All you need to know about recruiting on Facebook

Job portals and recruiting websites getting immensely crowded so recruiters are turning to Facebook and other social networking sites for finding talent.

With over 2.23 billion monthly active users, Facebook is currently the largest social networking platform. Compared to other social networks, Facebook has the most evenly distributed age and gender demographics. This is just one of the many advantages of recruiting on Facebook.

Social recruiting has been a growing trend in the past few years and Facebook hiring has been a big part of it. In fact, the platform has many features to aid you in your search for the perfect candidate, and no, it’s not just about posting ads.

Is Facebook good for recruitment?

The short answer is yes. But here are the top reasons why Facebook is a great resource for candidates:

1. Facebook search

As the biggest social network, it practically has everyone on it. So the number of people who see your post is going to be more than any other platform. With the most number of people and active users, it also has the largest pool of potential candidates.

2. Seek active job-seekers

Although there are many platforms for job seekers, the fact is, people across the world spend at least 56 minutes on Facebook every day.

3. Passive hiring

The best part of passive hiring is that you already have identified a strong candidate – there’s no hurry – which allows you to spend time on finding the right candidate. These candidates have a job but they’re usually looking for a better offer. But a better offer isn’t just about more money. It’s about an opportunity, a flexible shift, a growth arc, or responsibilities.

How to source candidates on Facebook

Recruitment on Facebook is anything but difficult. All you need to do is get a few things set up and stay consistent. In this section, you will see how companies are constantly and successfully engaging with potential candidates.

1. Create your company page

BMW has an interesting careers page. Instead of having just one page for their customers and potential employees, the brand has two pages. One is for the potential customer and one for the candidate who’s interested in working at BMW.

Both pages have a lot of followers, although the corporate page has over 20 Million followers, the BMW Group Careers pages, on its own, has a good following of 395K+ followers.

The careers page is very active. From posts about new initiatives by employees, incentive programs, scholarships, celebrating important days, events to employees’ stories, the page is bustling with engagement. A well-produced background video with snippets of the work culture instead of an image makes quite the mark as it is the first thing to catch a visitor’s eye.

The strategy is quite simple – keep engaging. And this is essential to the success of the page. They keep it authentic and effective just by showcasing the life of employees at BMW.

But if you think you don’t have enough resources or content, don’t worry, you can still leverage your corporate page. Utilize the following and build a community of potential customers and employees.

There are several career pages that are noteworthy. We have picked out a few that stood out. Some of our favorite pages include:

Microsoft Life

Microsoft’s Careers page is such a great reflection of the innovation and social work that form the heart of the brand. The entire page is carefully designed, with well-produced pictures and videos. They’ve also ensured that their page is more inclusive, showcasing the diversity of people at Microsoft.

United Nations Careers

The organization regularly puts up employee achievements- videos, blog posts, successful programs. The background image is a powerful collage that shows the different sides of the organization.

They’ve added a face, a human element to the good work they do.

It may be a good idea to look at the pages of your competitors and the market leaders of your industry. It will be easier to adopt good practices to keep the page up and running efficiently.

Unilab Careers

A very straightforward and useful careers page. Their work culture seems to be really fun!

Now that you have a page to go to, you can begin your candidate search. But truth be told, Facebook’s search is so good, you don’t really need a job page to find your candidates. It does add to your credibility, though.

2. Targeting and finding candidates

Facebook’s search engine is underutilized when it comes to hiring. You can just use the search tab to track down your potential candidates. The app’s Graph Search will show you results based on some criteria. There are many possibilities with this search.

You can type in keywords depending on what you’re looking for. It can be based on many things because people on Facebook tend to share a lot of information – location, qualification, job history, education – about themselves.

The search can be further refined based on the city, education and you can choose to expand your search based on your preferences. The results will show you the profiles with specific details about their place of work, where they live, etc.

You can also use natural language to narrow your search and get really specific.

Something to remember here is that the results of every account’s Facebook search will be different based on the access you have to that person’s account, which depends on their privacy settings.

A good hack here could be huddling with the employees of the team you’re hiring for and see if you can find people through their profiles to get the full picture.

3. Job postings

There are many ways to let people know you’re looking for a job on Facebook. How you want to do it depends on the type of position, your budget, your target, your company’s processes, and so on. But there are some aspects that are universal and crucial to your creating your job posting. They are:

1. Authenticity
2. Image
3. Copy

Authenticity

The most important aspect is authenticity. Every company is different and trying to blindly use the same tone, style or strategy will definitely not paint a realistic picture of what your company’s brand really is.

Image

The next thing to remember is having a relevant, attractive image.

Pro tip: Don’t use generic stock images. Instead, use a photo of your office. It doesn’t have to be professionally taken, it just has to show potential hires a glimpse of your work culture.

Copy

Also, make sure you come up with the right copy for your post. Of course, it should have all the relevant information but also keep it friendly and professional. Don’t make the description too long, though. Apart from the short attention span, it takes away the opportunity to elicit some details from your potential candidates.

Is your organization looking to fill multiple roles? Then you can either make separate ads or put up one general hiring ad and lead them to the jobs page. This really depends on what kind of hire it is so you can take a call based on that.

Ads

Ultimately, this is where the magic happens. Again, there are a few types of ads that you can post on the site. You can choose which one to go for depending on the position, your budget and your company’s guidelines.

Free ads

There are many ways to promote your ad for free on Facebook. We will look at the three important channels of free promotions.

Employee referrals

The easiest way to promote your ad, Facebook referral programs just involves your employees putting up a post in their feed. They will be able to reach out to everyone on their friend lists in one click.

Groups

What better way to promote your ad than a dedicated space for job opportunities? Facebook groups come in all shapes and sizes. There’s a group for everything! Plus, your audience is readily available, waiting in anticipation of a job posting. Apart from hiring groups, you can also post your ad on interest and student groups, depending on the type of position you want to fill.

All you need to do is search for groups on Facebook using the search bar and go to the Groups tab on your results page.

Also, if you find a group particularly good, you can also interact with the members by commenting and engaging with people in the group. Actively participating in these groups will allow you to organically build a talent pool.

Marketplace

The Facebook marketplace is a gold mine to discover new talent. It is usually used for buying and selling products but users are using it for seeking jobs already.

Once you click on Marketplace on your home screen, you’ll be able to find a search tab on the marketplace tab.

Paid Promotions

There’s a lot you can do for free when it comes to job postings on Facebook. But you can also promote your ads with a small budget. There are two ways to do this. You can ‘boost’ your ad or ‘promote’ it. Boosting is easy. You just have to click on the bottom right button, that says ‘boost’, of your post. It will make your post more visible on your timeline and widen its reach.

Promoting your post involves targeting, building follower count, adding CTAs, and creating ‘dark posts’.

Targeting

Facebook’s targeting is great because you can exactly specify who you want to reach out to. You have many options- education, interests, pages, location, age, etc. You can even create different segments by importing your contact lists. All that you just have to do is pick the ‘custom audiences’ option. But the best part is the ‘Lookalike Audience’ option. By choosing this, you get to reach out to audiences with similar traits to the ones on your list.

Dark ads

Dark ads or ‘invisible ads’ are a very specific and useful type of recruitment ad. What differentiates a usual promotional ad from this is that it doesn’t appear on your company’s corporate page and you can put up multiple posts for different audiences at the same time.

Layers

Apart from all this, your Facebook page relies on adding different dimensions to your page. Your page has to be a good kind of busy. With videos, testimonials, updates, and interactive posts, you get to build a universe that potential candidates want to be a part of.

There are two other things you can do to add more layers to your page.

1. Facebook Live

First of all, this feature is completely free. You just need a phone and you’re all set. Live streaming lets you have real-time interactions with your potential candidates. You can have live chats with your audiences, let them ask you specific questions about the positions open, the work culture, what growth looks like in your organization.

It can be a range of things, depending on what your objectives are. You can also do video sessions where you take them on a tour of your office. You can answer questions from the comments as they come in. This can be recorded and the recorded version of the video will be added to your timeline.

2. The Jobs tab

Every business page has a jobs tab on its navigation pane. It’s surprisingly easy to use and people can see your post in the new jobs bookmark page of the site.

Com-muni-cate

At the end of the day, it all boils down to good communication. What applies in real-life professional interactions applies here too. But when you communicate with your mass audience remember a few things.

1. Engagement

Throughout this article, engagement has come up in many places. Well, everything revolves around how you engage with your audience. As a platform that makes two-way communication so easy, it’s a golden opportunity to have meaningful and frequent conversations.

2. Response time

There’s an entire industry with dedicated resources to manage social media and maintain engagement. Recruiting on them is no different. You are creating first impressions and it is a starting point for employee experiences. You’re essentially setting the standard for the organization. So, you can imagine how important it is to ensure you respond on time, politely, with valuable information.

3. Being proactive

Responding isn’t enough. You will have to begin starting conversations, leaving comments, interacting with general comments on your page. Your page is not a help desk or a customer support page. Every time you don’t engage you’re losing an opportunity.

4. Personalization

In the age of chatbots and digital recruiting, human connection can make all the difference. You have to be authentic, sound like yourself while also being a voice for your brand. You are representing your organization. It usually helps if you imagine yourself having a face-to-face conversation with someone. So even when you approach someone on the site, personalize your message.

Doing all of these things will yield great results. But only when you do them consistently and establish credibility.

How to write to someone privately on Facebook without being creepy

Sourcing is stalking. But it is socially acceptable when you do it to hire someone. So don’t try to make excuses about how you found the candidate. Chances are they won’t buy it and in that process, you’d have lost their trust in your organization. Based on our research, here’s an example that may help you.

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Hello!

I trust you’re keeping well. My name is Ron and I’m a Talent Acquisitions Specialist at Gran’s Goods. I am aware that this is unusual but I think your work profile is great and we have a vacancy at Gran’s that may be of interest to you. I would like to start a conversation about the same.

I hope I have piqued your interest. If you would like to explore this opportunity, please leave me a reply and we can take it from there. Have a lovely day. I look forward to hearing from you.

Best,

Ron Figo

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Your email might end up in the ‘Other’ folder if you’re not on that person’s contacts list. But there’s a simple workaround for that too.

You have an option to pay $1 to reach the candidate’s primary inbox. They’re going to know you’ve paid for it but it is a good thing. They’ll know you mean business.

What should you say?

Be yourself and stay professional. And since Facebook isn’t a very conventional way to approach someone for a job, state it upfront. You will earn brownie points for this.

We’ve also already established that your messages have to be personalized. Keep it short and relevant. With a lesser number of recruiters reaching out to candidates on Facebook, you will anyway pique your candidate’s interest. You can just approach it as you would through an email.

The ethics of Facebook hiring

There are many ongoing debates about the ethics of social recruiting but it is an inevitability. There are a few practices that will preserve the candidate’s privacy.

1. The first thing to know is drawing the line between the personal and professional information in a candidate’s profile. While it can be telling of the candidate’s persona, it is information that is not meant for a professional environment. And social media is not all-telling of someone’s personality, remember that.
2. There are some candidates who create online personas for professional purposes. They display their achievements, build their networks and create personal brands. These profiles are tailored for recruiters to find. It also shows how they perceive themselves in a professional environment.
3. When you look at profiles, you may use some information to screen. Be very clear about what is relevant and what is not. Your discretion as a recruiter plays a big role here.
4. Also consider the candidates’ rights, depending on the country you live in, and pick necessary information for your interviews and screening. Creating a standardized guide or list will help.

With evolving laws and regulations, the landscape of social media is ever-changing. Job seekers and students are becoming more conscious of their privacy and presence online. But this doesn’t change the fact that social recruiting is becoming an increasingly important avenue to candidate sourcing. And Facebook is a major player in this landscape.

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