1 in 4 Companies Say Social Media is Least Effective Recruiting Strategy, Highlighting the Need for Targeted Campaigns

Nearly One-Quarter of HR Employees (24%) Ranked Social Media as Their Least Effective Recruiting Strategy, Ahead of All Other Options. Experts Say Social Media Recruiting Must Be Highly Targeted and Thoroughly Tracked to See Results. Companies Should Also Test Candidates’ Skills and Ask Unexpected Interview Questions to Hire the Best Employees.

Social media recruiting is the least effective strategy for recruiting top talent, according to a new survey of 505 HR employees in the US.

Clutch, the leading B2B ratings and reviews platform, surveyed HR employees to better understand companies’ recruiting strategies, mistakes, and plans for 2020. Twenty-four percent (24%) of employees said that social media is the least effective recruiting strategy, ahead of passive recruiting (17%) and university career fairs (13%).

Kaitlyn Holbein is the CEO and founder of The Employer Brand Shop. She says that social media recruiting can be effective but only if it is targeted and well-tracked.

“Many companies’ careers social strategy is simply to post job opportunities,” Holbein said. “However, what candidates really need is to be nurtured over time. … A career decision is a big move, so many candidates need to be slowly primed using social.”

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Companies can target the most relevant audience with paid social media campaigns that nurture them to apply.

Companies should also track if social media influenced a candidate’s decision to apply, even if it wasn’t their last stop before filling out an application.

Companies Should Test Job Candidates’ Skills

More than one-fifth of companies (21%) regret relying solely on interviews and not testing job candidates’ skills in the past year before hiring.

Not testing candidates’ skills before hiring can be a costly mistake. Companies can use different types of tests to assess candidates, including:

• Cognitive tests, which measure reasoning, memory, arithmetic, and reading comprehension
• Sample job tasks, which simulate work that employees will be expected to do on the job
• Emotional intelligence tests, which represent a person’s ability to understand their emotions and the emotions of other people

Tests can allow companies to screen if a candidate actually has the skills they claim to possess.

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Companies Should Ask Specific and Personal Interview Questions

The majority of employees (80%) say interviews are their most important recruiting strategy.

Companies should ask specific and personal interview questions to get unrehearsed answers, though.

Jesse Silkoff is the founder of MyRoofingPal. “I used to use a strict, by-the-books, question-after-question interview style,” Silkoff said. However, that style eventually led to a bad hire.

“I think if I had a less rigid interviewing style, I would have noticed that his answers seemed very generic,” Silkoff said.

Companies should consider asking the candidate:

• How they would approach a company-specific project or work task
• To describe a time when they disagreed with a manager’s instructions and how they approached the situation

Questions like these often lead to more honest answers, helping companies accurately understand candidates’ capabilities.

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