Social recruiting is here to stay. In recent years, it’s become a great source of hire for many companies; social has leaked into all aspects of the recruiting process, from employer referral to sourcing to distributing job postings. In recent surveys, companies have made their love of social clear: 

• 44% of companies say social recruiting increased candidate quantity and quality
• 34% say it reduced time-to-hire
• 30% said social recruiting increased the quality of their employee referrals

With all of the social recruiting benefits, companies poised to take advantage of it stand to gain better employees from the process. However, using social media in alignment with a recruiting system may not come naturally to your recruiting team. Use these tips to improve your social media recruiting system:  

Developing Social Media Literacy

Social media recruiting doesn’t just happen. Posting your job ads to Facebook and Twitter and expecting candidates to engage with them is asking for trouble, or at best throwing your resources away on matters of chance. 

Companies must train their employees on the proper use of social media if they’re thinking of using it with their recruiting system. Justin Levy (@justinlevy), senior social communications manager at Citrix, warns companies they should have a social media strategy that involves teaching employees how to use social media.

"Companies should have social media guidelines and should conduct social media training to educate employees on best practices, the opportunities, the potential pitfalls and requirements when leveraging social media on behalf of the company." 

Levy’s advice was oriented around employee usage, but it applies to social media recruiting as well. If you’re invested in developing your brand on social media, trying to wing it is only going to make things harder.

Knowing Your Limits

Perhaps the most important guideline companies should train their employees on is respecting privacy. Social media helps candidates peruse jobs more easily than ever, and helps companies get a better look at the candidates they’re interested in. However, companies have an onus to respect what candidates have and have not divulged on social media.

Companies can reject candidates based on what they’ve said on social media, but they cannot ask for a candidate’s (or an employee’s, for that matter) social media passwords and other information that isn’t publicly available.

Besides privacy, companies should follow a number of other guidelines, such as being consistent with checking candidates’ social media profiles if they have decided to do so (to avoid bias), waiting until candidates have been interviewed to check their profiles, and documenting any social media practices during the recruiting process to create legal backup. 

Avoiding Other Legal Hurdles

One other guideline to keep in mind is the make sure social media recruiting isn’t your only tool. Not only is sticking to one outlet for recruiting a bad idea from a practical standpoint, but it also could lead to potential discrimination. Candidates from protected classes who may not have access to social media could claim they are being discriminated against by companies whose recruiting system is purely social, and in some cases, racial discrimination by one employee against another could be the responsibility of the employer.

Though it's a powerful tool, employers must understand that social media recruiting comes with its share of guidelines, and those in charge of hiring (whether it's a hiring manager or HR) must follow those restrictions both to find better hires and to avoid litigation. 

Bio: Sean Pomeroy

While selling other companies software solutions, Sean worked with Michael Warden to design over a dozen applications for different organizations and industries over the years. Sean now focuses on the vision for the company, business development, and continues involvement in the software design of Cyber Recruiter, applicant tracking system and Cyber Train, learning management system. Want to see what Visibility Software has to offer? Take a demo now.

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