Job Postings & Social Media: Does it Work? [Guest Post]

Mira Greenland is the Director of Sales and Business Development at TweetMyJobs. You can follow Mira on Twitter @MiraGreenland.

By Mira Greenland

I’ve worked in the recruitment industry for years, 12 years to be exact. In the last three years, my career has taken a shift and I have focused completely on the social recruiting space.
Conference after conference, I listen as various speakers talk about their social media strategies. The speakers come from large companies, usually, with large amounts of money and resources dedicated to their strategy.  They all speak about the value of a two-way dialog: Building a conversation with job seekers on Facebook though their Careers Facebook page or their @Careers twitter page.  Inevitably, the conversation either starts, or finishes with, “posting a fire hose of your jobs onto a Twitter or Facebook page is not a strategy, it’s just bombarding your audience with jobs.  No one will follow that, it’s meaningless. You need a conversation.”

“That’s precisely what social is about – distribution and speed. There is a place for both conversation and distribution in social media.”

Once at an ERE social media summit, in predictable fashion, the speaker I listened to disregarded job tweets on Twitter and emphasized the value of a two way conversation. After she finished, I came and introduced myself and asked her, “But why NOT post your jobs onto Twitter? If there are job seekers out there interested in finding them, doesn’t it create value for those job seekers? And if job seekers respond to those job advertisements, doesn’t that create value for the company?”
“Oh yes!” She said. “I just think that social media is all about being social. And job postings aren’t social.”
Don’t worry. I’m not here to argue that there is not value in two-way conversation.  It’s undeniable. If you have the resources to create a dialogue with your social network(s) – DO IT.  That being said, I do not agree with the statement that, “job postings” are “not what social media is all about.” In fact, that’s precisely what social is about – distribution and speed.  There is a place for both conversation and distribution in social media.
300 million job seekers are hanging out on Twitter and another 850 million are on Facebook – so distributing jobs to these platforms is inherently social. These two platforms allow users to connect and to share information. Would you decide against posting an advertisement on a billboard in Times Square just because you weren’t able to have a conversation with every pedestrian who strolled past the ad? Of course not.  Conversations are important, but they aren’t everything…
Yes, in a perfect world, where there are unlimited resources, a company would roll out a social recruiting strategy that included both intelligent distribution of jobs as well as two way conversations.
Often during demos, I highlight Scottrade. I think Scottrade has done a brilliant job of creating conversations at their @ScottradeJobs page, and they also use both the TweetMyJobs network as well as their own branded @WorkatScottrade page to distribute their jobs in a meaningful way on Twitter (and Facebook) so that job seekers can find them, and apply if they are interested.

However, in the absence of resources, or in compliance with an internal company policy on social media, why NOT just use Twitter as a means to distribute your jobs?
Companies such as Cintas (@CintasCareers), JPMorgan Chase (@JPMChaseJobs) and Wendy’s (@WendysCareers) have had enormous success with social media recruitment using Twitter as a means to distribute jobs.  They spend pennies on the dollar compared to traditional job board advertising, and automate job post distribution and brand management in the social space, while targeting job seekers through meaningful distribution of their jobs.
No, they aren’t tracking their KPIs by the number of followers they have like their marketing departments might be with their social media messaging.  Instead, they are tracking their return on investment through redirects, applications, and hires. And it works. Over and over again, it just works.
It’s simply short sighted to write off using social media, and specifically Twitter, as a channel for job distribution.  Social media is not just about “being social” and conversations. It’s about sharing and distributing information.  And fast. There are job seekers using Twitter and Facebook, who might like to hear that you are a cool, progressive company and to get a sense of your corporate culture though a conversation – but they may also want to work for you!
So how are you distributing your jobs onto Twitter and using social media so seekers can find your jobs and apply?
Editor’s note: If you are a talented writer or expert in social media or recruiting, we invite you to reach out to us at blog@tweetmyjobs.com to contribute.