Recruiting With Your Instagram Feed

Instagram is becoming a more attractive recruiting tool by the day, and with good reason:

  • It’s estimated that 111 million people use Instagram in 2019.
  • 60% of them are between ages 18 and 29.
  • 40% of total users are female.
  • By incorporating Instagram into your social recruiting strategy, you’ll gain access to a large audience that spends a significant portion of their day (>30 mins) scrolling through their feeds.

But bombarding followers’ feeds with jobs can backfire.

While you may be tempted to flood Instagram with jobs like you would on Twitter or Facebook, this technique is a surefire way to lose followers. Why? First off, it’s impossible to click within an Instagram post to get to a job (links within captions on posts are not clickable), which means job seekers have to take another step to go to your profile and then click on a link. Plus, a job would have to be extremely exciting to stop users’ normal vertical scrolling.

That being said, there can be opportunities to post great jobs once in awhile (e.g., seasonal jobs that need to be filled immediately). If you want to go this route, use these tips:

  • Put your phone number in the caption along with a contact name (or point the reader to your bio), rather than a link to the website.
  • Post jobs only occasionally; otherwise your account will be seen as too salesy and you’re likely lose followers.

Even if you follow these best practices, however, the odds of a candidate taking that next step to your profile are low.

Does that mean Instagram can’t be an effective recruiting tool?

Absolutely not. It just requires an approach that complements the platform. Instagram is better suited to show off other aspects of your business, and you can do those easily. Below are tips to recruit without posting too many jobs:

Company Culture. A great way to show how amazing it is to work for your company is to showcase your awesome company culture with your Instagram feed and stories (especially stories, since they mostly consist of videos). Once candidates get familiar with seeing your recruiters and your workplace, they’ll be more apt to contact you since they’ll already feel like they know someone who works there.

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Job Fair Promotion. Feature stories that show off recruiters placing people on assignments. Better yet, feature your recruiters and show off their personalities, so if someone sees you at a job fair, or they are coming in for an interview, they’ll already feel like they have a relationship with the recruiter before even meeting them.

Seasonal Jobs. As I mentioned before, Instagram isn’t an ideal feed for your jobs, but there are some exceptions. If you have a seasonal contract and you need several new hires to start immediately, sharing the job on Instagram is a way to get attention. Use artwork especially designed for Instagram: 1080px in width by 1080px in height. Post about it sparingly, (i.e., do not spam your account with these jobs) or you’re sure to lose followers.

Paid Advertising. Another way to promote a seasonal job, job fair, or a milestone for your business is to invest in Instagram’s paid advertising. Your post will show up as “sponsored” and it’s guaranteed to be shown to more people in your network.

Instagram isn’t a silver bullet for recruiting. But if you use the tips in this post to make the platform a part of your social recruiting strategy, it will help you:

  • Showcase your culture
  • Build your employment brand
  • Get in front of passive job seekers — the ones who aren’t actively looking for a job, but may be enticed by a fun picture from an event at your company or an exciting-sounding opportunity
  • Keep your staffing firm top of mind
Michelle McCormick

Michelle McCormick
Michelle McCormick is a social media marketing advisor with Haley Marketing Group. She can be reached at mmccormick (at) haleymarketing (dot) com.

Michelle McCormick

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