Struggling with recruitment? You’re not alone. Changing trends and shifting workplace cultures have continued to put stress on recruiters and human resources professionals who are working hard to fill those empty roles. It’s 2024; you’re almost certainly using social media in your recruitment efforts. You may have even thrown an in-person networking event, trying to attract potential hires. But if you combine those two ideas, you might find a new strategy that could really benefit your business.
Have you considered throwing a recruitment event online, utilizing Facebook or Instagram Live?
Why You Should Consider Live Social Media Interactions
It’s easy to come up with a great social media caption and a filtered photo. But going live can really help you connect with potential hires and demonstrate more of your personality. You could do something more creative and interactive, like a tour of your office, or you could simply answer any recruitment questions and explain a bit more about current openings you have.
Instagram or Facebook lives are great for recruitment because they allow for more interaction between you and a potential job hire than simple online posts. But they also cast a wider net than your average networking event. For any number of reasons, a great candidate might not be able to make it to your event. But they can plug into an online event from anywhere.
How to Go Live
Nearly every social media platform has the ability to go live, but a couple of platforms do it best: Facebook and Instagram. Why? People tend to already be scrolling those platforms, and they can receive notifications that your live is beginning. They also offer the best promotional tools for talking up your live event before it happens. Lives also allow for collaboration—if your team is remote, you can loop in whatever employees you want to join, and you don’t need to all be in the same space. A live can really look however you want it to look!
A Few Quick Tips
If you’re going to start utilizing Instagram Stores or Facebook Live for your recruitment efforts, you’re probably feeling a bit nervous. After all, going live requires an entirely different skillset than simply writing a caption or using a hashtag. Live recruitment really requires more of a sales mindset—you’re selling people on the idea of working for your business. Not everyone feels super comfortable being put on the spot.
But the key to going live? Some simple preparation. Here are a few quick tips to make sure you knock your live social media event out of the park.
- Have a loose outline before getting started, but don’t cling to it too closely. Sometimes, you need to get the feel for how an event is going—what kinds of questions are people asking in the comments? Are you getting much interaction?—before really committing to a topic of conversation. You shouldn’t just go in blind, but you also don’t want to clutch your plans too firmly, either.
- Have great lighting. Seriously—it matters! There’s a reason influencers invest in ring lights. Social media is primarily an aesthetic place, and you want to look your best. Similarly, make sure your background isn’t crowded or cluttered. You want to really capture the vibe of your company without distracting potential new hires.
- Schedule the event ahead of time, and talk it up beforehand. Announcing a live recruitment event five minutes before isn’t going to work—people need to make sure they’re in a place with good internet service, that they don’t have meetings, that they have questions prepared, etc. But talking about it too far in advance won’t put it top of mind. About 2-4 weeks out is the perfect length of time. Create an Instagram/Facebook post and pin them to the top of your profile. On Facebook, consider making a graphic with your date and time your cover photo. Consistently share the post to stories, to make sure people remember to write it down. On the actual day, give timing reminders in stories (“don’t forget our recruitment event today!” “Only one hour until our recruitment event!”) Don’t worry about oversharing. Most people need to see things quite a few times before the date and time actually stick, and furthermore, if they don’t want to attend, they’ll simply click away! No harm, no foul.
- Have a concrete action step for people. Any good recruitment event has a call to action that’s clear and direct. Are you hoping people fill out a Google form for more information? Submit an application? Reach out to a hiring director? Decide what that call to action is, and create a simple link for it (like yourcompany.com/link, not something with a thousand dashes or numbers). Then, repeat the link regularly throughout the live and put it in the live’s description. People tend to jump in and out of live social media events, so you want to make sure that even if they’re simply hopping in for a minute or two, they hear about that specific call to action.
- Don’t panic. There might be a hiccup—the internet might crackle out for a second, you might forget what you were going to say, or someone might start trolling you in the comments. It’s a great opportunity to show potential new hires how you and others at your company respond to stressful situations. If you totally panic and cancel the whole event, it says something. On the other hand, if you’re able to stay calm, cool, and collected, pivoting to a solution, that says something as well! Live events are going to have small mistakes, and that’s okay. It’s how you recover from them that matters.
Going live doesn’t have to be a huge production. It also has a really low cost—if the event doesn’t work out how you were hoping, no worries! You simply don’t try it again. It’s much more cost effective than an in-person recruitment event. There’s really no reason not to give it a try.
Claire Swinarski is a Contributing Editor at HR Daily Advisor.