Are You Utilising Google+ To Find Great Candidates?

If I asked you to think of social media platforms, chances are Google+ wasn’t one of the ones you thought of. As a recruiter, you will make daily use of Linkedin, and probably use Twitter and Facebook, even if only socially. So where does Google+ fit in? It doesn’t if you ask most recruiters, but if you take the time to engage with the platform then you will begin to realise the awesome power that Google+ has to offer you.

Here are four reasons why you need to start engaging with Google+

It’s more popular than you think

Google+ has over have a billion users across the globe, making it the world’s second biggest social network after Facebook. There are no specific figures for the UK, but the global figures would suggest there are at least several million users in the UK.

Search Engine Optimisation

If you’re a director of a recruitment company then you will understand the importance of being as high up as you can on the first page of Google for your search terms. With 75% of internet searchers never going past page one, if you’re not there, then clients aren’t going to find you are they? Google+ enables you to have a company page which will increase your SEO value, but more importantly it will also enable you to show up in its ‘local’ listings which you see when searching for terms with a geographical location, e.g. ‘HR jobs in London’.

Curate a targeted audience

Modern recruiters should be moving away from candidate lists and building talent communities. Google+ is perfect for this. Growing one on Google+ may take hard work, but it is simple to do. Use Google’s powerful search to find relevant users for you to follow and you will find more often than not that they will follow you back. You can then place them in one of your ‘Circles’.  Then you can begin to engage with your community by sharing relevant content with them. The best thing about Circles is that you can have as many as you like. That means an IT recruiter for example could have Circles for PHP programmers, Java programmers and system administrators, enabling very specific and relevant engagement with these groups.

Hangouts

A good way of differentiating yourself as a recruiter is to become an influencer in your chosen field, and there’s no better way of doing that than sharing your knowledge with them. Have you thought about giving live video lectures?  With Google+’s Hangouts feature, you can chat directly with 10 other users and have an unlimited amount of people watching live. Even if you don’t want to present live on Hangouts, it’s a powerful tool just to use within your company, especially if you want to talk live with other branches.

Whether you’re a fan of social media or not, give Google+ a go and you should begin to realise that it’s a powerful tool if used correctly. And with only 18% of recruiters active on network, it could get you ahead of the game.

Source: http://web.jobvite.com/rs/jobvite/images/2014%20Job%20Seeker%20Survey.pdf

Till next time,

Cheryl