Would you be shocked if I tell you that you can actually source candidates through Instagram? You must have already recruited through LinkedIn and Facebook but Instagram which is one of the least professional Social media platforms?!!
Well, to be honest, it one of the best platforms for sourcing quality tech talent who can bring freshness and enthusiasm back on the work floor. This is precisely because Instagram has almost above 400 million active users at present and it is more popular among millennials where most Instagram users fall under the age group of 16-35. This wide use of Instagram makes it the perfect medium for attracting quality tech talent who are mostly young and energetic. But in order to source only the best you need proper knowledge about the tactics on this social media networking site in order to source your potential tech talent. So, today in this article I will elaborate on various tactics on how to source your potential tech talent.
As you already are aware of, there is no proper information of users on Instagram and the social platform. So sourcing on Instagram would involve a lot of candidates attracting strategies. There are some steps that you can take to source new candidates:
First and foremost, you need to make an Instagram Account for your company. You can sign in using your email address and username. There is also a provision for signing in using Facebook. In the beginning, you have to sign in using your personal profile if you want to have followers instantly. Then in order to turn it into a business account, you have to link your Instagram account with your company Facebook profile. You will see a profile icon at the right end of the screen which will lead you to the “Settings” menu. You will get an option “Switch to business profile”. After clicking wait till you see a prompt action suggesting you connect to Facebook. After that click on “Choose a page” and then set it to “Public” and click on “OK”. After this Instagram will ask for permission to manage your Facebook pages. You can check the list and select the right page and then click on “Next”. Voila! Your Instagram Business Account is ready for sourcing new potential tech talent.
Instagram is all about being fashionable, trendy and unique. So don’t be under the impression that your business profile does not need to look fashionable and attractive. Because sourcing on Instagram as discussed earlier deals a lot with attracting candidates. You need to provide your profile with a distinctive outlook that would appeal to the young tech talent that you are targeting. You need a funky and well-described bio that would include some humor cause these days millennials look for a cool work environment and a cool outlook would largely appeal to them. With the help of visuals, you can engage tech talent in your bio and allow people to follow you and follow as many as possible. Make sure you keep these followers techniques only to relevant audiences as you won’t want irrelevant profiles getting attached to your business profile. The best policy is following and sending follow up requests to various other tech business accounts on Instagram. This way you will get to be in touch with tech talent working on these companies as well.
Here, you need to keep posting pictures with popular hashtags that depict the cool work culture of your company. The images such as official banquets, parties, attending invitations, attending meetings, some office images with employees would be a great way to tell the world how cool your work environment is. Employee birthday celebrations and fun frolic within the office environment would be a better way to initiate a positive response from your potential tech talent. The company should look more employee-oriented on your posts. Post more smiling faces, rather than focussing on posting more about the company’s achievements. Does your company do charity or does it hold official sports tournaments? Great! post pictures of them as well. Cause you always have to keep in mind that the targeted audience is mostly millennials and they are always on the look-out for more than just salary and perks.
The Instagram search engine takes in popular hashtags and gives you profiles based on those hashtags. For example, you can type tech recruitment where you will come across various companies related to tech recruitment. You can send them follow-up or follow requests. Some companies that you start following may post some announcements and other images related to their company’s employer brand. By checking on the likes and comments you can poach their tech talent even some working employees and this is totally legal. There you can get into the candidate profiles and send them a follow-up or follow request. Most professional profiles will be easier for you to see as you can check their content even without following them up. This way you will be able to distinguish between the professional and personal profiles and this can help you in screening different candidates. If the tech talent is interested in your business profile because you will get a notification if s/he or she has accepted your follow-up request, or has let you follow him/her. You won’t be notified if the person has declined your request and this does serve as a disadvantage. That is because you won’t understand if the person has kept you on hold or has actually turned down your request. So visit as many profiles possible but since having Followers on Instagram is trendy, even though the candidates aren’t interested, you will hardly find someone who does not wish to be followed. So, I would suggest you send Follow requests more than Follow-Up requests as to when you start following them they can easily visit your profile. If you don’t find them qualified enough, later on, you can always unfollow or block profiles.
Just brush up and add some new techniques to stylize your Instagram account as you can be as formal as possible on other social media platforms but here sometimes you need to be informal as well. Also, as the number of followers for your account increases the more it increases your company’s employer brand. Not only can you source through Instagram, you can actually encourage more tech talent to follow you up. The more followers you have there will be more candidates willing to apply for any opening as soon as you post the announcements. I hope the article has been helpful. If you have any inquiries and suggestions, do let us know in the comment section below.
