How To Create Content for Social Recruiting Purposes|How To Create Content for Social Recruiting Purposes
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How To Create Content for Social Recruiting Purposes

As Recruiting and HR professionals, our main objective is to find qualified, valuable job candidates to fill the hiring funnel. To those outside our department this can seem simple - just post a job description and see the qualified candidates roll in. We all know that the reality is much different. With so many desirable companies and opportunities out there, it is difficult to find and attract the types of candidates that can become long-standing contributors to your company’s business and culture.

For you and, more importantly, your company to stand out, you need to go beyond a stuffy job posting and create an online environment that fosters conversation with candidates, showcases the talent within your walls and highlights the breadth of knowledge and talent your business has.

Here, I’ll cover a few content ideas that will help you break free from the mundane and reinforce your brand. I’ll also outline a few ways you can get that content in the hands of qualified candidates.

Content ideas for social recruiting

There are three main types of content that can really help bolster your recruiting efforts - company, team and thought leadership. Some, if not all, of this content may already exist in your company but it is up to you to repurpose and position it in alignment with your goals.

Company news

Your PR department works pretty darn hard to ensure product releases and big company benchmarks are highlighted in the press. Use all those stories as an opportunity to increase your brand's awareness among candidates. Everyone wants to work for a company that is growing, so develop content that showcases how much your company is growing. That new product your brand released is a great opportunity to highlight your innovation.

Awards

Everyone loves a shiny award and great candidates are no different. At Sprout Social, we’ve been recognized with awards for our growth, culture and product and my team discusses them with nearly every candidate during the recruiting process. By building content around those recognitions, we’re simply reinforcing how strong of a company and team we have here at Sprout.

Thought leadership

Good candidates don’t want to work for just any company - they want to work for industry-leading brands with a bright future. Showcase your company’s thought-provoking stance on relevant topics - whether it is a smart op-ed or an interesting survey. Employees want to be a part of something that has longevity, so creating content that builds you up as a thought leader is very appealing.

Content that highlights your employees

Employee interview

By shining a spotlight on your employees you can showcase all the amazing people that potential candidates could work alongside. Here at Sprout, I’ve created a regularly occurring series on our blog called “Meet Team Sprout” where I interview one employee a month to get better insight into their work, job and personal lives.

Employee blog posts

Continuing that “shine a spotlight” approach, enable and encourage your employees to write about what they do and what they’re passionate about. Whether that lives on your company blog or a third-party site, it is a great way to demonstrate the passion and knowledge that lives within your company.

Promoting your recruiting content

Once you’ve spent the time putting your content together, it is time to distribute that content and ensure qualified candidates actually see it. Here are a few vehicles you can employ and methods you can use to get that content in the right hands.

Employee advocacy program

When it comes to recruiting through social media, your employees can be an incredibly beneficial asset. They have pre-established relationships with like-minded individuals that may be a perfect fit for your company.

Putting an employee advocacy program in place is a perfect way to ensure that you’re leveraging those connections. An advocacy program is a way of centralizing your job postings–and all of that content you’ve created for recruiting–for your employees to share on social.

The easiest way to implement one of these programs is to utilize an advocacy platform like Bambu by Sprout Social that specifically provides curated content like that for your employees.

These are just some of the ways that you can create content and leverage social to entice targeted / qualified candidates to come work for your company. The key these days is to be creative. In the same way an applicant needs to stand out, a company needs to do what they can to stand out just as much. Here at Sprout, I see employees hungry to show pride in our company and invite others to join us. Our referral pipeline is full with candidates talking about our latest product update or company award. In recruitment, it's nice to have such a warm and positive opener with a candidate.

Guest blogging

Find relevant sites that speak to your industry and see if you can write a guest post. Even if it’s not an industry specific website, find a bigger publication with a bigger audience. If you can create a unique piece of content that highlights your business, you could end up reaching a section of people that have never heard of you before. We’ve seen success by simply writing for and offering some fresh perspective to publications our team already reads.

After you’ve found some websites you want to guest post on, do some research on the type of content that resonates with their audience. Look at other guest posts on the website and see what’s worked and what hasn’t. Whatever content has worked, use that as a guideline for whatever you’re writing. This will help ensure that your content is seen and shared.