Traditionally, Facebook was associated with a candidate’s personal life, and LinkedIn was where recruiters sought out candidates. But that's all changing, and changing quickly! LinkedIn’s steep premium user prices and recent tweaks to their algorithm have frustrated recruiters, forcing them to look at other options.
Thanks to its new jobs functionality, over 1 billion daily active users, and a much cheaper price tag, Facebook looks like a viable alternative for recruiters. Let’s look at how you can get the most out of Facebook’s new jobs functionality…
Why Facebook?
With the advent of Facebook Jobs - the platform’s new job posting function - it can only get better for recruiters. With Facebook Jobs, any admin of a company page can now post job adverts to News Feeds using the status update composer and these vacancies will appear on a Jobs tab on the company page.
Not only this, but Facebook users can now perform job searches on the platform in the same way they'd search for an event - by clicking the 'Jobs' tab and performing a simple boolean search.
Facebook already collects a huge amount of data on its users, from demographics, to behaviours and interests. This means you can target job adverts far more specifically, based on location, companies worked for, job titles and more. In addition, this format is much cheaper than LinkedIn's premium subscription or sponsored job postings on that platform.
What Can Recruiters Expect from Facebook Jobs?
By using Facebook to advertise roles, you can expect to reach more relevant candidates than you did with LinkedIn advertising. This is because Facebook targeting is much more precise, so the applications you receive will be more tailored to the job you're advertising.
Secondly, you’ll find you're reaching candidates you’d struggle to find anywhere else. This is great news for recruiters! For certain disciplines, candidates might not be active on LinkedIn, or might not even have a profile - by using Facebook for your job posting you're reaching them on their home turf.
How to Use Facebook Jobs for Recruitment
Now for the hard part. Except that it's not, not really. Posting a job through Facebook is easy. If your agency is one of the lucky ones, with early access to Facebook Jobs, you can get started today! Here’s how you do so…
- You must be an admin of your agency’s Facebook page
- On your agency’s page, type a normal post using a combination of the words Job, Vacancy, or Hiring
- Facebook’s algorithms will recognise this as a job posting, and when you hit publish, offer you the option to use the new Jobs functionality. It will look a little like below:
- You can choose to boost the post in the same way as an ordinary Facebook ad, or to post it for free
- You can show the role to people in a certain area, and whittle down the pool by skills listed, previous job titles, education level, graduation year, or even previous employers!
- Your ad will appear like the image on the right-hand side of the screen, and candidates who hit Apply Now will be asked to edit their Facebook profile information related to jobs and education and submit a short statement about why they’re right for the job
- This will open a conversation between your page and the candidate via Facebook Messenger where you can both see their submission as a message – it’s a good idea to reply quickly as candidates can see when you’ve opened their message. You can also choose to receive a copy by email.
Post the Right Jobs in the Right Way
There are a couple of things to bear in mind when posting jobs to Facebook. You'll already have a rough idea of your agency or client’s tone of voice and style, however different social media sites require different approaches when advertising jobs. Facebook, for example, is more conversational and friendly than LinkedIn is. Candidates who are receptive to formal language and terminology on LinkedIn will be less receptive to the same language on Facebook, so using the right tone of voice is important to attract the right candidates. That’s how to share job ads on Facebook effectively.
It’s important, too, to make sure you’re posting the right jobs on Facebook. Facebook performs best with roles that are entry or mid-level. You'll find it tough to source the perfect candidate for a C-Suite role on Facebook, but there might be a purple squirrel hiding amongst Facebook users for a mid-level management vacancy.
Keen to find out how to run an awesome recruitment campaign on Facebook? Download the eBook below!
