Sevenstep Team | August 28, 2013
Engaging potential job candidates, not just customers, through social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter is an integral component of any successful RPO program.
At Seven Step, we don’t look at social recruiting as the bland practice of posting new jobs and related articles to a company’s existing corporate social accounts. Today’s digitally-savvy candidates expect to connect and interact directly with a company’s talent acquisition team, and we have a strong track record of implementing innovative campaigns that accomplish just that.
A couple of years ago, a major U.S. automaker with over 200,000 global employees wanted to implement their own social recruitment program. The car giant soon discovered this was easier said than done, and realized that dedicated time and manpower were required to run these new candidate-facing social accounts. In order to achieve the type of engagement needed to maintain a dedicated social recruitment platform, the company turned to our experts to assist.
The results of this collaboration have so far exceeded their expectations. Seven Step grew the automaker’s year-over-year following growth by 202 percent on LinkedIn, 173 percent on Twitter, and 97 percent on Facebook. The development of these channels led to successful candidate engagement and resulted in hires from each of these social networks.
How Seven Step built a successful social recruitment platform:
Creating a Human Face for the Brand
Neglecting to “humanize” the auto giant’s candidate-facing accounts would have been detrimental to its employer brand. Top candidates from any type of background don’t want to interact with a machine or automated robot, which is why we focused on facilitating one-on-one, real-time conversations.
The turnaround time for a response to a candidate’s job inquiry is always important, so we implemented a strict policy of responding to candidate comments within 24 hours. We also prided ourselves on being authentic, diving deeply into the topics and questions that candidates actually wanted to discuss. By showing the true benefits of joining and connecting with the automaker through these social networks, we built strong trust among members of its sprawling social community.
Letting Data and Analysis Lead the Way
Social recruiting is great in theory, but every social recruitment plan needs to determine what the ROI will be to justify the resources being allocated. Seven Step built tracking and analytics into the program’s infrastructure that allowed decision makers to see where successful hires were coming from and what content initially drew them in. We provided monthly reports detailing the measureable value of the company’s social media communities, and how social efforts correlated to the wave of new hires the company was experiencing. Through these reports, we found that our social media efforts have driven over 40,000 visitors to the automaker’s career site so far in 2013.
Using Social Media to Build an Employer Brand
In the end, social recruiting boils down to building a strong employer brand that elevates the company above competitors that need to hire the same talent. This particular client happened to be a household name, synonymous with American innovation and ingenuity. Seven Step’s social recruiting campaign capitalized on these strengths by positioning the automaker as a forward thinking industry leader with an exciting and dynamic employee environment. By showcasing personalized and shareable content such as employee spotlight videos, we promoted the automaker’s culture while simultaneously creating a community of support for potential candidates and job-seekers.
Achieving social recruitment success is easy when you center your process on humanization, detailed analytics and a strong employer brand.
What has been your biggest challenge in executing a social recruitment strategy?
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