Social Recruiting: The Great Game Changer 

Social Recruiting: The Great Game Changer 

A Keynote Speech by Adway’s Richard Swenman

This past Autumn, Adway’s Partnerships Development Manager, Richard Swenman, was asked to give a series of keynote speeches on a topic that’s changing the game in Talent Acquisition: Social Recruiting. 

We packed up the key takeaways from his thought-provoking talks and provided them in the summary below. 

You can watch the high energy session here: 

Or if you’d rather check out all the key takeaway’s, keep reading!

Background Check

Richard has been working in the digital marketing sector for years, spanning a variety of industries — from medical to construction to e-commerce and retail. Most recently, prior to his work at Adway, Richard was a Digital Marketing Coach for Google. 

In his role at Adway, Richard builds and delivers on the global partnerships strategy and helps organisations harness the powers of the Adway platform to automate and ace recruitment marketing on social media. 

Why Should You Care About Social Recruiting?

As a TA or HR professional, you probably already have tons of information and to-do’s cluttering up your desk. So, why should you add Social Recruiting to the pile? 

Let’s start with some statistics: 

• There’s a massive shortage of talent in the U.K. job market. In fact, there are 1 million+ job vacancies in the U.K. as of October, 2021, and that number continues to rise. 
• The overwhelming majority of candidates are not seeking to fill those job vacancies. Seventy-percent of the global workforce are passive job seekers and only 30% are proactively searching for employment. 

So, if we’re trying to solve a 1 million+ candidate void with only 30% of the candidates on the market, we’re left with a very steep hill to climb.

But wait: there’s a silver lining! 

• The passive candidates are still receptive. That’s right. Eighty-five percent of passive candidates are still open to the idea of applying for a new job if the right opportunity presents itself. 

By relying solely on the 30% active candidate market, we are doing ourselves a serious disservice as recruiters. 

It’s time to start focusing on passive candidates. 

So, Where Can These Passive Candidates Be Found?

Since they’re certainly not reaching out directly with a cover letter and a resume or cruising around on job boards like active candidates, where can passive candidates be found?

We find passive candidates where we’re not finding active candidates, where they already exist, in their own digital habitat: on social media! 

There are nearly 53 million social media users in the U.K. market alone, which represents almost 78% of the total population. In fact, most people spend approximately 1.5 hours eating per day, but about 2.5 hours on social media. 

Here are a few of the world’s most-used social media platforms, which passive candidates are actively scrolling through (apparently instead of eating!):

When breaking the numbers down further based on age and gender, Facebook and Instagram are the two most diverse and advantageous platforms to pull from for passive candidate recruitment marketing. 

In fact, LinkedIn isn’t even in the top seventeen most-used social media platforms in the world! 

How Do You Succeed With Social Recruiting?

Step one involves finding the passive candidates on social media. 

Step two is about seducing them. If they’re not looking for ways to work with you, it’s up to you to make them want to work for you. 

It’s time to start thinking about recruitment marketing from a digital marketing perspective. Pretend your business is an e-commerce company seducing customers into purchasing a product. It’s all about taking them on a journey… 

Treat The Candidate Journey Like The Consumer Journey 

Here’s an example from a travel companywho’s deploying a multi-step customer journey on social media. 

Their goal is to advertise the ultimate Maldives beach trip, so their target audience (you!) will buy a package: 

• Days 1-3: As you browse through social media, you see photos of a gorgeous Maldives hotel on Booking.com and become intrigued by this exotic destination. 
• Days 3-6: You receive a series of ads about the Maldives that show you all the exciting activities you can participate in there. 
• Days 7-10: You see a testimonial from a couple who talked about how romantic their experience was!
• Day 11: You see firsthand reviews and ratings of how reliable and supportive the booking agency is. 
• 2 Weeks Later: You see the original ad once more, this time with a discount designed to get you to lock in a deal for your new getaway!  You click right there in the ad and book the trip. 

So, how do you seduce passive candidates on a Social Recruiting journey that’s similar to the consumer journey that captivated the tourist above? 

You tell the story of what it’s like to work at your organisation with paid social ads:

• Day 1: Present the initial job offer for the company. 
• Day 3: Show engaging ads of people who are participating in a training and what a day in the life at your company is like.
• Day 7: A testimonial pops up in the feed from an employee whose career is soaring in real time. 
• Day 10: Rave reviews from Glassdoor that highlight some of the best benefits of working at the job and why the company has an awesome culture. 
• 2 Weeks Later: The job posting appears once more, this time noting it’s the last chance to apply for the role at the company. 

It’s all about making it easy, enticing and authentic for the candidate. That’s how you close the job requisition.

How to Work Strategically With The Candidate Funnel

To put it simply, here’s the hierarchy of the candidate funnel for Social Recruiting:

Putting Social Recruiting Into Practice 

Putting the Social Recruiting process into practice can be a bit time-consuming, but that doesn’t make it any less crucial to winning the War on Talent. There’s no need to be overwhelmed or try to reinvent the wheel; it’s all about using the tools you have at your disposal. 

Finding the right TA tech partners and tools can help you automate the process and save valuable time and resources:

• A social media expert can help you set up the ads
• An analyst can help you monitor them for performance
• The right recruiting marketing metrics and KPIs can help you measure your success

Above all else: to solve the 1 million + job vacancy problem, we need to start recognising the importance of Social Recruiting, seducing our candidates, and taking them on a 24/7 storytelling journey using the incredible tools of TA tech.