Boost Your Hiring Success with this Effective Combination

Referrals bring in the best employees. They have higher retention rates, perform better, and are more likely to fit with your company culture. This is old news…

But did you know that all of this can also be said about social recruiting?

Recruiters are now reporting that social media comes in just below referrals as a source of quality hires.  A third of recruiters report that using social recruiting has improved both the quantity and quality of the candidates they hire.

Mixing a little social into your referral program will increase its effectiveness and reach because you can harness your employees’ social networks to work in tandem with your own.

Here’s how you can mix social media with referrals to bring your hiring strategy to the next level

Leverage Your Employees Social Network

Your employees are connected. They are connected via Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google Plus, and the list goes on!

You can make their connectedness work for you by encouraging them to share the jobs you post with their social networks. Many tools even have automated sharing options to help you facilitate this for your staff.

Educating and assisting your staff to use social media when participating in your company’s referral program and you’ll gain greater access to higher quality candidates.

Teach your staff to fish… For very specific fish

You can teach your employees to use Facebook Graph Search to search their network for the type of candidate who best fits your specific job requirements.

Also teach them about how to best use these channels, give them examples of the kinds of messages they can send out, tips on how to get people excited about the idea of working you’re your company, and show them how to use tools like hashtags, so that when they share the jobs you’ve posted on BC Jobs with their Twitter accounts, those shares are searchable.

Educating employees about these tricks will help them leverage their own social networks’ data to help them get the word out, and even jar their memories about forgotten connections who would make ideal hires.

Reward a job well done

If you want your staff to put in the time and effort to send quality candidates your way, you have to give them something in return.

50% of workers report that incentives are what motivate them to take part in company referral programs.

Keep in mind; it’s important to reward the effort as well as the results. Thankfully, social media actually makes this a lot easier!

You can easily track which employees are the most active in sharing your job posts and offer rewards based on this activity. Small gift cards given to staff members, who share the most job posts on their Facebook Page, or hit a similar kind of goal, make great incentives. Then offer larger rewards for employees whenever one of their recommendations is hired.

Getting employees on board with your recruiting efforts through a socially optimized referral program is one of the best ways you can improve your hiring process, engage your current employees, and snag the best talent on the market!