How to Improve Recruitment with Employee Advocacy

The fact of the matter is, there’s a shortage of qualified talent for the available positions that are out there.

And with the recent increase in remote work, recruitment has taken on a whole new dimension, with the digital realm becoming the primary recruiting space.

Yet many companies still grapple with how to find the best people for a specific position. One very effective solution is Employee Advocacy.

We’ve discussed how it can enhance positive brand awareness online previously. But it can also help your company to find the perfect candidate for virtually any job.

When the enthusiasm and personal networks of employees are harnessed to spread awareness of open positions, as well as the company’s positive work environment, it will attract exactly the kind of attention you want.

The challenge? Skilled talent is hard to find.

The fact of the matter is, today’s positions require specialized skill sets, and locating skilled talent is difficult—and will probably only get harder.

An extensive Korn Ferry report finds that by 2030, more than 85 million jobs could go unfilled because there aren’t enough skilled people to take them. Finding the perfect person for the job can be a real challenge in our age of specialization and specific job requirements.

So where is the best place to look? 

Well, one common resource that is often overlooked is within the company itself. Specifically, when it comes to your own employees. The best Human Resource is frequently the very workforce that makes up the heart of your company. They are the ones who usually know it better than anyone else; they know that your company is a great place to work at, and they know the right kinds of people to fill the specialized roles that open up.

That’s right, your employees are your biggest resource.

It’s true: content shared by employees receives 8x more engagement than content shared on standard company channels. And people

trust content that comes from a trusted source, which is extremely important when it comes to recruiting talent.

People will listen to people they know: it’s as simple as that.

Basically, a trusted employee will have a trusted network, which contains a tremendous number of potential candidates. There are on average 10x more followers in a total employee network than in a company page for your brand.

And employees are usually happy to show off that their company is recruiting, and that it’s a great place to work. If they feel good about the work environment and the amazing people they work with, they will usually be eager to share their positive impressions with their networks. And those networks are where the best candidates can often be found.

What’s the secret to getting employees to spread the word? Give them the right tools.

In order to get employees to spread the word about open positions on their networks, you have to give them the proper tools. You have to make it easy for them to share with their social media followers, and get results. This can include:

•   Approved job posts from HR that are ready to share.
•   Employer branding content, like photos of fun events, interviews, etc., to showcase the company.
•   Engagement & Sharing-focused multi-media content to build up awareness, videos, GIFs, fixed visuals, etc.

When these elements are combined, ideally on a platform designed to accommodate Employee Advocacy, employees will become effective ambassadors for the company, and help find qualified candidates for the available positions that need to be filled.

By reaching out to their own peers, a link is created to the potential talent pool that is often much stronger than an untargeted “help wanted” post.

It simply makes sense: if you’re looking for a graphic designer, a skilled designer at your company probably knows other graphic designers and includes them in their network. If you’re looking to hire a top-level executive, your existing executives will have other qualified candidates on their LinkedIn and Twitter networks.

It’s a logical connection, backed up by the fact that your existing employees can vouch for your company. Their friends will believe them when they say it’s a good place to work, more so than any standard company page.

But you also have to reward employees for helping out the company.

If your employees are going to share on your company’s behalf to attract new talent, it’s smart to make it worth their while.

Encourage and reward them to get the word out there. You can go the traditional route, with bonuses or gift certificates, but at Sociabble, we’ve found that CSR initiatives and charitable giving add meaning to those rewards.

Reforestation, plastic recycling, food banks, local shelters—it’s important to find out what causes are important to employees at a local level. This will boost engagement, and get employees involved in causes they actually care about within their communities.

Because ultimately, employee engagement is exactly what you want to encourage overall. And spreading the word about recruitment is just one part of what could be a larger Employee Advocacy initiative, a way of maximizing employees’ potential to distribute content in a way that basic company pages no longer can.

Boosting positive brand awareness, by rewarding employees for sharing company news and content on their networks, is itself an important element of recruitment, because it shows potential candidates that the company is a positive place to work, and that it will be good for their career.

So beyond simply sharing open positions, getting employees involved in a larger Employee Advocacy program will further grow the pool of candidates. Any action that generates brand awareness is going to make it easier to fill open roles with top candidates.

And when it works, the results are well worth it.

By utilizing Employee Advocacy for recruitment purposes, you will see an increase in qualified candidates.

But you’ll also see enhanced online engagement, more positive brand awareness, a new follower base, and a workforce that’s aware of the benefits of working at your company, and excited about it, thus reducing turnover.

After all, a happy workforce is a productive workforce, and both will help build a more stable, more positive, and more productive work environment.

It’s a win-win for all parties involved: the employees, the company management, and the new hires. Everybody benefits when Employee Advocacy is used to build awareness and recruit talent.