Leveraging Social Media for Successful Early Career Recruitment: Reaching Top Talent Where They Are
The landscape of career seeking and recruitment has changed dramatically. We’ve seen a shift from job fairs, traditional job boards, and formal applications to a rise in social media and tech-driven processes. While Baby Boomers and Gen X may find it challenging to adapt to this change, it’s standard practice for Millennials and Gen Z.
Social media platforms offer an unparalleled opportunity to connect with young talent and engage them in their own language. Research shows that Gen Z spends over four hours a day on social media. In other words, if you want to connect with this generation, you must establish a strong presence on these platforms.
While your campus recruiting strategy may still involve setting up booths at career fairs, your early career recruitment strategy should also incorporate a strategic use of social media. Gen Z evaluates brands heavily based on their social media presence, with 85% stating that social media influences their purchasing decisions. Your social media presence is a key factor in how this generation evaluates potential career choices.
Understanding the Power of Social Media in Recruitment
Early careers candidates are social media savvy by default. Just as Gen Z evaluates brands on social media before making a purchase, they will check you out on various platforms to see what your brand is really all about. Social media isn't meant to be passive; it's a way for candidates to directly engage with your brand. With the right approach, you can help positively influence a candidate's perception of your brand before they apply.
Benefits of Social Media for Early Career Recruitment
Social media helps you create rapport with candidates even before the first interview. The benefits of social media for early career recruiters include:
- Employer Branding
- Candidate Engagement
- Cost-Effective Recruitment
- Broader Reach and Diversity
Employer Branding
Social media can allow you to provide candidates with a peek into your culture behind-the-scenes. This can give candidates a vibe-check to see if your brand matches their own aspirations. The opportunity for visual storytelling across platforms is virtually unlimited, allowing you to highlight your culture through videos, employee testimonials, and other formats.
Candidate Engagement
Recruiters are able to directly engage with early careers candidates through comments and direct messages to build relationships early in the hiring process. Beyond engagement, platforms like LinkedIn give recruiters the ability to reach out to specific demographics and individuals with specific career interests with targeted messaging. This allows for early connections with the right candidates, ensuring better match rates and conversions.
Cost-Effective Recruitment
With a strong social media strategy, you can lower the costs of recruiting through traditional methods like job boards or career fairs. You can dramatically increase the reach of these methods by promoting events via social media. Both paid and organic content can expand your reach and improve your brand awareness amongst early career candidates. It’s also worth leveraging employees’ connections at universities and educational institutions to further expand your reach.
Broader Reach and Diversity
If you're hiring on the global stage, there is no better platform than social media. Your posts on platforms like TikTok and Instagram can garner massive, global audiences and drive attention to your brand. Companies can also use social media to reach historically underrepresented groups, such as HBCUs and diversity-focused networks. Posts on social media can showcase inclusive workplace environments to broaden appeal to candidates who prioritize DEIB (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging).
Social Media Platforms for Early Careers Recruitment
Each social media platform comes with its own unique benefits and ideal use cases. Let's take a closer look at how each major social media platform can help your recruiting process.
| Platform | Usage in Early Careers Recruitment | Key Features | Best for |
| Professional networking, job postings, candidate engagement, and industry discussions. | Job listings, professional profiles, industry-specific groups, and sponsored posts. | Formal recruitment, engaging passive candidates, professional branding. | |
| TikTok | Creative job postings, showcasing company culture, engaging with passive job seekers through short, engaging video content. | Short videos, behind-the-scenes content, employee stories, trends and challenges. | Engaging younger demographics, showcasing a dynamic work environment. |
| Visual storytelling of company culture, sharing employee experiences, real-time updates via Stories and Reels, and community building through engagement. | Photos, videos, Stories, Reels, employee takeovers, and Q&A sessions. | Building brand culture and community, engaging with followers. | |
| YouTube | In-depth visual storytelling, career advice and tips, skill development videos, targeted recruitment campaigns, and live Q&A sessions. | Long-form video content, live streaming, employee testimonials, virtual office tours, interactive content. | Showcasing company culture and opportunities, skill development. |
| Real-time updates, job announcements, participation in trending topics, showcasing company culture, and facilitating live chats and Q&A sessions. | Hashtags, polls, quick updates, live chats, and community engagement through retweets and replies. | Real-time engagement, building community, and targeting specific groups. | |
| Broad community engagement, job postings, updates on company news, hosting events, and interacting with a wide audience through comments and direct messages. | Jobs feature on company page, paid ads, community posts, and event hosting capabilities. | Reaching a wide audience, community building, and hosting recruitment events. |
Best Practices for Engaging Early Career Candidates on Social Media
Social media may seem like the realm of marketing, but it’s a key tool in the recruitment toolbox. By building a social media brand that resonates with early career candidates, you can connect with the next generation of talent and future-proof your organization. Let’s borrow from our friends in marketing to explore some best practices for connecting with Gen Z on social media.
Authenticity
As consumers, Gen Z seeks authenticity from brands, with more than 80% of surveyed Gen Z consumers stating they trust companies more when real images of customers are used in advertising. This extends to brand interactions with Gen Z on social media—what you display needs to be authentic and real. You don’t need to over-polish; a few wrinkles and funny outtakes in your day-in-the-life videos can be endearing and help build trust.
Visual Storytelling
Platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube allow you to showcase your company’s culture through visual storytelling. Gen Z highly values DEIB in prospective employers, and highlighting these themes in your videos is a powerful way to connect with this generation.
Consistency
It's important to adapt your voice and content to each platform while still maintaining a consistent message. You want to reinforce your brand's central message when it comes to company culture. If a candidate discovers your brand on TikTok, your LinkedIn posts should still feel familiar, even with platform-specific adjustments. This can take time to get right, but it’s well worth the effort.
Social Media Ideas for Engaging Early Careers Candidates
Not sure how to get started or looking to brainstorm social media ideas? Here’s a shortlist of strategies that have worked well with early career candidates:
- Share behind-the-scenes content that showcases life at your company through authentic videos or photos. It’s okay if the production value isn’t perfect, as long as you’re being genuine.
- Create short-form, day-in-the-life videos where employees from various departments share their typical workday, offering insight into your company’s culture.
- Employee takeovers are a fun way to recognize staff while showcasing your culture. Let employees share their perspective and experience.
- Host virtual campus events, like live Q&A sessions on LinkedIn or Instagram Live, focusing on topics relevant to your audience. Subjects like career development, personal growth, or DEIB are great ways to connect with Gen Z.
- Highlight employee success stories on social media, or bring your “Employee of the Month” tradition online. It’s a fun way to recognize staff and humanize your brand.
- Share a virtual office tour on social media, giving candidates a chance to see your workplace and get a sense of your culture before they apply.
AMS as Your Strategic Early Careers Partner
Attracting and hiring early career talent is a strategic initiative that drives the continued growth of your organization. Developing a recruitment strategy can be challenging when incorporating all modern tools and methodologies into your process. That’s where a talent partner like AMS comes in. We have a proven track record in early career recruiting, with multiple awards and industry recognition from our work with companies like Rolls-Royce.
Partnering with AMS allows you to benefit from our extensive experience in early career and campus recruiting. We offer comprehensive solutions, covering everything from branding to onboarding. If you’re interested in incorporating social media into your recruiting strategy, we should talk. Contact us today to find out how we can help.
