Employer Branding — Part 7:
Addressing Skilled Personnel through Social Recruiting

Digi­tal. Cross-linked. Online: With­in the peri­od of only a few years, social media have become a crit­i­cal factor in virtu­al­ly all areas of life. In the search for new employ­ees, too, they have long taken on an essen­tial role. Enter­pris­es can reach a vast number of poten­tial candi­dates at reason­able cost there. At the same time, ’social recruit­ing’ is one of the most effec­tive tools for Employ­er Brand­ing – and ties in with our latest Expert Tip in this series, Employ­er Brand­ing 6: Your Staff, Your Ambassadorss. 

The increas­ing scarce­ty of skilled person­nel is taking its toll on the real estate sector as well. Projects have to be put on hold or even canceled. Accord­ing to a recent study, 55 % of the real estate busi­ness­es are already look­ing at this as an invest­ment imped­i­ment and, conse­quent­ly, as an imped­i­ment to their entire future development.

The good news is that you can be one step ahead with consis­tent Employ­er Brand­ing. Social media with their formats, such as pictures, videos, podcasts, etc, offer many possi­bil­i­ties to let your employ­er brand come to live. This even applies to your job offers – be it as a dedi­cat­ed land­ing page, your website, or as a post on Face­book, LinkedIn, Insta­gram, YouTube, or TikTok.

A Sustain­able Strat­e­gy With a Recur­rent Theme

The supreme disci­pline of social recruit­ing built around sustain­abil­i­ty, howev­er, is a long-distance run. For not every poten­tial candi­date is current­ly look­ing for a new job. Some are happy with their current posi­tion and quite simply curi­ous to see know options. Some have a career plan and are only will­ing to change at a later point in time. Junior jobseek­ers and job chang­ers often look for orien­ta­tion. In all these cases, social media are the perfect tool for first contact and engage­ment. The employ­er brand serves as your recur­rent theme in the process:

• It helps you to create a consis­tent strat­e­gy: Which topics go well with your compa­ny as an employ­er? What are your key messages?
• Imple­me­na­tion governs the edito­r­i­al plan. This is how you deter­mine which media will cover which topics and stories, and how frequent­ly. Do not get over­whelmed in the process: It is better to occa­sion­al­ly post some­thing substan­tial than to let off the prover­bial fire­works, then allow months and months with­out any news.
• Follow the gold­en rule ’Show, don’t tell’ when putting things into prac­tice: If, for instance, your topic is diver­si­ty as an element of your employ­er brand, you do not have to repeat this again and again. In this case, it is much more compelling to docu­ment a project as a combined video and text post, prefer­ably one in which your audi­ence can witness your diverse team at work and listen to the team members report­ing on their first-hand experience.

Of course, special corpo­rate events or bene­fits, such as your own child care facil­i­ty, always make for popu­lar media content. Such grat­i­fy­ing extras will easi­ly whet your appli­cants’ appetite for work­ing for you. Do make sure, though, to not fall short of the key purpose of your Employ­er Brand­ing: Show the actu­al work­ing envi­ron­ment. Speak open­ly about chal­lenges and obsta­cles that are part and parcel of your type of work, of your indus­try – and, obivous­ly, about how you, as the employ­er, help your staff to over­come those obstacles.

Social Recruit­ing – 3 Hands-on Tips

• Employ­ees are the cred­i­ble advo­cates. Short, authen­tic inter­views or state­ments on work­ing in your enter­prise or on a vacant posi­tion will convince future colleagues much more than any stan­dard self-praise phrase. Why not have your staff inter­act with candi­dates direct­ly? Whoev­er wants to voice their nega­tive opin­ion, will do so on kununu or Glass­door anyway.
• Place so-called social symbols of the most common plat­forms on your website’s Career section. This way, it will be easi­er for your staff or other users to share inter­est­ing job open­ings and send them to their friends.
• Always be authen­tic: Small mishaps, present­ed in a humor­ous way, bright­en up your Employ­er Brand­ing and leave a much more honest impres­sion than a glossy and perfect corpo­rate portrait will ever do.

¹ Human Resources Moni­tor Immo­bilien­wirtschaft 2022 of EBZ Busi­ness School Bochum, Octo­ber 2021