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It just takes one referral or the right person to spot your entry and you could fill the job.
LinkedIn is an absolute goldmine for finding good candidates so make sure you do a people search as well but ensure that you use the advanced search box because that allows you to narrow the location down to a much tighter area. So click on the advanced link next to the search box at the top and type in a job title into the Title box, then a rough location and see who appears. You can always add in some keywords as well if you get too many results.
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Unfortunately you can only see the first 10 pages for free but you’d be amazed who’s in your network. You can contact anyone who is either a direct connection or an indirect connection (i.e. you know someone who knows them) for free or better yet, get introduced to indirect connections by whoever is the link person between you and them.
Oh and don’t forget......if you communicate with a good candidate for whatever reason and you want to keep a link with them for possible future hiring, ask to link to them on LinkedIn.
So easy to do and gradually you can build a network of potential future hires and a source of referrals as well.
Or paying.....
If you do a person search and profiles appear which are not in your network (or 3rd connections or those in a shared group) you’ll need to purchase a premium account to see the full profile and use LinkedIn’s inmail facility to contact them. A premium account also allows you to view more profiles when conducting a search.
If you pay to post a job onto Linkedin’s job board it will automatically add the entry to your company page as well. In addition it will highlight people who match up with the job you’ve just added and you can pay a small amount of money to be allowed to contact those people.
We’ve found LinkedIn to be a great source of candidates for roles we’ve recruited for our clients at a senior level but less so for more junior roles.
Finally, make sure as many of your employees have profiles on LinkedIn. It’s very easy for job seekers to work out who they are connected to at your company. The more of your employees are on LinkedIn, the more likely you are to source the widest possible amount of applicants. If jobseekers know people at your company, they are more likely to apply or at least ask for an introduction.
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Set up a company Twitter page or if you’re hiring a lot, how about a page dedicated to just listing your company’s jobs.
It’s free so post an entry linking back to your company website. To build up your followers, make sure you follow as many people as you can related to your field. They’ll then look at you and perhaps follow your tweets back.
Twitter is rapidly becoming a job search engine in it’s own right with dozens of companies listing their vacancies at any one time. Do a search on Twitter now for a job title you are currently recruiting (or about to) and see what comes up. You might even find a few job seekers who match up.
All the ‘followers’ of recruitment agencies and direct employers are likely to be looking for a job so if they’re on Twitter following another company’s job postings they’ll be doing regular searches to find matching jobs........so get listing !!
A nice app you can use to find potential applicants via Twitter is called Locafollow. Incredibly easy to use, you just type in the skill set/job title you’re looking for and approximate location, hit search and it will find people who match up. You can then follow them/make contact etc and maybe hire them. Locafollow is free.
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A different site but doing something similar is called Follower Wonk.
Don’t forget if you do make a tweet, particularly if you’re listing a job that you’re trying to fill, put some searchable tags with a hash symbol in front. So next to the job title is good, and maybe words like jobs or careers:
#web developer |
#careers |
#jobs etc etc |
By adding a hash symbol #, the word following it becomes searchable to other users.
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Blogs and groups
A bit like using the Groups facility on LinkedIn. There are bound to be blogs/group sites that cover your field and allow members to post articles and comments. Just put a request for help on them (‘we’re recruiting a …...does anyone know someone’ etc) or better yet, start contributing and joining in discussions. Alternatively and even better still, set up your own company blog and write pertinent articles on your field of expertise or updates on what the company is up to. You’d be amazed who will follow you. Just make sure you’ve got a mechanism built in (RSS) which allows people to do that. Oh, and keep mentioning the roles you’re trying to fill.
Tumblr is a great site which allows you to create a company (or personal) blog in seconds and it also synchronizes with your Facebook and Twitter pages. In addition, on any job advertising you do, invite people to follow your company blog and if they have any questions on the role (which you should also post onto your blog) they can ask them confidentially on your blog. When setting up on Tumblr there is a tick box option to allow other people to ask you a question confidentially......so just tick it. Thus it becomes a 2 way communication tool for jobseekers to find out more about the role without you having to give out your email address.
You need to be a bit careful with Facebook as you don’t want to spam your friends or friend’s friends but if you’re really struggling put a post onto your Facebook page.......’We need to hire a Web Developer.......any recommendations etc’ and get it messaged to all your mates. Just don’t make a habit of it otherwise they may well not remain mates if you send one to them each week.
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Have you created a company Facebook page yet? Well if you haven’t, you should. People who may want to work for you, or just keep abreast of what you’re doing as a business so when you’re hiring, add it to your company Facebook page and get it sent out to all those possible applicants. The other advantage to having a company Facebook page is that you can keep it updated with stuff going on at the company: sports and social events, photos or videos of the office or messages from key people. All of this is a doddle on Facebook but not so easy on your corporate site. Jobseekers want to get a feel for the company and letting them check you out on Facebook is a great way to attract them (just go easy on those embarrassing Xmas party photos). Don’t forget that jobseekers may well consider applying to only a few companies so anything you can do to make your company more appealing has to be good. So if you’re hiring, at the bottom of the job description make sure you add the title of your Facebook Group and encourage people interested in your company to join/communicate with you via that.
Also, have a look at the ‘Work for us’ page on Facebook. It’s an app that creates a page for you on Facebook and Twitter where you can list your job vacancies. Initially you can trial for free to create a page on Facebook which essentially acts as a job board for you. All your jobs are listed on this page for any job seeker to find and apply but realistically to get the best out of it you would need to promote the job and the Work for us app includes the ability to create a Facebook advert which promotes your role to people on Facebook who’s profile matches the job you’ve created. This is where you will get the most benefit. Depending on the package you purchase the app can also automatically extract all the jobs you create on your corporate site or ATS, list them on your Facebook page and promote them for you as well. Just type ‘Work for us’ into the search bar and have a look at that app. A similar tool is Tweetjobs which can automatically distribute your jobs to Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter simultaneously.
You can also search for people as well. Just type in the job title you’re looking for into the search box at the top and you’ll probably find a few matching people. The only drawback is that it won’t tell you much about their skill set. You can refine it a bit by clicking on the People link on the left (see below) and then you can narrow the search by location and even the company the person works for or has worked for.
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Also, don’t forget to post the job onto the Facebook market place. It’s free so you’ve got nothing to lose.
Oh and finally, encourage all your staff to update their Facebook profile by ensuring that they list your company name as their current employer. Why? Well there are Facebook apps out there (Branchout) that make it easy for people to talk to people they know at a given company so if a jobseeker sees your job advert they can then do a quick search of people they
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are connected to see if any of them work or worked at the company or know someone who does. It might just help get your company’s praises sung a bit and find you that star candidate.
If all this extra work to utilize social networks seems a bit daunting, you can use iKrut’s built in social media distribution service which will do much of the above automatically for you, for a small annual charge.
Google base
Strictly speaking Google base isn’t really social media as it’s difficult for you to interact with other people or socialize the content to friends but it’s worth considering given Google’s dominance in search.
Basically it allows you to list anything you want (such as jobs) and Google will host whatever you write on their servers and make that content searchable on the web. So if you’re hiring a role and it’s not yet listed on your company’s corporate site, it’s a good idea to add it to Google base just in case someone searches Google for that type of role. Best of all.......it’s free.
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20. Plan ahead........ |
make contacts |
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Wherever possible, if you know in the future you’re going to be hiring a certain type of person try and build up relationships with relevant people or people who could give you referrals on an ongoing basis.
Making comments on blogs/forums/twitter pages etc will get you introductions to people and then when you need their help, if they know you or at least have communicated with you before, they’re much more likely to help.
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21. If you must use an agency........
Sometimes you have to rely on recruitment agencies because you just can’t fill the role directly. Given that they normally charge loads and don’t seem to add much value most companies and organizations rightly try to avoid them but if you must use them, consider a new approach by utilizing some of the new employer/agency market places that have sprung up. These allow you to post your job along with the fee you’re prepared to pay and any agency can ask you if they can send you cvs. You just select the agency or agencies you wish to work with.
Here are a few examples:
Bounty Jobs
Talent Puzzle
Gatsu
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