Recruitment is a hard game to play, especially since potential candidates can come from such a large pool of talent. Nowadays, there are so many more platforms to advertise vacancies on, but knowing exactly which ones will help you unearth the consummate professional you are searching for is still perplexing to many businesses.For this reason, most companies tend to stick to a tried and tested formula.

If you're computer savvy, then the majority of the people you connect with online are probably coming from LinkedIn (the site passed 15 million members in 2014). This method should certainly never be disregarded, considering the fact that 79% of recruiters using LinkedIn say they have hired candidates directly from the networking site. But is there more to this statistic than meets the eye? Sure, at first it seems like a complete no-brainer — over three quarters of recruiters using LinkedIn have snapped up a new member for their team. However, this doesn’t tell the whole story.

Whilst 79% of employers successfully hired a candidate from LinkedIn, only 59% of these said they felt they had found the ideal person for the role. On top of this, a mere 21% of candidates thought they’d wound up in the best job available to them. A mismatch like this shows that businesses need to start sourcing their candidates from more than just one corner of the internet; especially when only 36% of jobseekers said they were active on the site.

Utilise Your Employee Networks

Employee referrals are responsible for 64% of high quality candidates. By incentivising recruitment schemes where hard-to-fill positions are concerned, you can encourage your employees to headhunt for you. Actively engaging your current members of staff in the recruitment process, means you can network on a much larger scale than you would be able to alone. Effectively, you create a human social network to advertise the job for you, as the likelihood is that each one of your employees will be able to share your job post on some form of social media. By corralling all the feedback you receive from your staff you can find more like-minded professionals to join your team.

Ensure Your Website Is Selling The Role

Does your website have a ‘Join Our Team’ page? If not, then you could be missing out on a great way to sell your vacancies directly to your readers. Your website is the ideal platform to sell your vision and values to potential candidates. It’s a chance to inject some personality into your brand and convince people to become a part of it.

For the most part, readers of your site are going to be people who are highly interested in your area of expertise. These are exactly the kind of employees you want onboard, as they will be motivated and talented. Pique their interest by showing them that your company is the best place to cultivate their skills.

Get Noticed On Job Boards

Job boards are still an effective way of reaching out to candidates. Sites like Jobs4medical were responsible for 59% of high quality hires last year, proving they reach a significant number of jobseekers. Companies can improve their chances of recruiting talented employees by writing strong and unique job descriptions. Remember, employment is just as much about attracting candidates as it is about interrogating them. By concisely laying out your company philosophy and indicating exactly what the position offers, you can ensure you are enticing genuine professionals to your cause.

Discover More About Your Candidates

 This is where social media can become particularly handy. In order to make sure you are targeting the ideal candidates, you need to learn more about the type of people you are attracting. Connect with candidates on Facebook and Twitter to find out where their interests lie, what kind of things they are reading and where they tend to come from. The more you know about your candidates, the better you can determine whether they are the right fit for your company. Just be sure you don’t rely too heavily on one specific form of social media. Candidates can come from all over the internet and you need to cover as much ground as possible