Resumes and cover letters are passé. Sourcing candidates through social media has become harder than ever. No one even looks at candidates’ degrees or certificates nowadays. The game of sourcing and recruitment has shifted to skills, wit, and personality.

Another mammoth-sized change that is taking shape is the transition from physical to digital or rather social media platforms for both sourcing and recruiting.

However…is it worth it?

79% of job applicants use social media in their job search.
4.8 billion people are users of social media, that's why it is a great tool for sourcing talent
73% of millennials (18-34 age group) found their last position through a social media platform.
70% of hiring managers say they’ve successfully hired with social media.
4.8 billion people are users of social media, that's why it is a great tool for sourcing talent

What is Sourcing Candidates Through Social Media

Honestly, traditional recruitment methods are no longer effective in bagging the top candidates for any organization. This non-technical method is only eating your time and resources and giving you nothing in return

Sourcing candidates through social media is the solution to all these problems where you can reach a much larger pool of candidates without wasting your time and money. Sourcing candidates through social media lets you target both active and passive candidates.

LinkedIn might be the social media platform at the top of your head for candidate sourcing. While it is a good option, lately, LinkedIn has become crowded and overwhelmingly a show-off platform.

Hundreds of other platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are making the recruiter's list now. In addition, you can also use low-key platforms such as Behance, GitHub, Dribbble, and many more for sourcing candidates through social media.

Why Use Social Media To Source Candidates?

So why use social media to source candidates? Facebook alone has over 2.9 billion active members, so social media is a phenomenon that is only going to get bigger. Since there are currently no signs of it slowing down, it's crucial that recruiting managers leverage this and include sourcing candidates through social media in their talent acquisition strategy.

Social media isn't just a "phase" for many users; rather, it has ingrained itself into many people's daily lives. The ease of accessibility, dependency, and occasionally even boredom have made it harder for people to really 'give up' these platforms.

Benefits of Sourcing Candidates Through Social Media

1. You can reach passive candidates

According to a CareerBuilder poll, 73% of job seekers are passive job seekers. This implies that the ball is in your court now. You need to step up to find top people and motivate them to join your organization, rather than the other way around.

With social media, you can connect with both active and passive candidates in places where they already spend the majority of their time. Social recruitment enables you to engage with talent naturally and organically by engaging with their social profiles rather than putting a job description on a job board and hoping your ideal prospect will discover you.

As a result, you get an advantage in initiating a two-way conversation with applicants who might not have reached out on their own.

2. A better Candidate Pool

A Jobvite survey found that 49% of hiring managers who use social media for sourcing candidates said these channels helped them find better prospects. And this is possible only because of social media’s diverse range of specific groups, filters, and hashtags.

3. Boost your Employer Brand

A strong and appealing employer brand is a sure-shot magnet to attract and retain top talent. According to a survey by LinkedIn, 75% of candidates research a company’s reputation and brand before applying.

When you source candidates through social media, you start posting content on your page, become active on the platform, and make new connections. These activities boost your employer brand and establish you as an authority in the industry.

4. Lower Hiring Cost

Social sourcing can also save you money because of its efficiency and low time to hire. On social media, you can talk to potential candidates in real time, resulting in faster responses and easier communication. It will help you secure excellent work relationships and hire the right candidate sooner.

Tips for Sourcing Candidates through Social Media

Sourcing candidates through social media can be an effective method only if you know how to leverage the platforms correctly. Here are a few tips that will guide you to make 100% use of social media platforms for sourcing candidates.

1. Engage with your Audience

Your company's social media audience is made up of clients, present employees, potential hires, and other stakeholders. Connecting with this audience can help the business appear caring and community-oriented while failing to do so can come across as arrogant or careless.

Responding to a candidate's or customer's comment or query with a little humor or positivity can significantly boost brand image. By displaying character, employers can attract passive candidates and spark the interest of both prospective employees and current ones.

2. Work on your Content

Social media posts boost brand awareness by keeping a business active in the eyes of customers and potential employees. Post blogs, images, infographics, and quotes that address queries about what it's like to work for the organization to make articles more valuable to potential applicants. To maintain variation in the material and avoid giving candidates the idea that the organization is desperate, alternate these types of postings with other informative articles.

3. Use Targeted Keywords

It might be challenging to use keywords to search career-focused social networking sites for potential candidates. A large candidate pool with a wide range of expertise types will result from using very broad keywords. It's crucial to use precise keywords to focus your candidate search, but it can take some effort to figure out which keywords are most effective, and those keywords can vary as trends change.

4. Narrow your Focus

Trying to be active on every prominent social media network can be time-consuming and reduce the reach of your postings to your intended audience. Find out which social media platforms — and even which pages and categories within those platforms — your target audience utilizes most before spreading yourself too wide.

You may show that you understand your target audience by concentrating your efforts on the social media channels that matter the most.

Top Social Media Platforms for Sourcing

Some of the top social media platforms for sourcing the best talent out there are:

1. LinkedIn

The biggest professional network in the world and the most often used social media site for sourcing applicants is LinkedIn. You can locate candidates who are actively looking for work via LinkedIn. Additionally, you can connect with passive candidates on LinkedIn and create a talent pool for potential future recruiting needs.

2. Instagram

Recruiters have a large first-mover advantage in utilizing this platform as a source of talent. Leveraging an Instagram tool can further streamline the recruitment process, helping recruiters identify and engage with potential candidates more efficiently. The greatest segment of the global workforce, millennials, are huge fans of Instagram. Its visual structure offers a fantastic chance to grab viewers' attention and build a personal brand.

3. Facebook

With billions of members worldwide, Facebook is one of the biggest social networking platforms. Facebook has an undeniable advantage over other social networking sites for communicating with potential prospects due to its sheer size and global exposure. Facebook has a dedicated job board and offers a plethora of opportunities to network with excellent candidates and develop an employer brand.

4. Twitter

Millions of people use Twitter every day, making it a go-to platform for engagement, news, and events. On Twitter, businesses develop their professional brands, while job hopefuls use it as a channel for informal conversation. It allows prospective candidates to contact recruiters and hiring managers directly.

5. GitHub

GitHub is a specialist social sourcing platform where developers showcase their best work. Their profiles are available publicly, and it is best for recruiting technical candidates for the IT industry. It helps in creating a targeted outreach and yields better responses from candidates.

6. Meetup

Another great resource for social sourcing in many industries is Meetup. It provides a multitude of community networks with geographic sorting. It can be used to organize social gatherings for business interest groups as a sourcing technique.

Closing Thoughts

There are many advantages to using social recruiting, which is a successful and tested method. However, initially, social media sourcing could appear to be a time- and resource-intensive procedure. Fortunately, there are several useful and cost-free tools available for sourcing candidates through social media processes productive, quick, and efficient.

At HireQuotient, we provide tools and strategies to successfully integrate social media sourcing at your organization.

Book a demo today!

How to Use Social Media to Source the Best Talent for your Organization?