Jobhop Jobhop's blog : 5 Foundation Blocks For A Beginner Social Recruiter

Recruiters want to go where good candidates go, to do that it seems that recruiters now have to become social-recruiters, but what does it mean to be a social recruiter?

Wikipedia explains social recruiting as a method of which candidates are recruited, and it goes on to say that a recruiter would use social media sites such as Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter and Google+

The Wikipedia explanation is correct but social recruiting goes deeper, only a successful social recruiter will understand how deep it goes.

If you’re a beginner social recruiter here are 5 Foundation Blocks for you to lay first, if you don’t lay the foundation then anything else you put on top will sink.

Be Human

People buy from people and it’s the same when it comes to recruiting. Candidates want to like and trust who they are dealing with, and the same goes for employers.

It means that when you are chatting online across the social media sites to potential candidates and employers, the social recruiter has to allow their personal side shine through, no-one would choose to do business with a robot so don’t act like one. Make sure employers and candidates can see who you are in your profile pictures and don’t make the mistake of setting up doppelganger accounts to access groups just to spam them with job adverts.

Be Social

This is key; it’s called “Social Recruiting” but so many people do not understand what social means. Perhaps that isn’t fair; many will understand what social means when they’re offline, hanging out with friends and associates in a bar but they don’t understand how to be social on-line. There cannot be any difference, how you would act in a social gathering in the real world is how you’d act in a social gathering in the virtual world. If at anytime you think “I couldn’t possibly say what I say in real life on Twitter” then perhaps what you should be asking yourself, should you be saying it at all?

Let’s take socialising in a bar for an example, you would probably start off by introducing yourself to the group, then you’d start asking them questions. You’d probably ask questions like, how do they know the same people, where did they meet each other, did they work together? etc.. Then you’d probably ask work related, hobby related and family related questions, somewhere during all of that you’ll start to be asked questions and you’ll start giving answers. At no point did you walk into the bar and just shout out that you’re looking to recruit an IT engineer for your client and that they’re willing to pay £45,000 per annum for the right candidate and then walk straight back out again. It happens too many times on social media sites, recruiters forget how to be social and just broadcast job advert after job advert; that doesn’t work. Your best candidate is probably not looking for a job; they’re happy where they are, it’s up to you to become their friend, and you will only do that by being social.

Be committed

The day that you decide to become a social recruiter is the day you commit to a long term strategical plan. Plan one could start over a course of six months, then the second plan is tweaked with what worked from Plan one and continued for the following six months. If you want to be a social recruiter you have to commit to it, it’s not something you do for a week; a social recruiter is something you embrace, commit to and become.

Be Consistent

Social recruiting isn’t “social, overnight, magic wand, recruiting” it’s a strategy, and it takes effort. That means once you start social recruiting you must keep turning up, because if you don’t your potential candidates will lose faith in you and they will be wooed by a real social recruiter. Whatever tactics you choose then make a promise to yourself that you won’t let anyone down, you should always show up. If you choose to blog, podcast, live stream, tweet, Snapchat, or video then keep at it, the day you don’t show up will be the day everyone else does.

Build communities

Communities are where loyalty lies, once you have good communities you rise to a super social recruiter status. You must start building a community immediately. Niching yourself makes building communities easier, if you’re a social recruiter of everything you’ll become burned out quickly, just like in real life socialising can make you tired. If you’re a recruiter of audio visual engineers ( just an example), you should start building communities, especially for audio-visual engineers. These communities are full of topics which only audio visual engineers will find exciting, and they flock to the community like bees to honey. Your community has to be nurtured, fed and challenged so they keep coming back for more. You have to become friends with everyone in the community; they have to get to know you and trust you. When you have an opportunity, you’ll then have the pick of the best right within your community.

JOIN Jobhop and spread the word.