Recruiters: Capture the essence of your corporate culture

Osterhaus’ article offers insight into how recruiters can successfully use Twitter to attract and engage potential applicants, as well as create and foster relationships with candidates. Twitter is a great way to encourage these prospective employees to take the plunge and apply for a position with your company. If done right, the use of social media can quicken the selection and hiring process, ultimately saving you time and money.

In order to take your social media recruiting efforts to the next level, you can use Twitter in conjunction with other multimedia. Incorporating these additional applications–such as Instagram or Vine–allows candidates to see what type of work environment your company has to offer. Recruiters should encourage current employees to use  Vine or Instagram to capture their coworkers in real time–collaborating, playing Ping-Pong during lunch, or other fun company events. But don’t forget to use the appropriate hashtags!

These photos and short video clips can showcase the company’s culture, giving your Twitter followers (and potential future employees) a glimpse into what it would be like to be part of an exciting, flourishing company. If they like what they see, it might encourage even passive candidates to submit their resumes.

Another avenue to enrich conversations and learn about applicants is to allow them to create their own Tweet-chats. Some companies–NPR is probably the most notable–host these types of chats on a semi-regular basis. In NPR’s case, the company allows potential candidates to ask employees at the company about the job, the company culture, and tips for the job search. It’s worked for NPR. Their recruiting profile, @NPRjobs, has over 20,000 followers as a result of these–and other–social media efforts.

Moreover, with the integration of social media channels such as Pinterest, Facebook and social sharing to Twitter; recruiters can also repurpose photos and videos in a Pin Board and Facebook album.

Make sure your Facebook page, as well as your Google+ profile captures the essence of the company’s personality, and appeals to applicants’ emotions. It’s important to utilize all the senses: visual, auditory and video to attract a variety of top talent which will contribute not only to your company’s bottom line, but its culture as well.

The only way to know if this will work is to try it, and be consistent with managing and maintaining your content across your social channels.

What other tools would you use to engage with candidates?