This is a guest post by Content Creator at YouTeam Mary Atamaniuk. Her opinions are her own.
In September 2017, the number of monthly Instagram users broke all records, hitting (are you ready for this?) 800 million! Sure thing, this number is not all about folks occasionally hawking fitness advice or sharing the photos of their dogs, babies, and vacations.
Brands are also gaining popularity on Instagram. Contrary to popular belief, they aren’t there just to pinch their products or services.
While most companies still use Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn as their main sourcing channels, some utilize Instagram as a connection platform for appealing to great minds. Hence, Instagram is also gaining traction as an efficient space for hire.
But how effective it is?
To be fair, it’s difficult to answer. The biggest challenge of using Instagram for hiring is that it doesn’t provide a clickable CTA. You can publish a photo of your dream team with an awesome vacant role description, but this is not really enough.
There’s the only way around it. You can include the link to your profile in your bio, but updating it all the time might feel overwhelming. Most likely, you will tire of this at the very beginning – as most other talent acquisition enthusiasts do.
This is the point when most throw their hands up and make a mistake. They say ‘there’s no clickable call to action on Instagram, so let’s search for talent elsewhere’. Well, it’s a lost opportunity.
If you haven’t embraced Instagram for hiring yet, it’s never too late to change it. Here are 5 ways you can use Instagram for better hiring.
1. Promote vacant roles visually
No one wants to bombard their subscribers with a plethora of lookalike job descriptions. At the same time, everyone wants to attract their followers to open positions. For this reason, you should use engaging visual elements for appealing to potential candidates in the right way.
Whatever smartphone you possess, it’s most likely capable of taking high-definition photos. If your camera is really nice and you want to use it, be sure to check out the maximum image sizes for Instagram below:
- Square: 1080px*1080px
- Vertical: 1080px*1350px
- Horizontal: 1080px*566px
Then don’t forget about proper editing: raw shots can be significantly improved with little effort thanks to online image and animation editors like Crello. You can also jump right to their Instagram Story templates, which you can adjust on the go and add some action to your account.
Together with concise job descriptions, carefully crafted original posts will likely get you more potential candidates interested in your company.
2. Boost visibility with links
As you already know, Instagram does not allow you to post clickable links. This non-feature has been frustrating marketers for years.
As a headhunter, you should remember to use links for hiring purposes. This will help you to boost attention to any updates from your company – be it a new blog post or a long-awaited job opportunity.
Even though links are not allowed on Instagram, there’s a workaround. Send users to a link in your profile bio, share it in the image or the caption itself. While this tactic looks slightly like a desperate move, it works well for many brands on Instagram.
Amtrak Careers, for example, always promotes open positions in this way.
3. Navigate with hashtags
Using hashtags in social media recruitment is worth a shot, especially if you are recruiting via Instagram. Hashtags can navigate your users through your feed, ensuring the greater number of profiles are reached and your message is further spread out.
Just like on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook, hashtags on Instagram work as a quick and efficient way to boost the visibility of your content. Some companies create a unique hashtag for the specific type of content (e.g. #HootsuiteLife). Hiring-related hashtags can make it much easier for your followers to monitor open positions.
If you don’t know where to find specific hashtags that are already in use, go for Hashtagify. This tool can help you research hashtags your competitors use and analyze them. After you choose a relevant hashtag, feel free to use it in a comment. Many brands do it to improve the navigation without making their posts look spammy.
4. Plan your content strategy ahead
Success is hardly instantaneous. It comes with a lot of effort, research, and planning. Before publishing any type of content, ask yourself the following questions:
- Who is my target audience?
- What type of content will be the most engaging?
- How do I connect this content with my brand vision, mission, and culture?
Once you’ve figured out the answers to these questions, come up with the types of posts that can drive more engagement. Don’t look at competitors too much: what works for some brands might be completely inefficient for the others.
Supporting example. Take a look at the Instagram feed of General Electric. It is overwhelmed with shots of locomotives, engines, and turbines.
This content will attract people interested in working with this company, but this may be completely irrelevant for beauty bloggers or Instamoms.
Decide who your target audience is. Make sure your content ideas can resonate with it.
5. Establish trust to your brand
Building your brand and expanding the circle of its supporters is essentially the first step to succeeding on Instagram. If you want to leverage the potential of this social recruiting tool to the fullest extent, you should prove that your brand is human. Average users don’t trust brands – they trust people behind it.
Showcase the human side of your employer brand. Post photos of your team, behind-the-scenes life, office party snaps, etc. It’s an effective way to win the trust of your followers. The more human you are, the more connected followers will be towards your employer brand and company.
Remember the importance of publishing high-quality, beautiful-looking images. Make sure all the content you post is authentic and original, as you need to present your company at large in a positive way.
What is the result expected?
One experiment around the influence of Instagram on hiring showed that this platform has great potential as a powerful recruiting tool. The results of the experiment revealed that most people who follow your brand on Instagram are already willing to join your team. Given this, you can leverage the power of Instagram for completing two important brand missions:
- Increase the number of enthusiastic job applicants
- Reach out to passive, yet talented candidates
Given that 70% of your LinkedIn followers are your employer brand supporters, imagine what you could do for hiring if you used Instagram to engage even more passionate advocates of your brand?
If you are looking for examples of how the world’s leading companies use Instagram for recruitment, then look no further.
See how Salesforce, Reddit, and Marriott use it today.
If given a chance, would you like to join them? If yes, it’s never too late to start.
Instagram will help you tap into a hidden talent pool, especially if used in tandem with other social recruitment tools, such as LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. Remember the power of publishing visually appealing content, using links and hashtags, preparing content strategy, and winning brand trust.
These are the ingredients of each recruiter’s success on Instagram. They will serve as a gateway to attract more hidden talents and convert them into the members of your team.
Author
Lilly Chesser
