What do you do when it’s time to find a new job these days? Well, if you’re like most Americans, you fire up the computer, hop online, and see what you can find. In fact, of all Americans who looked for a job in the last 2 years, 79% say they utilized online resources, and 34% say these online resources were the most important tool available to them—with job fairs being the least important. However, if you think candidates are only using job recruiting sites to find jobs online, you’re very mistaken.
While there’s no doubt that sites like LinkedIn, Indeed, and Monster are the first places people look when they start looking for a job online, they’re hardly the last place candidates look nowadays. Looking at data from the same Pew Research study linked above, 35% of online job seekers say they use social media to find jobs, with that number rising up to 43% for job seekers aged 18-29. In addition to LinkedIn, candidates use Twitter, Facebook, and even Pinterest to find open positions, and learn more about the companies they want to work for. Likewise, your company’s website also plays a key role in the job recruiting process, as it’s ground zero for company information, open positions, and your culture.
Although job recruiting sites are a good place to start when recruiting online, a true inbound recruiting effort will help you increase candidate quality and responses. Here’s what we mean:
While you might get a lot of applications and responses to your random post on an online recruiting site, companies with a strong online presence who’ve positioned themselves as industry leaders get applications consistently—whether they have any open positions available or not. In today’s day and age, most applicants want to work for companies who are on the cutting edge of their industry, and having an up-to-date website, smart blog content, and a strong social presence is one way to demonstrate your expertise and show your company’s commitment to keeping things moving forward. Likewise, with a full inbound recruiting effort, you can also create content specifically tailored to help attract potential candidates (e.g. “10 Tips You Should Know Before Interviewing for a Manufacturing Position"), making it easy to find interested applicants 24/7—not just whenever you try looking yourself.
So you already know that 35% of job seekers use social media to find jobs, but that’s not the only reason you should use social media to promote your open positions! That fact of the matter is, most people spend several hours each day using social media, so why not advertise your job openings where more people will notice? Roughly half of all social media users follow brand pages on the various social channels as well, so it’s a great way to get the word out, and the more likes and shares it gets, the more impressions it will earn. While you’re at it, don’t forget to show off your company culture on your brand’s social media pages, so applicants can get even more excited about joining the team.
Inbound marketers use lead scoring to save time and filter out the best, most sales-ready leads worth passing off to their sales team. That being said, once you’re ready to start interviewing potential job candidates, the same idea can be applied to filtering through job applications to your open positions. For example, look at key areas on a resume (e.g., previous experience, certifications, skills, their portfolio, etc.) and give them scores based on what you find. The higher scoring a resume is, the higher priority it gets when figuring out who to interview. Not only is this a helpful timesaver, but it provides a simple, objective way to evaluate all candidates—helping you choose the best possible person for the job.
While businesses can certainly fill an open position by posting their job on one of the many online recruiting sites, the best way to maximize applications and attract the best possible talent is by implementing a full inbound recruiting program.
Want to learn more about how you can do this for your own company? Download our Inbound Recruiting eBook below!
Topics: Inbound Marketing, Inbound Recruiting
