How To Use Social Media For Recruitment

The talent you’re looking for? They’re everywhere. And if you’re only posting your job openings on one platform and hoping for the best, you’re basically fishing in a puddle when there’s an entire ocean right next to you.

Here’s the truth about recruitment, it’s not just about posting a job description and waiting for applications to roll in. It’s about selling your company as somewhere people actually want to work. It’s about showing culture, not just claiming you have it. It’s about reaching passive candidates—people who aren’t actively job hunting but would absolutely leave their current role for the right opportunity. And social media is where those people live.

The brands winning at recruitment right now aren’t just sharing “we’re hiring” posts with a generic link. They’re giving behind-the-scenes looks at what it’s actually like to work there. They’re spotlighting real employees, not polished HR-approved versions of them. They’re using video to show the energy, the office banter, the chaos of a launch day, the quiet satisfaction of a project done well. They’re making people think “I want to be part of that.”

And honestly? You don’t need a massive budget or a dedicated recruitment team to do this well. You just need to show up authentically, meet people where they are, and stop treating your job openings like they belong exclusively on a jobs board.

Social recruitment is so much more than simply posting a job advert.  When social media is used effectively for recruitment it can help your company to attract both active and passive candidates.  The days of simply being able to post a job advert, however, are long gone and Social Recruitment is much more involved than that.  Read on to learn 5 ways that you can use social media recruitment to not only boost your applications but also to connect you with the right candidates.

Showcase Your Company Culture

Social media gives businesses the perfect opportunity to showcase their work life and company culture.  Your potential candidates are likely to be using social media to find out more about who you are as a business so regularly posting about what you do as a company for and with your teams is essential.  Social recruiting isn’t just about attracting candidates it’s about attracting the right type of candidates.  Showcasing who you are and what is important to you plays a part in attracting the right people.  In a competitive market, it could be your company culture that makes you more appealing and helps you to stand out.

Your social media marketing should always reflect your true employer brand.  How you present your organisation as an employer should be transparent and authentic so that potential employees get to know you.  As part of a successful recruiting strategy, you need to recruit the right people for the roles you have on offer and for your company.  Recruiting new members who don’t fit with the ethos of the company will only create potential problems in the future and won’t encourage team loyalty or improve retention.

Social media can be used to highlight your mission statement and to showcase who you are as an employer, but it has to be a true reflection.  This is even more important if you are sharing social media channels with sales and marketing where you need an aligned message for customers and potential candidates.

Add A Human Touch

As humans we connect much better with humans than we do with logos or brands.  Showing the human side to your business by showcasing your team and their achievements can help your candidates and potential candidates to understand your approach to your people management and how you support them.

Both passive and active candidates are likely to take into account your people management as part of their decision making process.  Case studies of promotion or advancement or highlighting certain policies like parental leave and how they have benefitted members of your team, with their own personal testimonies, can directly appeal to candidates.

Right Platform at the Right Time

Using the right platform at the right time may sound obvious, but it is something that lots of companies still get wrong.  You can have the best Facebook profile in the world building your employer brand and sharing your career opportunities, but if your potential candidates are all on LinkedIn, they won’t see your message, no matter how good it is.  What is your audience using the platform for?  Is it the right platform to attract potential candidates?  The nature of your business and the types of roles you are recruiting for will help determine which platforms are the right ones.

The timing of content is also important from two different perspectives:

• Firstly, content needs to be posted at the right time on the platform.  If you post first thing in the morning but your audience doesn’t come online until late in the evening, then your message will be buried under a pile of other people’s content.
• Secondly, you need to consider the timing of your content for a potential candidate’s journey.  A passive candidate who isn’t actively looking for work but could move for the right opportunity might not be ready to “Apply Now”.  The content that they see needs to encourage them to want to know more or find out more about the benefits of working for you, rather than applying straight away. Equally, some opportunities like graduate positions or apprenticeships will have a better time of year to post depending on your application process.

Employee Advocacy

Employee advocacy on social media works in two different ways.

Firstly, through your employees sharing and commenting on your recruitment posts, it can amplify your message and push it out through their network enabling content to reach a much wider audience.  If your company page has 1,000 followers on LinkedIn then great!  If each of your team on LinkedIn has 500 connections, with the majority probably being in a similar industry to yours, how many more people would see your content?  Remember that LinkedIn favours personal connection in the feed so the potential reach if your team all shares it with a comment is much bigger.

Secondly, never underestimate the power of personal recommendation.  As an organisation you can tell everyone how great you are to work for and how much you value your team but how much more powerful is that same message if one of your team is saying it?  Like this example below from Google, the message appears genuine and authentic and much more believable than a HR document detailing support available.

Reach Out To Potential Candidates

Social media has communication at it’s very heart so it’s not surprising that you can use it to reach out and start conversations with potential candidates, both passive and active. Depending on the type of role you are recruiting for, this could be done through relevant groups on Facebook, or through a more direct approach through messaging on LinkedIn.  This needs to be done strategically though for it be effective.

In groups you need to be an active member so don’t just post and run!  Comment and be part of the community – it will make your content more likely to be seen.  On LinkedIn you need to do some good old fashioned research before you reach out so that you can personalise your message.  Cut and paste messages are obvious, particularly if you receive the same message from different talent officers at the same business (it’s happened to me).  A personalised approach is much more likely to get a positive response.  Comment on their personal experience or on something that they have recently posted so that they can see your approach is genuine and that you have a real interest rather than a mass message in the hopes that someone says yes.

Conversation Over Broadcast

Traditional recruitment relied heavily on broadcast.  A role became available, and it was broadcast across newspapers and job boards to announce it.  It can be very tempting to use social media the same way where you create a job post, post it to your followers and hope for the best.  It’s a strategy, but I’d argue that it isn’t a good strategy.

When organisations use social media, they often don’t understand that the emphasis needs to be on social and not media and the same applies to social recruiting.  As a potential candidate, I am likely to check you out online, including your social media.  If all I see is job post after job post, what does that say about you as an organisation?  Social media should reinforce your employer brand through conversation rather than announcements.  What would a potential candidate want or need to see from you to understand your business better and, particularly if you are in a competitive market, to choose you as their next employer?  John Lewis are a great example of this.  They create content that shows what it’s really like to work for them, highlighting different roles though “day in the life” content and showcasing different team members in different roles.

Make It Easy To Be Contacted

Social media conversation should work both ways.  Candidates should be able to get in touch with you easily with as few barriers as possible.  Make sure that your About section lets people know how they can contact you, or how you preferred to be contacted.  Give them options as well if you can as depending on their current circumstances some methods may be more difficult than others.

Also ensure that your bios and about sections make you seem approachable.  If a possible candidate wants to reach out to you then they will most likely check your about section before they get in touch.

Consistency and Regularity

Consistency and regularity in how and what you post are important for two reasons.  Firstly, it helps you to keep the algorithms happy.  Across all of the platforms, there is an algorithm that thrives on content and data……and it needs to be fed both regularly.  Long gaps between posts don’t give the algorithm the data that it needs to assess your content and consider it a priority for your followers’ feed or the wider platform audience.  Secondly, your audience needs to see content from you regularly.  You shouldn’t flood their feed with content, but you want them to see you enough to be reminded of who you are and what you offer.

We are very often asked how often we should post, update or pin.  The truth is that there isn’t a single formula that will work for all businesses.  We do know that regular and consistent content works.  Always think quality over quantity.  Two or three posts that connect well with your audience have a much higher value than six or seven posts that are space fillers.

Strategy

A social marketing strategy for your recruitment is key to your success.  Having a plan in place will empower you and your team to understand not just what you are doing but why you are doing it.  A good strategy will help you to define your goals and objectives and how you are going to achieve them.  Your strategy should be shared with the team so that everyone can see the role that they play in delivering it.  A key focus of your strategy should be defining your audience and how best to connect with them.  Which platforms do you need to focus on? What type of content will connect best with your audience?  What does our audience want to see from you?  Your strategy will help you to answer these questions and help you implement a robust plan to improve your social recruiting.