As AI makes recruitment cleaner, faster, and more efficient, social recruiting is a valuable chance to balance the scales and showcase the humans that make your organisation what it is. Here’s a guide to making the most of social media recruitment.
To state the obvious: social media isn’t a new thing and social recruiting isn’t a new concept. Many recruitment teams are using social media to some degree already.
But there’s a difference between a structured, coherent, strategic social media recruitment strategy and posting ad-hoc LinkedIn updates or sending the odd tweet.
Many organisations struggle to use social media for recruitment. Especially as most TA teams struggle with the magic combo of snowballing to-do lists and shrinking resources.
Here’s the guide you need to start embracing social recruitment. Keep reading for:
- The definition of social recruiting
- The benefits of using social media for recruitment
- A step-be-step guide to building a social recruiting strategy
- Real-world examples of brands doing social recruitment well
Let’s do this thing.
What is social recruiting?
Social recruiting means using social media platforms to attract, source, engage, and hire candidates. As a longer-term, brand-centric strategy, it’s often considered one of the major strands of moving from recruitment to talent acquisition.
Social recruitment isn’t just posting job ads on LinkedIn. It’s using the power of online communities, storytelling, and genuine conversation to connect with talent in authentic, human ways throughout the hiring funnel.
Social recruiting covers both attraction and sourcing. That is, both active recruiting (like sourcing candidates or advertising roles) and passive recruiting (building awareness and relationships long before someone applies).
That could mean:
- Sourcing candidates from social profiles
- Showcasing company culture on Instagram
- Running a live Q&A about careers on LinkedIn or TikTok
- Sourcing developers through GitHub or Discord or Reddit
- Encouraging employees to share their stories on X or Facebook
- Partnering with influencers to promote your campaign
Social media recruitment isn’t just a way to increase your reach. Social platforms also offer candidates a window into your organisation, giving raw, real insight into who you really are.
The idea is, this raw, real insight helps candidates self-select into (or out of) your organisation. So you get more, better candidates coming into your funnel; fewer drop-outs along the way; and longer-term employees who better align to your values. And fewer poor-fit hires who waste time and money on both sides.
(Although it does also mean you’ve got nowhere to hide. And it can take time. Authenticity can be vulnerable, and there’s no shortcut)
Let’s unpack those benefits more.
8 benefits of social media recruitment
Social recruitment isn’t a nice-to-have marketing approach. Done well, social recruiting can deliver tangible benefits across your most important metrics.
- Increase qualified applicant volume
- Decrease cost-per-hire
- Source tech-savvy candidates
- Improve DE&I outcomes
- Strengthen employer brand
- Enrich candidate profiles
- Spread risk
- Improve CX and accelerate TTH
1. Increase qualified applicant volume
Traditional job boards mainly capture the 30% of the workforce actively looking for a job. Social recruiting reaches the other 70%: passive candidates who might not be searching but are open to the right opportunity.
Like it or not, social media is a huge part of many people’s lives. It makes sense for the people finders to go where the people are, especially if you’re looking to build proactive talent pipelines.
And yes, with AI many teams are struggling with spiralling application volumes. But social recruiting doesn’t just increase application volume. It increases application volume from the people you want to apply. So your pipeline isn’t just deeper; it’s stronger too.
2. Decrease cost-per-hire
With social media platforms, organic engagement compounds. If you’re authentic and consistent, each post builds visibility and each followers adds reach. Once your social presence gains traction, you’ll need to rely less on expensive job boards and recruitment agencies.
Yes, social is a longer-term talent acquisition strategy than chucking up a job ad. And yes, it can feel like a black box. Why are some brands super successful and others not? But another way to view that is, there’s no real cheat code.
Show up authentically; keep showing up authentically, and your content will begin to resonate with the right people. Not because you threw budget at it but because of who you are. Earned traction, as an antidote to endless recruitment cost-cutting.
3. Source tech-savvy candidates
The UK is facing the most severe and fastest-growing tech skills shortage in more than 15 years, as AI careens through everything we thought we knew. Whether or not you’re hiring people with ‘engineer’ in their job title, smart organisations are looking for tech-savvy, AI-competent people across every function.
The harsh truth is, if you’re not even using the last decade’s social media channels to hire, there’s a good bet you’re going to struggle to find (or attract) cutting-edge talent that can help your organisation move forward.
Like it or not, your social media presence (or lack thereof) is a core part of your brand. If you want candidates who’re capable and confident with digital tools, there’s a good bet they’ll expect your team to be capable and confident with digital tools too.
One recent study found that 68% of Gen Z use social media to plan their careers, for example, If your organisation isn’t visible on social, you’re probably invisible. Full stop.
4. Improve DE&I outcomes
Social recruiting democratises access. When you diversify where and how you show up, you widen who you reach – and widen the net you hire from.
Social recruiting allows you to tap into new communities, amplify underrepresented voices, and challenge traditional networks that can reinforce bias. Targeted groups, interest-based ads, and focussed hashtags allow you to reach communities you might struggle to find elsewhere.
For fairer shortlists, stronger representation, and richer perspectives that empower innovation.
5. Strengthen employer brand – and build trust
In the age of AI, authenticity is one of the most important recruiting best practices. Everyone and his brother can “create content” now, which means there’s more demand for credible, authentic voices that cut through the noise.
That’s what social media recruitment can give you. Alignment. Values. Real people behind logos. Social recruiting helps you show your culture, not tell. Every interaction builds your reputation capital.
Consistent social recruiting transforms faceless vacancies into stories about people, purpose, and impact. Done right, that’s not just about metrics like follower growth and engagement. It’s the route to building a sustainable, long-term hiring function that attracts the people who’re genuinely most aligned to you. And the long-term bottom-line impact that comes with that.
Read more: 31 practical ways to improve quality of hire
6. Enrich candidate profiles
Most social media platforms have excellent built-in engagement analytics, so you can really get to grips with what lands with your audience. In that sense, social can be a mechanism for getting closer to your candidates, to really understand who they are, what motivates them, and which messaging resonates. Knowledge is power.
That’s not to say you’re aiming to be everything to everyone, mind. (Again: authenticity! Key!) But the better you understand who your people are, the better you can align and the more compelling your messaging – and the more you’ll earn attention from the top candidates everyone’s competing for.
7. Spread risk
The fewer sourcing channels you use, the bigger the risk if external channels make changes that hurt your application flow.
By diversifying your sourcing strategy, you decrease dependency which spreads risk. If one channel suddenly bans retailers, as a facetious example, your recruitment isn’t wiped out overnight because you’re also present on 111 other social media channels.
Hiring is too important to put all your eggs in a few third-party baskets.
8. Improve CX and accelerate time-to-hire
Social recruiting collapses the distance between recruiter and candidate. Conversations happen instantly (or near enough) in DMs or comments, not weeks later via email. That immediacy keeps momentum high and cuts drop-offs throughout the hiring process. And it accelerates time-to-hire, too.
In today’s world, people use social media for almost everything, not just entertainment. Shopping. Buying holidays. Finding answers to questions. Why would finding a job be any different?
Giving candidates the option of applying to jobs from the social channels they already use across their life isn’t just about extending reach. It’s about improving their experience and creating journeys that move as fast as they do.
How to build a social recruiting strategy
There’s a difference between throwing the odd team photo on social and using social in a strategic, consistent way.
And no, social recruiting doesn’t take enormous bandwidth or astronomical budget. But you do need to take a moment, pause, step back, and set the strategy before you move forwards, to protect against diluting (or worse, damaging) your brand.
Here’s a step-by-step map.
1. Define your goals and audience
Social recruiting isn’t about “being everywhere.” (Although, hey, great if you have the resources for that. But we’d make a pretty good bet that you don’t). Rather, it’s about being intentional.
Start by deciding why you’re doing it and what success means.
Are you trying to build awareness and show your culture?
Do you need to grow your pipeline for hard-to-fill roles?
Are you looking to reduce agency use for particular roles?
Do you want to fill your graduate intake earlier?
Are you aiming to reduce time-to-hire or improve diversity?
Or strengthen retention and referrals through storytelling?
Next, define who you need to reach.
Build data-driven talent personas: the roles you struggle to hire, where those people spend time online, what motivates them, and what language or visuals resonate.
Then decide how you’ll measure success.
There are heaps of social media metrics: pick a small handle of leading indicators correlating to your goals. How will you know if your social recruitment is working?
2. Choose the right platforms
Every platform has its own culture, energy, and audience. To get social recruiting right, you need to show up where your people actually are — and speak the language they use there.
Here’s a cheat sheet for some of the major platforms (although don’t be afraid to look outside this too, especially if you’re targeting more niche talent).
LinkedIn
Best for: Professional communities; career stories; thought leadership
Style: Business-orientated.
Suggestions: Great white collar roles. Encourage leaders to post directly. Share employee stories, purpose-led posts, and short video snippets.
Instagram
Best for: Company culture; behind-the-scenes, visual storytelling
Style: Casual, visual, human.
Suggestions: Use Reels and Stories to show life at your organisation. Feature team wins, community projects, and your values in action. Ideal for brand visibility and early-career audiences.
Tiktok
Best for: Gen Z; creative and frontline talent.
Style: Short, bold, personality-led
Suggestions: Authenticity beats polish here. Quick “day in the life” videos, myth-busting clips, and humour drive engagement. Partner with employees to co-create.
Facebook
Best for: Local hiring; community engagement; sector groups.
Style: Friendly, conversational
Suggestions: Still powerful for volume or regional hiring. Good for care, retail, hospitality. Join local groups and use event pages to find your people.
X (Twitter)
Best for: Employer voice; thought leadership; fast updates
Style: Real-time, opinion-driven
Suggestions: Ideal for live events, campaign launches or reactive commentary. Keep it concise, curious, and human – not too corporate.
Niche communities (GitHub, Reddit, Discord, Dribbble, Stack Overflow)
Best for: Hard-to-reach or specialist skillsets
Style: Authentic, expertise-driven.
Suggestions: Contribute value first. Share insights, answer questions, and join conversations before posting jobs. These audiences smell “sales” a mile away.
Don’t spread yourself too thin, though. Pick a handful of core platforms where your target audiences hang out, then show up consistently. You can scale once you’ve built momentum but don’t overwhelm yourself early. Consistency is better than coverage here. It’s not the size of your audience, it’s how you use it 😉
3. Define your processes
How will social recruiting actually happen? If you don’t codify exactly who’s doing what, when, there’s a good bet nothing will happen. Or, worse, you risk losing control over your social presence altogether.
- Who creates content?
- Can anyone post? Recruiters? Managers? Employees?
- How often will you post?
- Who needs to approve content?
- Which content needs approving?
- Who will reply to comments and DMs?
- How fast are you aiming to reply to comments and DMs?
4. Define communications guidelines (if you don’t have them)
Fear of negative exposure is one of the biggest concerns organisations have about embracing social media recruitment. Posting job adverts feels safe, because they’re one-way. No unhappy candidates leaving comments or tagging recruiters. No misjudged posts from well-meaning hiring managers.
Brand guidelines are your guardrail. And it needn’t be a huge project, if you’re starting from scratch. Even some simple guidelines about your basic narrative identity can go a long way. (Like: we’re positive and uplifting; we never criticise our customers and we never talk about politics).
Preparing short boilerplate responses to handle negative comments can also help build confidence as you embark into the world of social.
5. Create authentic content that tells your story
Forget over-polished corporate videos. The best social recruiting content feels real, to give prospective candidates a genuine feel for your organisation.
Try mixing up your content with:
- Employee stories: “A day in the life” videos and short written spotlights
- Career progression posts: Show how people move through and across
- Behind-the-scenes: glimpses behind the curtain of work-life with you
- Purpose-driven posts: why your work matters; how you make a difference
- Job opportunities: using clear, inclusive language and transparent pay
- Interactive content: polls, Q&As, live sessions, or employee takeovers
6. Activate your team
Your people are your biggest asset. Empower your hiring managers and employees to share genuine experiences, amplify your content, and engage direct with candidates. For example, encourage them to:
- Share company posts with personal commentary
- Post their own authentic content about their work
- Engage with candidates’ comments and messages
Make it easy for them with templates, brand guidelines, and a clear social policy — but don’t script authenticity out of existence. You lose some control, yes, but what you lose in control you gain in authenticity. And ultimately, people follow people. Not logos.
7. Use data to optimise
Social recruiting isn’t guesswork. Measure, test, and iterate over time, so you can constantly improve outcomes – and prove your approach is working. Come back to those leading indicators you outlined. Are you doing what you thought you could? If not, why not? If yes, can you double-down?
4 examples of brands using social recruitment well
Looking for some inspo? Here are some organisations we’re seeing nail social recruiting ‘in the wild’.
1. British Airways
Mohammad Tahler is creating some exceptional social recruiting content for British Airways, regularly posting short clips that get hundreds of thousands of organic views in days. Like this 30-second video on aviation cargo that drove 110+ hours of YouTube watch time…
2. Marriott International
Marriott International’s Facebook career page has more than 1.3 million followers, and they consistently see high positive engagement with their posts. They’re a great example of using their presence to showcase company culture, rather than constantly promoting roles.
3. Netflix
Netflix’ Instagram careers page, We Are Netflix, has nearly 57,000 followers and regularly see hundreds and thousands of likes on their content. They share a vibrant mixture of candid conversations, company milestones, employee press, landmark hires, culture-based content, employee interviews, and even memes.
4. Richmond and Wandsworth Council
Richmond and Wandsworth Council are proof you don’t need to be a huge international B2C private sector business to nail social media recruitment. The council used social media to recruit for one of their hardest-to-hire roles, developing this successful recruitment video featuring young people from across Wandsworth. t 4.3K views – not bad!
Social recruiting puts the human into hiring
As AI continues to race across the recruiting industry – with many benefits, of course – there’s more need than ever to balance the scales with real, human connection.
Because social recruiting isn’t about chasing likes (as great as they are!) It’s about connection, conversation and community. At its core, social recruiting helps you bring the human back into hiring. Behind every post is a person; behind every interaction, the start of a relationship.
And with the right mix of purpose, process, and platform, you can turn your social recruiting channels into a magnet for the talent that truly fits.
Tribepad is the trusted tech ally to smart(er) recruiters everywhere. Combining ATS, CRM, Video Interviewing, and Onboarding, our talent acquisition software is a springboard for fairer, faster, better recruitment for everyone.
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