10 Ways to Use Social Media to Attract Talented Employees

Social media can be used for much more than sharing cat videos and company promotions. One option is recruitment. Giving people a look into how your organization operates — including the people involved, what they value and how they interact — can lure in a host of talented people.

A strong social media approach helps you develop connections. Good videos demonstrate corporate culture and day-to-day operations, which can attract people who will appreciate your management style. Posts that tout employee accomplishments show that your organization is willing to recognize hard work.

So what works best? Below, 10 entrepreneurs from YEC share their advice on how you can use social media to attract talented employees.

1. Advertise Through Facebook

Facebook is our no. 1 way to attract talent to work with us. Given the robustness of Facebook’s targeting, it’s easy to connect with followers. Most companies limit their interactions with these people to a consumer standpoint, but followers have proven to be the best employees for us. This is because they are true believers in our brand and have motivations other than money to see us succeed.

– Lawrence Watkins, Great Black Speakers

2. Segment Remarketing Lists to Target Applications

Create content specifically for job seekers, then segment a remarketing list based on career-page views to deliver campaigns targeted to job seekers who have shown interest. This will allow them to see specific content regarding careers at your company without overlapping with what you want to show your potential buyers.

– Dan Golden, BFO (Be Found Online)

3. Hold a Contest

Create and launch a contest to attract top talent. You could ask for a 200-word submission on why a contestant wants to work for the company, or ask them to post a short video on their skills and talents. You’ll definitely glean a lot more than you would during a traditional interview.

– Andrew Schrage, Money Crashers Personal Finance

4. Provide Open-Source Software

GitHub isn’t a typical social network, but if you want to hire developers, that’s where you’ll find them. By creating interesting and useful open-source projects, startups can attract the attention of developers who will use the software or contribute to the project. It’s a great way to build relationships with developers and demonstrate that your company can offer them exciting work.

– Vik Patel, Future Hosting

5. Share Your Company’s Social Life

Create social media accounts that display the social life at your company. Many businesses have dedicated accounts that show what it’s like to work in their corporate environment. This is exactly why social media was invented: to display social life. Every company should take the opportunity to leverage it to give prospective employees a glimpse into everyday life at the company.

– Arian Radmand, TurnGram

6. Develop Employee Profiles and Features

We regularly feature employee profiles and pictures and videos of our team. By throwing the spotlight on top-performing or new employees, we both humanize our brand and provide a nice social reward for our employees. People want to work for a place where they’ll be valued for their work. Our intern class bios are always among our highest-shared posts.

– Kristopher Jones, LSEO.com

7. Bring Your Social Media to Students

It is important to not only have a great social media presence, but to utilize social media to connect with outside talent. We have found some of our favorite interns of all time by posting internship openings in student Facebook groups, including an incredible student from UCLA who ultimately recruited several of her close friends to intern with her.

– Adam Mendler, Beverly Hills Chairs

8. Produce Videos

We love to share all sorts of exciting things with our followers in any way possible. Recently, we shot and produced two internal videos — a parody video and a culture video — and were also included in BC Tech’s Aspire to Tech series. Posting videos that showcase our thriving culture allows people to see what it’s like working here and, in turn, attracts great talent.

– Stephen Ufford, Trulioo

9. Show Your Successes

Talent wants to go to companies that are successful and can use their talents. The best way to demonstrate this on social media is to show off your successes. Tell a story of what your company has recently done, where it is going or how you are improving the world. If your posts get your audience excited, odds are they will excite talent as well.

– Colbey Pfund, LFNT Distribution

10. Don’t Forget About LinkedIn

We leverage LinkedIn as a hiring tool because people are already there with a professional — and often job-seeking — frame of mind. We share opportunities with our LinkedIn pages of 15,000-plus people. We also use tools like Dux-Soup to scan hundreds of profiles a day (effortlessly) for candidates, followed by sending messages to those who invite us to connect to share more about the opening with them.

– Darrah Brustein, Network Under 40

How to Get the Most Out of Your Social Media and Recruiting Efforts

If you want to improve the results you are saying from your existing social media and recruiting efforts, you need to understand what type of content your audience is looking for. In addition to each of the actionable tips above, you should also be polling your audience to see what type of content they enjoy most.

At the same time, be sure you are using online video not just through social media, but also within your email marketing, website content and also posting to various online video platforms as well.

Would you like more expert tips and opinions on different ways to make money and grow your business online? If so, be sure to check out this previous expert roundups we posted to the blog.