Social media is an essential tool for everyone, no matter what industry they’re in and for recruiters, it’s even more important with 79% of job seekers using it in their job search. It’s the way forward with the increasing number of millennials and even Gen Xers using social media for around seven hours a week (in the US)!

So why do recruiters need to use social media?

Target specific candidates

By utilising the sponsored posts feature on your choice of social media, you will be able to target a specific group of people or demographic. This can be done by location, company industry, job title, interests, years of experience and many other options. Targeting will help you out big time when recruiting for a niche role as it can cut out the deadwood and show you exactly who you want to see.

As well as finding candidates for niche roles, social media will help you reach out to passive candidates who you didn’t even know were there. It’s a given that not everyone will use social media but you may find some potential candidates on there who you wouldn’t reach in any other way (e.g. they don’t use job boards).

The main lesson to learn from targeting your content is that you can expand your reach and potentially find the best candidates for the job, all from a few clicks!

Promote brand awareness

Never forget that your social media is an extension of your brand. That means every time you post, message someone or share other content, you are representing the company. By regularly using social media, you’ll be getting your logo and company name out there whether that’s tweeting about a job, sharing industry content on LinkedIn or messaging someone about a role on Facebook. Have some fun as well and try posting about what’s going on in the office, show off your personality and make your agency stand out amongst the others. Both clients and candidates will begin to get a feel for your values and what you’re all about!

Cost-effective promotion

Unless you’re using targeting ads (which still don’t have to break the bank), social media doesn’t have to cost a thing. And even better, if you do it the right way, you might be able to get more interest through an organic post than a sponsored one. It costs absolutely nothing to set up a Twitter account and if you have a good recruitment CRM, it will allow you to post your jobs to there for free.

Other benefits

There are countless other benefits including being able to filter out candidates who share inappropriate posts or behave badly on social media. Recruiters will also be able to acquire CV details without actually having to receive a CV, all through the power of LinkedIn. This will also give you more of an idea about the candidate and if they’re suitable for the role before you get into contact with them.

As we all know, it’s important in this day and age to be taking advantage of social media and using it to its full potential. It will do wonders for your brand awareness and website traffic without having to spend a penny. So if you’re not giving it a go, you should start now and you will reap the benefits!