Social Media & The Recruitment Industry

Over the course of the year we have been conducting our own analysis of the Recruitment industries social media presence and how different recruitment businesses interact with their audiences. How they promote their business holistically and what portals and routes that interface takes. With the recruitment industry accounting for over £35b of the U.K. Economy (based on data from the REC) it is clear that ours is an industry that is key to the economy. Also, given the fact we, as recruiters, interface to 3 separate audiences; candidates, clients and recruiters, our social media strategies could be quite complex and disjointed if not controlled. We focussed, ultimately, on 3 key competitors who all operate in our arena and looked at their interactions across Linked in and twitter mainly. These recruitment companies are all SMEs, although much larger than we are, are North West based and promote similar values. Without a doubt the social media presence on 2 of the 3 organisations simply consisted of vacancy after vacancy being advertised/promoted across these platforms with links back to the organisations website. From a google rankings perspective the website hits help of course but the content lacks interest. They felt like faceless companies with no real insight into the recruiters themselves or the real values of the organisations or the clients they represented. The 3^rd company had a really strong social media strategy, in our opinion, it balanced live vacancies with informative, industry relevant, articles. It included seasonal campaigns, internal recruitment promotions and most importantly a real portal to the team themselves. What are your views on the social media strategies of businesses you interface with? What do you see as attractive in a recruiter’s social media presence? We have tried to ensure that our social media strategy balances informative articles around manufacturing, the key sectors we focus on and our key clients. We promote live jobs as well but try to keep this relatively controlled. We also tweet real time updates on activity so that our followers understand the support that is available to them…weekend interviews, evening meetings etc. In 2017 our social media strategy will be taken to the next level and we would appreciate any feedback you may have for us. Watch this space…