How To: Recruit Top Talent Using Social Media [Part 3]

The last part of this micro series is dedicated to the monitoring of your recruiting campaign and what the applicants are saying about your company and the job opening. There are plenty of tools out there that will help you keep track of what’s being said about your brand as well as what applicants are interested in as far as the position. Social media is one of the most versatile tools available to the public for many reasons, so the span of interested people will be quite broad. But, as we have talked about before, the more specific you are in defining the job opening, the more focused the group of interested people will be, and you will be able to track that. So how could you possibly track what people are saying and how can you be available if people want to ask questions or apply for the job opening?

Well, I am going to suggest three different approaches that will ultimately help you keep total control over what is being said, and how you can make yourself available to the applicants if they have questions. Of course, you can’t sit in front of the screen 24/7 just to make sure you don’t miss anything that is going on or being said. Therefore, you need tools that register, archive and present the feed to you in an easy and understandable way.

1. Social Media Hashtagging

It’s widely used on Twitter and is a great tool to make sure everyone interested in a subject can follow exactly what is being said about it. The approach is quite easy and setting up a feed with all the relative tweets can be done in in almost a second. Using a hashtag for your applicant’s tweets is done by your suggesting a certain hashtag for every relevant tweet about the job opening. Such a tweet could look like this:

Just read up on the requirements for the job opening over at Bit Rebels. Fits me quite well. #BRPosition

You, as the moderator, set what the hashtag should be and everyone that wants you to see it can use it to attract attention either from you or everyone else interested in the same topic. But how do you track this hashtag in all the noise that is tweeted on Twitter?

Pretty much any Twitter application is able to search tweets, and all you really need to do is to search for the hashtag “#BRPosition” and a new column will open up to you, showing you everything that has been tweeted using the hashtag you searched for. Just position the column at an easy view and every time someone tweets something that uses the hashtag it will show up in the column. This way, you can always check out what’s being said without having to stay glued to the screen to see what every follower is saying.

2. Google Alerts

Another great way to monitor your campaign and what people are saying about it is by using Google Alerts. All you need is a Google account, and you will be able to monitor pretty much anything you want using keywords to identify what you’re interested in.

It’s done in a few simple steps, and you can have Google alert you right when it happens, once a day or once a week depending on your work load and ability to monitor the developments. You can also choose to set what you want to go through the filter. You can, for example, just be alerted about certain results, or you can be alerted about pretty much everything that is said.

Furthermore, you have the ability to choose where these results will be sent. You can either have a feed of them on your Google account, or you can have every “match” be sent to your suggested email address. This way, you can archive your feed and forward any potential interests to your co-workers for follow-ups etc. It’s a really nifty and time saving process that will have you inspired through the whole hiring procedure without getting burned out.

3. Live Monitoring

As the moderator of your campaign, it’s important not to detach yourself from the process too much. If people cannot connect with you live at all through the process, you can be quite sure that the overall interest in your campaign will be quite sparse. After all, it’s social media and not some paper ad that we’re talking about here.

A good approach is to announce that during certain periods of the day you will be available on certain social media services answering any questions people might have for you. This will make the process a lot more organized, and people will also see that what you are looking for and advertising is a legit position worth looking in to. If the interest is massive, you could also let one of your co-workers help engage the public demand for answers, making the process even more professional.

If you are the CEO of a medium or large company, you’d do well to connect to the potential applicants yourself. Your company will evoke a more warm and fuzzy feeling. People want the CEO to be available, and not to be some uptight fable figure that is lurking in the background just running things. Stay visible and connect, and you will not only have more applicants interested in the available position, but you will also spread a more positive buzz about your brand in general.

Conclusion

• Plan your hiring campaign carefully, and make sure you have the right approach that will attract the right interest from the focused group your targeting.
• Use the right channels that are relevant to your brand and business idea. Going after applicants on every possible social media service is just a waste of time and will make the campaign really hard to organize.
• Always know that social media is supposed to be social. Know that people want to connect and be a part of the process, not just being judged for their skills, presence and influence on the Internet.

Social Media is available for you to connect… so connect and stay connected.