TALENT ACQUISITION ocial media has fundamentally changed the way businesses hire. Companies first started using social media as part of their hiring process in the early 2000s with the inception of LinkedIn, accelerating significantly after the launch of other social media sites like Facebook and Instagram. As social media usage has grown more prevalent and hiring becomes more competitive, organisations are embedding a social strategy further into their wider talent acquisition plans, showcasing company culture and developing a strong employer brand. Having a strong employer brand can make a significant difference for businesses, with LinkedIn research finding it can reduce cost per hire by 43 %. Showcasing a unique employee value proposition( EVP) can be of particular importance when attracting talent, with research from Gartner finding that 35 % of candidates have dropped out of a hiring process due to an unattractive EVP. A survey conducted by Glassdoor also found that 86 % of HR professionals believe recruitment is becoming more like marketing, with job seekers now seven times more likely to apply to a job after seeing a company’ s brand 10 times or more.
Developing employee advocacy programmes to manage online brand The central focus area of attracting talent via social media is shifting, with more companies embedding employee advocacy within their talent strategies instead of company profiles alone. This approach uses the authenticity and reach of employees’ personal networks, making recruitment efforts feel closer to a genuine recommendation. Employee-generated content also performs significantly better than company posting, with the click through rate of a piece of content two times higher when shared by an employee versus being shared by the company itself, according to research from LinkedIn. This is because people are more likely to trust messages from other people, with the Edelman Trust Barometer finding that job seekers trust the messages of current employees three times more than messages from the brand or the CEO. Employee advocacy is particularly effective for talent acquisition because it offers prospective candidates an unvarnished, transparent look at the company’ s culture, values and day-to-day work life – building credibility and trust. hrchiefmagazine. com
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