There are obvious reasons to get employees sharing job openings at your company through their personal and professional networks. First off, it’s a great way to attract candidates that could become referrals (after the interested candidate has been vetted by the referring employee, of course.) It also helps establish your employer brand and give prospective future candidates an idea of the kind of company culture you foster.
There are also some not so obvious reasons to get employees to share jobs through social media, some that even transcend hiring/recruiting.
A quote posted on the HireVue website from their customer TMX Finance (also a Referagig customer) inspired this thinking. In the quote, VP of Talent Acquisition Lindsey Smith, in discussing the benefits of using HireVue to help TMX establish an identity in a market where they may not have one, says:
“We needed a better way for our company to standout, a more engaging way to tell our story, describe our company mission and values, and ultimately sell the opportunity to candidates.”
Now, take that quote and replace the phrase “sell the opportunity to candidates” with “sell the opportunity to customers”.
Using TMX Finance as an example, assume they decide to open a new store in a market like Spokane, Washington, where they have no brand identity. If TMX can get its first few hires in Spokane actively posting on social media about job openings at TMX in Spokane, those employees will be indirectly marketing TMX to anyone who sees the posting about job openings, in the most subtle, yet beautiful of ways.
This is the best advertising a growing company might be able to get – not an in-your-face, buy-our-product or service message, but one that says, “We are part of the community. Our employees want to find other great people like themselves to come work here. And, we are hiring, so you know business is good and there are other happy customers out there.”
Will TMX receive warm candidate referrals through the social media sharing efforts of their employees? If the employees are motivated to do it, and do it regularly, you can be sure they will.
But if done right, TMX should get much more out of this then they could have possibly imagined.
Provided TMX monitors the messaging these employees are using to promote their job openings, our guess is that TMX will cultivate organic brand recognition through this approach, at no cost, as a side effect of a completely different mission: hiring great talent.
That brand recognition will most certainly lead to an increase in sales.
Then, TMX’s marketing and recruiting teams can toast together over their shared success!