It’s a challenging time for charities. The demand is there – more so than ever thanks to the
cost-of-living crisis – but recruiters are struggling to fill positions. Could social recruiting be
the answer?

A recent report lays bare the current problems in charity recruitment. Not enough suitably
skilled applicants and not enough applicants generally are two biggies. Then there’s
competition from other – and doubtless better-paying – employers. Another major issue? In
the survey,47% of respondents said there was a lack of interest in the charity work needed .

There’s no quick fix, of course (if only life was that easy). But maybe recruiters could focus
some of their attention on trying to win over those ‘not interested’ folk.

In the World Economic Forum’s latest Future of Jobs Report  a key message was that
organisations should ‘better articulate business purpose and impact’ to attract talent. In
other words, nail their Employee Value Proposition  and show candidates why they’re a great company to work with.

So, might charities do more of that articulating? And might social media be the place to do
it?

How to recruit on social media

It’s certainly a good hunting ground for candidates. One recent study found that nearly 80%
of job seekers had used social media for job searching  in the past year, and well over 70% had turned to social media to research prospective employers.

Using social recruitment makes good business sense, no?

Here at HARBOUR we understand the importance of using social media for recruitment. Our
Applicant Tracking System comes with social share functionality that lets employees share a
vacancy link on their own social media platforms. (The link tracks the vacancy and the
referrer, by the way.)

What better way to engage potential hires than have current employees say, ‘Hey, look,
here’s a job opportunity at my place. You’re going to LOVE working here. I do!’

Using employees is one way to leverage social media for hiring – getting the charity’s CEO
involved is another. We love this article on how charity chief execs connect with their
audience on social media  The NSPCC’s Sir Peter Wanless tweeting about cricket and music? Gold!

Because that’s the thing about attracting those ‘not interested’ folk. They need more than
job adverts and news updates to convert them. Even an Employee Value Proposition will
only get an organisation so far if it’s not being used persuasively enough. What job seekers
want is to get up close and personal with a workplace, to see behind the scenes and to get
to know the people who work there. And social media is the perfect place to do it.
Of course, social recruiting isn’t a one-way street. A ‘post and go’ approach won’t engage
potential hires and keep them warm for when you need them. Social media experts agree
that regular, consistent engagement and interacting with followers is key to building
relationships.

Sure, it’s a long game and recruiters will need to have a clearly defined social media strategy
if they want to see results. With the charity industry pretty much in crisis, we think it’s
worth a try. But that’s just us. Maybe you’re not interested…

Hit us up for details of our social share functionality – we’re here