Living in my social recruiting bubble I often forget that though being open and engaging on social media is easy for me, it’s not necessarily so for others. If you’re starting out you may be fearful to share too much or if you’ve been using social media for a while, you may not have noticed the emergence of the socially savvy job seeker.

So watch out for these 7 social mistakes:

1. You Think Social Inspection Is One Way

Facebook Graph search makes it easy to find Recruiters and HR everywhere.

And though I personally think how you behave on Facebook is your own business, when you’re hiring you may want to ensure that your profile and banner photos show you in the best light. Especially with the festive season upon us!

Do these reflect the fun nature of the employees at the company or could they be a blemish on the reputation of a conservative firm?

It’s all open to interpretation. Right or wrong.

In Facebook, head top right to the padlock and click on ‘who can see my stuff’ and:

1. Ensure your future posts are set to Friends
2. Use the Activity log to untag yourself from anything unsavoury!
3. Click View As to check for stray posts you may not want the world to see.

And also watch out when commenting, is your friend’s update public or private? Who will see it?

It’s a 2 way street.

2. Your Professional Social Profiles Are Bare

At the click of a finger, people will check you out before they reply or apply, so fill out your professional profiles to encourage engagement.

Add an approachable profile picture, add some interest with a statement headline, include information about your company in the summary, and inject colour with files and videos. It’s all free!

What could your marketers give you to use? Add it in.

3. You’re Still Ignoring Glassdoor

Is your reputation like this?

Job seekers are turning up to interviews holding copies of Glassdoor reviews; are your hiring managers prepared?

Please go and check out your company and address any issues you find. 

4. You Ignore Social Job Seekers

As I mentioned in Are We Still Yelling At Passive Talent & Expecting Results? if you are going to use social media for hiring be social!

Engage properly. Reply. Do this:

Don’t make this social mistake:

5. You’re Still Sending Blanket Messages

Just because LinkedIn’s keyword search delivers you a list of people does not mean it’s delivered you the right list of people!

For example, I received this from someone who had clearly used ‘recruitment consultant’ in their search and who had most definitely not looked at my profile.

As someone who delivers training on recruiting on LinkedIn (and much more) and hasn’t been an agent recruiter in many years, this didn’t make a great impression. Amusing though it was 🙂

Check every profile and include a personal touch that shows you care.

6. You Don’t Ask Your Business Where They Hangout

Want developers? Ask them where they speak geek online. Ask your designers where they showcase their portfolios.
Need knitters? Yep, they have their own social network too. 

You may find out that you’re hunting on the wrong network. Speak to your business and discover whole new communities to tap into.

7. You Are Ignoring That Social & Mobile Are Partners

As I mentioned in my last post, 703 million Facebook users check in on their mobile devices each day. 80% of the 284 million active Twitter users use mobile. 47% of visits to LinkedIn were via a mobile. You get the idea…

If you are going to do social, you can’t ignore mobile. What social mistakes would you add?