I recently had the privilege of speaking on a webinar for a select group of CPA firm recruiters about the use of social media in recruiting efforts. After the session, I knew this topic was of great interest and value.
Below you’ll find tips and techniques, along with best practice examples and job aids you can download today to help influence your firm’s social media recruiting efforts. If you’re interested in more, download the complimentary whitepaper.
Research
When creating the webinar information, I came across a couple social media surveys, particularly JobVite’s 2012 Social Recruiting Survey and LinkedIn’s Global Recruiting Trends. Each really helped to set the stage about global recruiting efforts over the past few years and how social media has influenced its methodology, including:
- Recruiters needed to find better ways to source passive candidates.
- Learning how to better utilize social and professional networks.
- Developing and upgrading the firm’s employment brand.
- Dealing with hiring increases, but flat budgets.
Additionally, the following statistics helped to drive home the understanding that recruiting and social media efforts were a global trend.
- LinkedIn is used more than 80 percent of the time for recruiting professionals, followed with Facebook at over 60 percent, and Twitter around 50 percent.
- 73 percent of recruiters have successfully hired a candidate that was identified through a social media network or site; of that, 89 percent were hired from a LinkedIn posting, 26 percent from Facebook, and 15 percent via Twitter.
- In 2012, 86 percent of recruiters were likely to look at candidate social media profiles; that’s an increase from 77 percent in 2011.
Tips and Techniques
There are many ways to leverage social media to source job candidates. Below are a few techniques that you may find helpful.
- General
- Establish yourself, as a recruiter, as a resource.
- Engage current employees in the social media effort, including referrals.
- Be a savvy searcher using search strings like “Site:linkedin.com CPA Phoenix, AZ.”
- LinkedIn
- Buy job credits, which are cheaper than getting a premium account, to post a position for 30 days.
- Sign up for Talent Advantage and leverage the resources.
- Post open positions on your status updates too.
- Encourage employees to list your firm’s name as their employer on LinkedIn profiles.
- Share firm news, awards, articles and more on the firm’s LinkedIn page.
- Cross-promote pages on all social platforms and website.
- Optimize the firm profile page with keywords, video, and testimonials.
- Facebook
- Use the Facebook Directory to search for people’s names, pages, groups, and applications.
- Post the job listing on the Facebook Marketplaces pages for free.
- Create a firm page where you can share information about the firm’s services, products, culture, job postings, photos, video, and more.
- Post ads, which are not free, with targeted audience options, including, location, keywords, age, country, state, etc.
- Twitter
- Run a keyword search using search.Twitter.com.
- Place hashtags, e.g., #hiring #CPA #EBPAuditor #NewYork, to help make postings stand out.
- Post 2-3 times per day on the firm’s Twitter account, including things like firm events, relevant news, blog postings, job postings, and more.
- Pinterest
- Highlight the firm’s culture.
- Post events and things about the town(s) the firm is located in, for example the town’s history.
- Share photos of what your services look like; for example, if that’s taxes, post a tax-related photo.
- Create a career board that highlights information about your firm’s culture.
- Post infographics about the accounting profession.
Best Practices – Case Studies Overview 
Four firms stood out to me when I was looking at LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest profiles. Those were Sikich, McGladrey, WithumSmith+Brown, and Berberich Trahan & Co., P.A. Each does it a little differently, but they also have many similarities.
- LinkedIn
- Firm overview, including high-profile keywords in the copy (use only 1-2 in the profile), job listings, and/or testimonials, benefits, videos, awards…
- Facebook
- Career apps that take a visitor to the job listings and an overview of the firm’s culture
- Photos of events or activities, such as volunteer efforts or award ceremonies
- Comments from staff
- Videos
- Twitter
- Keywords and hashtags (#) highlighting job posting content, for example #CPA #Hiring #EBPAuditor
- Pinterest
- Information about the firm’s location/town
- Photos of staff having fun/engaging
- Infographics about the profession
Listening
Remember, just pushing content is not the only thing you should be doing. Consider listening as well. Leverage tools like HootSuite to manage, schedule, and listen to conversations about your firm’s brand, professional topics of interest, trending topics, and most important news about the competition.
Being aware of what’s happening in the profession not only makes the firm look good, it also makes you, as the recruiter and often the first person potential candidates connect with, look good as well.
Job Aids
Two job aids that stood out for me were the recruiting checklist infographic and the Hiring Manager’s Guide.
The checklist covers how firms can leverage social media and how often they should post. It’s a nice visual guide to creating a more complete plan. Think of it as a roadmap. Download the printable version to keep on hand and/or share with your team.
The Hiring Managers Guide is a five-page checklist/playbook to help recruiters plan, disseminate, and execute their efforts.
Your Turn
If you oversee or participate in the recruiting efforts for your firm, what tips would you add to the list?
