3 Mistakes Recruiters Make on Twitter

You may not think of Twitter as an effective HR tool capable of streamlining the recruitment and hiring process, but we’ve already seen the emerging trend of social recruiting popping up in unexpected places. With Twitter, recruiters and HR professionals are finding it easier than ever to raise awareness about job postings, networking has never been more effective, and gathering helpful tips from high profile industry figures keeps recruiters educated and up to date. The social media giant is also a perfect tool for engaging the huge pool of Millennials, who are more engaged with social platforms than any other demographic.

As valuable as Twitter is to recruiters, there are some crucial mistakes recruiters can make that could actually hurt their reputation. Check out our list of Twitter faux pas all recruiters should avoid.

Having an Incomplete Profile

Is there anything worse than stumbling on to a social profile lacking all the good bits of information that make it valuable in the first place? It looks unprofessional, uninteresting, and just plain lazy. Having an aesthetically pleasing layout and profile is important on Twitter, and nothing will send a potential candidate or client running for the hills faster than an incomplete and ugly profile. This incomplete appearance will also come about if tweets are listed as private. As Jennifer McClure artfully illustrates in her incredibly helpful blog post, "I don’t follow accounts with protected tweets and they typically have very few Followers. Why? Because they’re doin’ it wrong." Recruiters should use their pages to express information, not hide it. As a community built on the back of 140 character posts, Twitter users don't waste time before moving on. Aim to make your profile difficult to overlook.

Lacking Diversity in Followers

A key aspect of Twitter's success is engaging and interacting with others on the site, you know, the ‘social’ part of social media. Within the web-savvy tech scene, consistently building networks with social media is a pillar of industry success and hiring managers everywhere should take note. If a recruiter creates an account that only interacts with other recruiters, the results will be less than ideal. Searching through relevant #hashtags and profiles, and then engaging those you find is crucial for social media prominence. It takes hard work and dedication to find success online, but these are the same convictions recruiters have been hitting the pavement with for years.

Profile Without Personality

The great thing about a personal Twitter page is that it's just that: personal. Users like to follow an account with depth and character, and will be more enticed to check out listings and content if they feel they ‘know’ the person behind the keyboard (just check out Laurie Ruettimann's Twitter profile for a great example.) A Twitter feed with job opening after job opening is as monotonous and bland as a newspaper’s classified section, so add a little color! The best tweeters out there have their own personal flavor and mix together an eye-catching blend of content and personality.

Twitter is a hugely powerful social recruiting tool that, with a bit of perseverance and know-how, can yield huge results.

Are you actively using Twitter as part of your recruiting strategy? Share your Twitter successes and failures in the comments below!

Views: 849

Comment by Vinda Rao on March 20, 2013 at 10:12am

Great post, Daniel. We always recommend recruiters use a content/job post ratio of 60-40 on Twitter: 60% interesting and engaging content, 40% job posts. As you mentioned, constantly posting jobs is boring and diminishes the quality of discourse. Doing so is a great way to entice followers to ignore you.

Comment by Daniel Pratt on March 20, 2013 at 11:12am

Thanks for the comment Vinda! The key to a successful Twitter stream is engaging content that will provide value to those that follow you (even if it's the smallest bit of value). 60-40 seems like an awesome ratio in my opinion. 

Comment by Gail on March 20, 2013 at 8:01pm

Daniel thanks for sharing this insight.  You have hit the nail on the head when it comes to the biggest flaws in peoples strategy's.  One you might want to add is the constant tweeting of the same job within a given time frame.  I know twitter is an instantaneous environment but re-posting the same thing 10-15 times a day is down right annoying!

Comment by Daniel Pratt on March 21, 2013 at 11:23am

Appreciate your comment Gail! I think annoying is an understatement :) The biggest problem with that strategy is that it doesn't work. The power of Twitter for a recruiter is engaging the community in addition to sourcing candidates. 

Comment by Jason Kemp on March 25, 2013 at 4:50pm

Thanks for posting this. I've personally been struggling to find a way to address your third point - having a profile that lacks personality. I make myself cringe because I've become one of those recruiters who JUST posts openings other random articles that really don't generate that much engagement. If you have any other suggestions, I'm all ears!

Comment by Daniel Pratt on March 25, 2013 at 5:46pm

Thanks for the comment Jason! Twitter is a really great conversational tool and many people often forget that (I was one for a while). If you think of a tweet as a miniature blog post, the point is a bit easier to get across. Just as we are communicating over a this post, you can communicate with other folks tweeting about open jobs or recruiting tips and tricks. The recruiting community is quite active on Twitter, so join in on the fun! A good start is relevant hashtags. #hirefriday and #jobs/#jobs(cityname) will set you on the right track. 

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