When it comes to recruiting, we’ve come a long way from the days of newspaper “help wanted” ads. Today’s candidates take their searches to Internet job boards and social media, where it can be easy for a single employment posting to get lost in a sea of opportunities. If you want to attract the best talent, you need to reach them first. This is where the right recruitment hashtag strategy can really pay off.
Top Recruiting Hashtags
A hashtag is the pound sign (#) followed by a word or phrase. When you click on a hashtag, you can see all the posts on the platform that have included that verbiage. It’s an effective way to identify and group messages on a similar topic.
You can use hashtags in a creative and strategic way to recruit desired talent.
- Among the most popular general recruitment hashtags are: #job, #jobopening, #joblisting, #hiring, #nowhiring, #joinourteam, #applynow, #growwithus, #careers, #recruiting, #recruitment, #humanresources, #hr, #benefits and #hotjobs.
- To spotlight experience levels for various job listings, you might want to include #entrylevel, #midlevel or #csuite in your social media post.
- Industry-related hashtags can be very helpful; for instance, #tech, #retail, #hospitality, #healthcare, #business, #service, #teaching, #marketing or #media.
- Emphasize your positive company culture and values with hashtags like #communityinvolvement, #diversity, #greenjobs, #givingback, #inclusive, #employeestory and #employeetestimonial.
- Indicate the size of your business with #smallbiz, #bigbiz, #startup, #fortune100 or #fortune500.
- Focus on fun with #teambonding, #workplacefun, #companyevents or #officefun.
- Specify the location of a job with #city, #state, #region or #nickname; for instance, #windycity.
How to Get Started
Hashtags are essential to winning the social talent acquisition game. Use them to directly promote jobs, show candidates that you’re actively seeking talent, be part of relevant industry conversations, and show off your company culture.
Get started by having a social media presence in the first place. This means having active Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and other pages for your business. Each medium offers its own unique value and allows you to connect with a different target market.
A few more tips:
- Use hashtags that are already common. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Creativity and uniqueness are good, but using hashtags that no one else is following will defeat the purpose. Do some research before posting, for maximum visibility.
- Be careful. Make sure none of the hashtags you use are associated with anything controversial or potentially negative. You can do this by checking out some of the other posts using a particular tag. Never offend anyone or put them off.
- Be professional. Feel free to let some of your company personality show in your hashtags – and posts – but overall, the tone should be entirely professional.
- Less is more. Don’t bog your posts down with too many hashtags. Use well-researched and targeted tags to reach the right people.
Work With Leaders in Social Recruitment
Social recruiting is all about sharing the right content on platforms where your targeted candidate audiences spend their time. Social recruiting is one of the four pillars of recruitment marketing, along with career sites, recruitment advertising, and employer branding. To learn more about any or all of the pillars, contact the recruitment marketing team at Haley Marketing to talk to our team of specialists today!
