We live in a connected world and one that is becoming more digitally savvy each day. With over 17 million Australians now on Facebook alone, many recruiters just aren’t keeping up with what their clients and candidates really want from them > being accessible on their channel of choice, adding something of value to their day and providing solutions to their problems.

This is a common theme amongst many recruiters’ social media pages – it’s the ‘jobs and blogs’ syndrome. What is that? ‘Jobs & Blogs’ Syndrome is simply social media feeds that are just full of job ads and links to blog posts. Are you guilty?

The social media world is no longer about getting as many likes as possible and selling your services on every channel. It is about building communities with people that have commonalities with your brand and creating real online relationships, just like you do in real life. Online should be treated just like offline.

This is particularly relevant when it comes to passive candidates. If I am not looking for a job, should a job post on LinkedIn sway me to consider a new job you have shared? Passive candidates need more than a job post with the headline of ‘best job and company in the world’.  (sorry I don’t believe you).  You need to provide job seekers with the information they want to know about a potential future employer — the organizational culture, the mission, vision, values and benefit packages for example. It needs to be real and relatable. And what makes your job ads stand out in the feed from the other 20 that are posted right behind it? It’s like a throwing mud at a wall and hoping it sticks!

Social media for the savvy recruiter is about attraction, conversion then amplification.  The few that get it, understand they need to invest time & resources into creating online communities and content that is of real interest to their audience (which they know extremely well). They get that it is all about the online relationships and impressions they make. There is no room for your ego on your social media channels if you are serious about getting a return on your social media efforts.

Social media is not and should NOT be focused on you as a recruiter. It should be fully focused on your clients and candidates. Every piece of content you create, every post, every marketing message, should be created with your audience at the very core of it. A fact many businesses neglect to see or take action on.

Most recruiters (in fact most businesses) are underutilising social media and only use it for a fraction of what they should. These massively untapped tactics are all free and very achievable if you know what to do. Most recruiter channels I look at are guilty of ‘jobs and blogs’ and few excel at moving to social recruiting and building real talent communities (however many give it lip service without actually walking the walk)

Think of social media like a newspaper publishing the news. What will make you read an article you find? Usually, it is something of interest that resonates with you at a particular point in time. You can relate to it, you’re intrigued and want to know more. This is the same on social media. You need to start to think of social media as another media platform and you as the publisher.

Consider how your personal and business brand is portrayed online. It still amazes me the number of recruiters who have bad LinkedIn profiles, given they use it to reach out to clients and candidates every day. It’s like walking into a meeting in a pair of PJ’s and some thongs. You might be great at what you do but you’re not presenting a great image are you?

You know recruitment is changing, just like every other industry is impacted by technology. The question you need to ask is “do I want to future proof my business” or “do I want to become another Kodak or Blockbuster, with your head buried in the sand.

I urge you to go and look at your social media channels right now and see what percentage of your feed is ‘jobs & blogs’. Are you guilty of ‘jobs & blog’ Syndrome?