Facebook entered the recruitment game in 2017 with the introduction of its Facebook Jobs feature. It is free for any business or organization with a Facebook page.
For many recruiters, Facebook doesn’t jump out as a recruitment option, but it’s become imperative to put Facebook on your radar. Why? Facebook users spend nearly an hour each day on the social media platform. That’s a lot of time! We need to go where people spend their time because that’s where their attention is.
When we are on Facebook, what are we doing? We look at photos. We vent. We talk with friends. We’ll click on content that is appealing to us.
Now picture this scenario. Your perfect candidate logs on to Facebook after a tough day at work and sees your job posting front and center. A couple of clicks later, they have applied, and your recruiter has a lead right in their inbox because someone on Facebook wasn’t happy at the end of their day. A couple of weeks later, you’ve placed them on assignment.
PREMIUM CONTENT: WORKFORCE SOLUTIONS BUYERS SURVEY 2017 – AMERICAS – CUMULATIVE REPORT
What Do You Need to Do?
The first step is to make sure you have the Facebook Jobs feature on your page. An administrator of your Facebook page must activate it by going into the settings. Then, find a job you want to post and enter the information. What will you need?
- Job Title
- Job Location
- A photo (you can use your page’s cover photo as a default)
- Job Description
- Job Type (Full Time, Part Time, Contract)
- Salary (not required)
- Adding questions to gain information (you can add up to three custom questions)
The jobs will appear in a couple of places:
- When anyone visits your staffing agency’s Facebook page, there is a Jobs link on the left-hand side. They can click on that link and view your jobs.
- The jobs will also go to the Facebook Jobs marketplace and are collected in this central location. When a user visits the page, Facebook’s algorithm shows jobs they think would be appealing to that user (based on geography, interests, etc.).
How will you get notified of an application? There are two possibilities:
- The applications head straight to your Facebook messenger inbox. One of your recruiters should be monitoring this inbox to contact an interested job applicant.
- For each job posting, you can have each application go straight to an email inbox. You can change that email address based on the job or keep it the same.
Who Is It Working For?
Here are just some examples of unique staffing agencies and recruiters who have seen great results with Facebook jobs:
- A healthcare staffing agency in California posts two to three jobs per week. In the fourth quarter, they received 50 applications in that extremely competitive industry.
- A clerical and light industrial staffing agency in the Chicagoland area also posts about two to three jobs per week. In December, they received 173 applications and have averaged more than 150 applications per month in the second half of 2017.
- Finally, a staffing agency in the Lehigh Valley tracked leads from the job board on its website and leads from its Facebook page for a two-week period this summer. The company placed 30 employees over that two-week period, with 13 placements coming from Facebook.
While not every application results in a placement, it does represent a name to add to your candidate database (Facebook doesn’t currently integrate). Those names could prove valuable for future job openings.
Facebook as a recruitment tool isn’t going anywhere. In fact, it’s just getting started. Using Facebook Jobs is a good start for your staffing agency to reach your candidates in a place they are spending a lot of time each day.
MORE: Bringing facial biometrics to a tipping point
