Social Recruiting
What is social recruiting?
Social recruiting refers to the common practice of using social media platforms to identify, engage with, and attract potential employees.
HR can use social recruiting on networks like LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and X to connect with candidates, build employer branding, and post new job openings. Effective social recruiting can help companies reach wider talent pools, including passive candidates (those not currently in the job market), and showcase their culture.
Social media recruiting platforms
Here’s a cheat sheet of strategies to help you adapt your messaging to suit different social media platforms and their unique audiences:
Reaching a broad audience, local and entry-level roles, and targeted advertising.
Use Facebook Ads to target specific demographics and skills, create company career pages, join relevant industry groups, and share employee spotlights with photos or videos.
Visual employer branding, showcasing company culture, and attracting younger talent.
Post visually appealing content about the company and milestones, and use Stories and Reels for quick updates and behind-the-scenes glimpses.
Professional roles, networking, passive candidates.
Post job listings, use LinkedIn Recruiter for outreach, share company culture and industry insights, engage in LinkedIn Groups, and encourage employees to share company content with their networks.
Visual employer branding, showcasing company culture, and attracting talent in creative industries.
Create visually appealing boards showcasing your company culture, employee testimonials, and career advice. Use high-quality images, videos, and relevant keywords.
Targeted recruiting within specific communities (e.g., developers, tech enthusiasts, and creatives), engaging with niche talent, and authentic employer branding.
Participate in relevant subreddits, engage in industry-related discussions, and share job postings in appropriate communities.
Reaching younger demographics with informal employer branding, job postings, and quick updates.
Create behind-the-scenes content with Snapchat Stories, use AR filters to showcase company culture, or offer quick career tips playfully.
Gen Z recruiting, employer branding, entry-level hiring.
Create engaging short videos about company culture, employee experiences, and career tips. To boost your reach, consider partnering with influencers.
Employer branding, showcasing company culture, and detailed role explanations.
Create video testimonials featuring employees, ‘day in the life’ videos, and career advice videos, and host live Q&A sessions with recruiters.
Real-time job postings, networking, and industry engagement.
Share job openings with relevant hashtags, participate in industry conversations and host live chats on Spaces.
8 benefits of social recruiting
Here are eight benefits to convince you to kick-start or expand your company’s social recruiting efforts:
- Faster, cheaper hiring: Social platforms let you quickly share job openings, cutting both hiring time and costs compared to paid job boards or agencies.
- Better candidate engagement: Social media allows direct communication between HR and candidates. Answering questions and building relationships creates a more personal candidate experience.
- Broader, more diverse talent pool: Social networks connect you with global communities, giving you access to candidates with different skills and backgrounds.
- Targeted outreach: Paid ads and networking tools can help you target, reach, and engage with specific candidate groups by location, skills, or industry.
- Real-time insights: Social analytics show how your posts are performing and how candidates are responding, so you can adjust your approach as needed.
- Enhanced employer branding: Use social media to highlight your organizational culture, values, and employee stories to attract like-minded talent.
- Passive candidate engagement: Social platforms can help you reach and engage people who aren’t actively job hunting but might be open to the right offer.
- Better candidate insights: Reviewing a candidate’s social media gives a fuller picture of their skills and personality, leading to stronger hires.
Build your skills in effective social recruiting
Learn how to use social recruiting to identify, target, engage with, and attract the most promising candidates for your organization’s open positions.
AIHR’s Strategic Talent Acquisition Certificate Program teaches you to design an employee value proposition (EVP) to attract, engage, and retain high-quality candidates, improve your employer brand, and apply these learnings to your social recruiting plan.
Examples of social media recruiting
Here are a few real-life examples of how the world’s top companies use social recruiting that may inspire your next campaign:
Hilton Careers
Fortune ranked Hilton the world’s second-best workplace. Global hotel group Hilton leverages social media to attract top talent. It encourages its employees to use the hashtag #WeAreHilton when sharing company news on their personal social media profiles.
Spotify
Recently named one of Fortune World’s Most Admired Companies 2025 and ranked #2 on the Media and Entertainment sector list, Spotify uses its LinkedIn page to post interesting ‘behind the scenes’ content with employees discussing their roles, like this ‘a day in the office’ post with QA Engineer, Emmy.
UPS Jobs
UPS regularly features employee-generated content on its UPS Jobs pages on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and X. Many of these employee posts include uplifting stories about personal development and career growth at the company.
Did you know?
According to HR Magazine, 68% of Gen Z workers have used social media to plan their careers, compared to only 26% of Gen X workers. Additionally, a survey by CareerArc found that 86% of job seekers use social media in their job search.
Social media recruiting: 10 HR tips
Here are 10 social media recruiting tips for HR teams:
- Pick the right platform: Use LinkedIn for professionals, Instagram for creatives, and niche sites like Reddit or TikTok for specific roles or age groups.
- Engage, don’t just post: Reply to comments, join groups, and create polls or Q&As. Building trust leads to better results.
- Showcase your brand: Highlight your culture and values through stories, photos, and videos.
- Involve employees: Ask your team to share job posts and updates. Their networks help spread the word.
- Use relevant hashtags and keywords: To increase visibility, choose popular, impactful ones relevant to your company and industry.
- Tailor your content: Match your tone and style to the audience and role you’re hiring for.
- Listen in: Use tools like Brand24 or Mention to track what people are saying about your company.
- Track results: Use tools like Hootsuite or Sprout Social to see what content performs best.
- Run targeted ads: Use platform filters to reach candidates by skill, location, or experience.
- Post regularly: Keep your audience engaged with a consistent social media posting schedule.
FAQ
Social recruitment refers to the process of using social media platforms to identify, engage with, and attract potential candidates. It involves posting job openings and building your employer brand online to connect with both active and passive job seekers. Social recruitment allows companies to grow their communities organically or via targeted ads.
The ‘best’ technique depends on the industry, target audience, and objectives. However, targeted job ads on LinkedIn, authentic employee stories, and interesting content are generally effective. This approach allows companies to reach specific demographics and boost engagement to help them attract top talent.
