Why Social Recruiting is Like Catching Pokemom

Tell me who you need to hire, and I will tell you how to find them.

When catching Pokemon (please tell me you know what I’m talking about, if not check it out here) or hunting, you don’t use the same approach to catch a deer (or a Pikachu) and a pheasant. This is the same for employees, except that your hunting-ground is the wild, wild web.

A world of endless possibilities

So you’ve heard about social recruiting? Yes, it does exist, in a “tiny” corner of the web called LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.

All of these networks are social and even if they’re the biggest, maybe especially because they are the biggest, they might not best suit your needs.

First, the idea of finding all your recruits on the 3 major networks just isn’t true. We’ll look at recruiting on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter and then we’ll look at some lesser known ways to recruit new employees.

LinkedIn – The crowded marketplace

LinkedIn is pretty accurate and dedicated to the recruiting as part of its business model; LinkedIn will not show the best candidates based on who they are and what they do but on the keywords on their profile.

Applicants can pay to appear in the top position when they apply to a job opportunity.

Have you ever tried to find a PHP developer on LinkedIn? They might be there, but they’re well hidden among IT consultants who don’t code, but are masters in filling in the skills section.

Everyone knows LinkedIn, and it could be really unfair for your startup to compete with giants like Microsoft, Google and so on … on job listings.

Once an applicant visits your job listing, LinkedIn suggests other related listings. The contest to attract talent is real, and you will be competing with Google or Microsoft on LinkedIn.

Twitter  – The Recruiter Far west

On Twitter, you have to catch the attention of your target in 140 characters, including hashtags. Once you post something, it can be seen by everyone on Twitter, nothing is private.

Have a competitor? Create an alert for them.

Refine the alert by adding the hashtag “#job”, and you’ll know who they’re recruiting.

Then check who’s retweeted it, who added it to their favorites and contact them.

That’s how it works if you are looking for special candidates with hard to find skills, but also because you dislike your competitor as much as they dislike you.

Facebook, the no-go zone

Want to talk about recruitment on Facebook? Only if you have a Facebook page dedicated to Human Resources will you be able to find any interested applicants.

Why? Because Facebook isn’t designed for recruiting. It’s made to share slices of life like; parties, holidays, babies’ pictures, music, and philosophical status updates. Applicants won’t accept your friend requests or direct messages on Facebook because they areuncomfortable freely sharing with their friends with you watching.

You’re not a friend to your candidates; you’re a business contact. They don’t want you to check what they think and do after work hours.

Facebook is definitely the desert of recruitment, only lost recruiters can be found there.

The unlimited power of social networks

Have you ever visited the Yahoo answers site looking for a specific answer to a question? Yahoo answers is a social network too!

It’s not the best place to find applicants, except if you’re looking for a really specific type of applicant. Let’s say an IT Support with skills in writing as well as fixing all your laptop problems, but still you can find gem on Yahoo answers.

What about Quora? This awesome social network is perfect for finding great people to complete your team.

Looking for IT? Try Github. You’ll be able to see what they’re capable of and what they’re interested in before knowing their real names.

You must have heard of reddit. Even if reddit is hard to understand on first sight, with a little practice you can explore this huge forum and interact with your future applicants and soon to be employees.