content. Securing top candidates is easier if they’re not actively looking to change positions because they don’t have numerous job offers to choose from. Employers can engage these “passive” candidates through things like evergreen LinkedIn posts. These are posts that are not actively trying to recruit someone but are communicating the organization’s culture. 
  6. Post quality content and be creative. To enhance your company’s reputation and brand, regularly share glimpses of your workplace culture and mission on social media platforms. You can also publicize your company’s positive impact on its customers, industry, and workplace morale.
  7. Connect with your future candidates. Even when your company is not using social media for recruiting, you should still post often on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter to target potential job candidates. It is especially important to target Gen Z, who by 2026 will become the most pivotal generation in business. Engaging with them often is crucial because they value connection as well as learning new skills and gaining new opportunities. 
Social Media for Recruiting

6 more tips for social media recruiting

In addition to the best practices above, here are 6 more tips to help your company create the best strategy for recruiting top candidates using social media:

  1. Research your competitors and their social media platforms.
  2. Create ideal candidate profiles to better decide who you want to interview. 
  3. Define your hiring goals: How long should your recruitment process last? How many candidates are you seeking?
  4. Use multiple social media platforms to boost your 
  5. Identify the KPIs that align with your company goal, then use those metrics to improve campaigns. 
  6. Take advantage of the tools like LinkedIn Recruiter, Facebook Paid Ads, and Hootsuite.

The right talent management software tools are vital for today’s busy HR professionals. Learn more about our all-in-one software solutions for tackling routine tasks from onboarding to payroll by scheduling a demo.

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The Sentric Team

The Sentric Team

At Sentric, we help businesses make people management easier with industry-leading technology and standout support.

Sentric HR & Payroll Insights

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