Are you or your company currently looking for suitable specialists? Are you wondering how to fill positions whose holders are about to retire? Are you imagining what your company's productivity will look like in the next three, five or ten years if these positions remain vacant?
These and similar questions are now being addressed by almost all companies in Germany. Small and medium-sized companies in rural areas are particularly affected, as they are less attractive to employees due to their distance from the nearest big city.
The main reason is the shortage of skilled workers: Anyone who is open to a new job today no longer has to look - potential applicants are in the comfortable position of being able to sit back in their office chair and wait for the best offer for a new professional challenge. Companies that want to fill vacant positions in the best possible way have to work hard today.
But how do you do that when the market hardly offers any available skilled workers?
The recruiting keyboard is known to most people: classic job advertisements in print and online, supplemented by a personal approach at career and networking events, supported by attractive employer branding, to name just a few possibilities. But what can the "hyped" social networks contribute to successful recruiting?
Studies such as the "Recruiting Trends 2018" by the universities of Bamberg and Erlangen-Nuremberg on behalf of the job portal Monster confirm that this method of candidate search has long since arrived in many, mostly larger companies. But which are the most relevant social media channels for recruiting and how can you use them optimally? And what time, personnel and financial resources must you expect when using social recruiting?
To get straight to the point: You should use social recruiting especially if your company is already active on social networks. Otherwise, your efforts would be less authentic. And authenticity is the decisive criterion in the social web. So start with a company profile! Once this is fulfilled, the question arises as to which channels are suitable for your recruiting. These are briefly presented below.
1. LinkedIN
The international business network LinkedIN has 14 million users in German-speaking countries and over 500 million worldwide. In addition to a free company profile on which company updates can be posted regularly, the network offers "LinkedIN Talent Solutions" some options that are also interesting for small companies to attract more attention for their company: Companies can place job advertisements here, which are then displayed via email and on LinkedIN to users deemed suitable using targeting. These appear until the daily budget set by the company is used up.
The advantage of this variant is that the ad is only targeted at those LinkedIn users who are suitable for the ad according to the targeting, so that wastage when placing the ad is minimized. Payment is made when a candidate clicks on the ad.
Interested candidates then have the opportunity to contact the contact person via LinkedIN or go to the company website.
For larger companies with a significant number of active employees on LinkedIN, there is also the option of placing a "Work-with-us" ad on the employees' profiles in order to effectively use the employees' network.
Another Talent Solutions option is "LinkedIN Recruiter Lite": This gives the recruiter access to 2nd and 3rd degree contacts and allows them to send 30 inmails per month, i.e. direct messages via LinkedIN, to suitable users. The option offers extensive filter criteria so that only suitable candidates are displayed. A clear disadvantage: This option is quite time-consuming and is only worthwhile if the recruiter has already built up an impressive network on LinkedIN. Nevertheless, it is interesting to be able to test this option, which is also available in a professional version, for a month free of charge before it is then available for the current price of €88.50 per month.
2. Xing
Xing is particularly well-known in German-speaking countries and, as a business network for recruiters, offers the opportunity to place a job advertisement as a text advertisement with a logo or in the corporate design as a PDF. In the "HR Professional" modeyou also have the option of integrating a recruiting video.
The ad will then appear in the Xing job market, which is accessible to non-members via search engines in addition to the 15 million users.
Xing also offers the option of creating a freecompany profile into which the job advertisements are automatically integrated. A job advertisement in the Xing job market then automatically receives the logo of the Xing company profile. Any interested member is also shown any personal connections they may have to the company.
Xing also advertises a link to the kununu employer rating portal - which is good for those companies that have been rated there, especially if the ratings are positive. The cost of a job advertisement visible for 30 days is between €363 and €731, depending on the options selected.
3. Facebook
Facebook is still the largest social network in the world, but it is on the decline, especially among younger users. As the ARD/ZDF Online Study 2018 shows, these users are now mainly found on Instagram.
Nevertheless, the usage figures remain high and it is precisely the groups that are currently working and therefore eligible for job advertisements that are active on Facebook. Many companies therefore use Facebook as a channel for their employer branding. For example, companies use photos, videos and campaigns to promote the exciting apprenticeship period in their company with the aim of acquiring new apprentices.
However, it should be noted that the majority of users are here privately. The effect of a B2B company profile will therefore not be the same as that of a company with a hip lifestyle product that users also like to show off in public in private.
This once again shows the importance of detailed action planning at the start of your HR activities. Who do you want to reach with your campaign: people of a certain age group, from a certain region, with certain qualifications? And where exactly can these candidates be found? What appeals to them? What messages do you want to use to score points? Is there perhaps an optimal period or time for placing an ad, e.g. around a certain industry-relevant event or even just at a certain time of day, after work or, better yet, at 10 a.m.? The networks usually provide extensive selection criteria and information on how to use them for targeted targeting.
If you have decided to use Facebook for your marketing goals, we recommend that you create a free company profile here and regularly provide insights into your work through photos from your everyday company life, videos, creative campaigns, attractive events, etc. A competitive analysis can also be inspiring with regard to possible uses.
Facebook then offers the option of specifically promoting posts with Facebook Ads. It is also possible to sponsor a recruiting post with a photo and link to the careers page of your homepage. This will then appear in the timeline of the target group you have specified. You have the option of limiting the region, gender, age and interests of the Facebook users who should see the post. It will then appear until the previously set daily budget is used up.
What's interesting is that when Facebook determines the target audience, it estimates the potential reach of the ad. Then it's a case of wait and watch how the ad develops in order to make adjustments if necessary.
4. Google AdWords
All social media channels have in common that they offer companies the opportunity to address potential applicants in a more targeted and personal way than is the case with print ads, for example. Google AdWords is not a social recruiting tool in the true sense of the word, but it should not go unmentioned in the online recruiting mix, because a major advantage of this variant is that it also addresses applicants who are not or hardly active on social networks.
Google offers companies the opportunity toplace ads for specific keywords that allow companies to appear at the top of the Google search results on page one. This also makes it possible to set up a campaign with a recruiting focus.
A precise keyword analysis is crucial for success: Companies must put themselves in the shoes of search engine users and consider which search terms potentially suitable employees would enter in order to become aware of a position at the company. Product, industry, service combined with the addition of "job", "career" or better without: This decision can be made easier by the Google Keyword Planner, which provides information on how often a certain keyword or keyword combination is searched for per month.
Once the keywords are set, an attractive ad must be written and linked to the homepage. Payment is made per click on the ad, which appears in rotation with all other ads for the same keyword until the previously set daily budget is used up.
Google offers interesting evaluation options that should be used to continually adapt the campaign. For example, you can easily determine which keywords work well for which target group and on which device, or in combination with Google Analytics you can understand what behavior on the website looks like after the click: How long does the user stay on the website, which pages do they click on, how high is the bounce rate, how often is the contact form used, etc. Target groups can also be restricted regionally, for example, so that the ad is placed even more specifically.
5. Instagram, Youtube, Snapchat & Co
Is your company primarily looking for apprentices, working students, trainees or interns? These younger target groups probably do not yet have a profile on a career network and Facebook may no longer seem up to date to them. In this case, you should think about company or career profiles on Instagram, YouTube or Snapchat.
It is important to know that companies and users on these channels sometimes provide very private insights into their everyday lives through photos and videos. It is important to clarify in advance whether and to what extent you want and can do this.
The primary goal here is less to address users directly and more to create an authentic image of the company and its employees, which in turn will be so well received that other users will also want to work there.
Hidden advertising content is not well received and is sanctioned by the operators. Creativity is what counts here. These portals round off your image as an attractive employer with appealing insights into everyday company life and thus motivate potential applicants to get in touch.
The time required should not be underestimated. Ultimately, it is also a lot of fun to present your own company in the desired light and perhaps you already have employees who are keen on such a creative task - which brings us from the search for employees to employee retention. But more on that elsewhere!
6. Conclusion
The decision criteria when using social recruiting are complex and social networks are developing at a rapid pace. What is valid today can be completely out of date tomorrow. Ultimately, you have to experiment yourself to find out what works and what doesn't.
The fact is: potential applicants today want to be approached.
In many cases, they simply no longer need to write time-consuming applications. They can be found without worry, especially since they usually already have jobs or at least a few offers secured, which allows them to take a relaxed approach to looking for new challenges.
It is therefore all the more important for companies that need to fill vacant positions to reach out to potential candidates in existing employment relationships, to address them directly with interesting content and thus to lure them away. Social networks offer exciting scope for this. Anyone who has a good eye on their time resources and wants to stay on the ball in social media can build a long-term network of interesting candidates, including for future job vacancies.