Social Media for Recruiting: Show the People Who Work Here Before They Apply

What tends to go wrong with recruiting social media

A common pattern is posting only when you open a position, and going quiet when it closes. When someone considering applying visits and the last post is a job notice from six months ago, they can't tell whether you're still hiring or whether the company is doing well.

Next, the HR person ends up carrying everything alone. Interviewing employees, taking photos and writing text takes effort. Employee cooperation lasts only at the start, and it gets harder to ask.

Then business posts and recruiting posts get mixed. When product news for customers and workplace stories for job seekers sit in the same account, each only half resonates with either audience.

What to post

What people considering an application want to know is who they would work with, and what a day would be like.

What makes someone think "I want to work with these people" is the words of the people who work there, more than explanations of a system. Carefully presenting one employee's story is read more than rearranging the terms of a job posting.

How to run it in SNS TOWN

Keep recruiting as its own brand

If you want recruiting separate from your business accounts, create a company or brand for recruiting and connect a recruiting account (Separate companies and brands). It can have its own company profile, so you can set the audience as "job seekers" and the tone as "the way a senior colleague talks to a junior". The switcher at the top of the screen takes you between business and recruiting.

Build up employee stories in Key messages

Write each story you hear from employees as one entry in Key messages. A short note is enough, such as "Ms. Tanaka, 3rd year: previously in food service; spent her first month going around sites with a senior". The AI reads such notes to write drafts, so HR can concentrate on listening and leaving notes.

Approve before publishing

Post only what the employee has said may be shared, in their stories and photos. If you run the post cycle in draft mode and make the head of HR the approver, nothing unchecked goes out (How approval works). If needed, show the draft to the employee featured before approving.

Use short links for the job page

Write the opening announcement by hand and make the link to the job page a short link. The number of clicks per post lets you compare which stories sent the most people to the job page.

When recruiting ends, stop scheduled posts and delete

When you close recruiting, cancel scheduled recruiting posts and delete posts you already published from the post's page (Instagram posts can't be deleted through its API, so delete those in the Instagram app). If you tag recruiting posts, they are easier to find in the list (Internal notes and tags on posts).

Things to watch out for

Keep job information accurate and current

Under the October 2022 amendment to Japan's Employment Security Act, companies that recruit are also required to show job information accurately. They must not give false or misleading information, and the following are listed as ways to keep job information accurate and up to date (Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare: information on the 2022 amendment to the Employment Security Act).

For how far your own social media posts are covered by this obligation, check the Ministry's Q&A or your Labour Bureau. Whether or not they are covered, keeping opening posts accurate and current builds trust with applicants. Pay and working hours change easily, so leave them out of posts where you can and have people check on the job page. That way old terms don't linger on social media.

Employees' photos and names

Get the person's consent before showing an employee's face or name. Decide in advance how to treat posts about employees who have left.

Frequently asked questions