As part of our team’s learning and development this week we enjoyed listening to a recent podcast from the CIPD about the power and pitfalls of using social media to boost your firm’s recruitment campaigns.
The episode was packed full of interesting thoughts and none of the experts interviewed could deny that, when used in a strategic way, social media gives firms the opportunity to really amplify their messaging and work to attract the right people to their culture and vacant positions.
But it also highlighted the vulnerabilities that a firm can expose if they use their own social media channels as part of their recruitment strategy.
Here’s 5 tips that we hope will help you find the right balance when it comes to recruiting staff via social media.
1. Remember that your firm’s target customer demographic is likely to be very different to your recruitment pool. Constantly using your social media channels to ask your followers to spread the word about vacancies that you have will paint a confusing message for your clients and potential clients, not to mention alert them to the fact that you might be short-staffed!
2. If you do decide to use your social media channels to shout out for potential new staff, make sure that you have a clear strategy in place and make use of the right channels at the right time. The messaging that you’d put out to attract a highly skilled Corporate Tax Partner will be very different to the kinds of words that would catch the attention of a Junior Accountant. Consider asking someone in the target demographic to write the copy or to tell you what kind of post on what platform would be likely to catch their eye.
3. Remember that if you open your recruitment message up on social media, you also leave yourself open to comments and engagement from disgruntled applicants. If your process for interviewing and feeding back about candidates isn’t as good as it could be, you might find that message comes back to haunt you in a public platform.
4. If you choose not to post directly about your vacancies on your social media, remember that your customer facing messaging will impact your recruitment indirectly. In 2022 a successful recruitment match needs to work both ways and it’s as important that you sell your firm to candidates as they sell themselves to you, so your social media will be a useful tool for showcasing your firm’s values and culture. And also how well you market yourself, so make sure it’s not a tumbleweed of inconsistency!
5. Ideally you want to create social channels that are designed specifically for getting across a recruitment message, but for most firms this just isn’t realistic. And that’s where we come in. Our customers are our candidates (as well as our valued recruiting firms of course). This means we can tailor our approach and make sure our messaging is on point.
‘At Public Practice Recruitment Ltd, we have the benefit of a team of marketing, content, SEO and copywriting experts who are ready to do the hard work so that you don’t have to. This is yet another reason why outsourcing your recruitment to us makes absolute sense!’
Garry Howling, MD
If the thought of transferring your firm’s recruitment strategy successfully onto social media sends shivers down your spine, don’t just close the door on the power it can harness. Instead trust the experts to get your message across for you without compromising your firm’s profile in any way.
To get started today, contact our team and book a registration call. We’d be delighted to help.
