3 Ways Recruiters Can Use Twitter Hash Tags in Their Hiring Strategies

By Jessica Miller-Merrell 

There’s something so simple about Twitter and its 140-character messages. That simplicity lets users get to the point in sharing resources, information or connecting. If you caught part one and two of this series, you saw that one of the things I love most about the social network is that even with an enormous amount of Tweets in your feed each day, you can still hone in on what’s important because of the brevity of the messages. I also talked a lot about how employers can use Twitter chat to grow their candidate following and connect with candidates.

In those posts, one of the tools I discussed for starting or growing a Twitter chat was hashtags. However, their use goes far beyond Twitter chats. In fact, recruiters and talent acquisition leaders can use Twitter hashtags as a way to focus employment branding, employment engagement and recruiting efforts.

There are a number of companies already doing so, and there’s a lot to be learned from those who are doing it right. Here are three ways, and three companies, that are leading the way in their use of Twitter hashtags:

Employment branding

Using hashtags as a way to drive awareness of your employment brand is just smart. It reinforces the message you’re using throughout a campaign or even as the backbone of your employment brand and promotes employment brand recognition.

A perfect example of this is Amtrak’s use of #teamamtrak as a way to encourage customer, employee and job seeker engagement. Doing so allows all parties to interact, giving candidates a 360-degree view of the company. Unifying the hashtag allows the employment branding team to better quantify their efforts and counts impressions and number of tweets as part of their regular reporting on engagement and relationships established through Twitter.

Employee engagement

Companies like Adobe use a Twitter hashtag as a way to encourage employees to be involved and engaged with one another, sharing what it’s like to work for Adobe. Their #adobelife campaign started as a simple, no-cost, grassroots effort and grew organically throughout the company as a way to share employee experiences of life with Adobe. By engaging employees this way, the company is making use of their best employment brand ambassadors and offering transparency to candidates.

Recruiting efforts

From featured job listings to Instagram pictures or even an employee Q&A, HP uses their #hpcareers hashtag to drive candidate interest and awareness, and they’re doing it really well. They also use the hashtag to organize and broadcast campus events, job fairs and other recruiting events they are attending, allowing them to not only reach casual job seekers but also be tracked and found by those who are specifically interested in a position at HP.

These three companies are making use of a simple concept to grow their employment brand and attract candidates, and your organization can do the same. Be consistent with your use of a hashtag, get your employees on board and let candidates know they can find you through it as well. It’s a simple, free way to find your next employee.

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology strategist specializing in social media. She's the Chief Blogger and Founder of Blogging4Jobs. You can follow her on Twitter at @jmillermerell.

How to Reach a Niche Recruiting Audience Online

By Jessica Miller-Merrell

Being tasked with the job of finding a candidate in niche market can be a daunting task. Job boards like Monster.com and Indeed.com offer a wide variety of jobs and most of the time don’t hit niche markets. As a recruiter it’s important to advertise your open positions in places that job seekers are visiting. For instance, if I were hiring for someone in pharmaceuticals that particular job seeker would rather search where all the jobs are related to pharmaceuticals instead of cycling through hundreds of non-related jobs.

If you’re having trouble reaching your audience in a very niche sector I have come up with a few places and suggestions to focus your effort. Not all of these will work across the board, but it’ll give you a basic understanding of this part of the recruiting process:

Niche Job Boards: Niche jobs boards are becoming more relevant in today’s society as high-tech industries are becoming the new trend. Not all niche job boards will be successful, but the work for many reasons. One of the biggest problems in a recruiter’s job is finding relevant people. Out of 100 applications received it’s possible that less than five of them are relevant to the actual posting. Using a job board specific to whim you’re hiring creates relevancy and will help weed out applicants who aren’t qualified.

It also helps cut down on the cost of hiring. If you’re using a job board like Monster.com you’re paying for an audience that you don’t want. Most of the time you’re hiring for 5% of these bigger job board’s audience.

Hashtags: Something that has become extremely popular in the recruiting world has been niche-recruiting hashtags. Meeting and engaging with potential applicants in the Twitterverse is the new normal in online recruiting. Instead of throwing out random hashtags like most people do, here are a few hashtags that will allow you to reach a specific audience:

Remember: There is a billion tweets sent every four days. Using appropriate hashtags is essential when posting job listings on Twitter for a niche target.

#USGuys – This hashtag caters to the marketing community. As a recruiter using this hashtag when posting a job related to marketing will greatly increase your chances of being seen by someone who is looking for a marketing job.

#socialmedia – One of the most popular jobs in today’s economy is all about social media. There are tons and tons of tweets about social media so using this hashtag coupled with one like #USGuys will help narrow down your search for someone interested in marketing and social media.

Other popular hashtags include #business #Is #in #hirefriday and #jobs. For a deeper understanding of how these hashtags work you can read Top 25 List of Twitter Hashtags for Human Resources. Niche job marketing is easy if you know where to look. Try these tips to increase the number of relevant applicants for each of your job postings.

If you find yourself in a situation where you need to hire for a very specialized industry try using these suggestions to find a candidate without wasting money and time. Not all of these will work for every job listing, but they have been proven to be very effective in recruiting trends.

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology strategist specializing in social media. She’s an author who writes at Blogging4Jobs. You can follow her on Twitter @blogging4jobs. 

Photo Credit.