It never ceases to amaze me how hard some recruiters make it for job seekers. If we are investing energy into social recruiting why do we then undermine this good work?

Why do companies hide the links to career opportunities? Why do we create convoluted processes, which take extreme determination to complete? Truly, does this tell us anymore than their resume?

Why are we making social recruiting so difficult?

You’ll agree, I’m sure, that we humans like ease.

We love a life hack. We love quick wins. We love a shortcut that delivers the same high quality output. We love our mobiles and devices and the ease of quick communication.

So why do we forget this when we take job seekers from social to our website?

As I was putting my thoughts together, this article, How to create the ultimate lead capture page, popped up on Twitter. This line really resonated: “How many times have you knowingly clicked on an ad, were redirected to the capture page, and immediately thought to yourself… WTF is this?”

Why don’t we take the same care with snaring job seekers as we do potential clients?

People are the life blood of your company so bringing in great new people should be easier.

1. Know where you are sending them

People are click-averse. We want to get from A to B within as few a clicks as possible. So wherever and however you share your job out on the many social channels, make it easy for job seekers to apply.

Include a link that takes them to exactly where they need to be. Not to your Home page. Not to a list of all your jobs. To exactly where they need to be.

And test the process, how many clicks was it? Reduce it.

2. Make it mobile friendly

Social job seekers use their mobiles to hunt, often when they are in transit. Can they apply to your job with ease?

1. Can they read your job on a mobile or device without squinting, expanding, and generally free of the urge to give up/throw the phone against the wall?
2. Can they attach their CV? Have you added attach from Dropbox or similar, or can they apply by LinkedIn or another service?

You’ll find lots more about mobile recruiting here and if you’re still hoping it will go away… it won’t be.

3. Capture details of interested job seekers

I appreciate suggesting something old school in a post about social recruiting is odd but sometimes email is best, especially if they don’t suit your current vacancies. LinkedIn may have you convinced that they’re the answer for passive candidate engagement or you may be using a Facebook page but these alone are simply not enough.

LinkedIn resets everyone’s news feed to Top every single day. This means users only see “popular” organic posts… but how can a post become popular when nobody sees it in the first place? And then we’re also making the assumption that interested parties will log in. 

Facebook has 802 million daily active users, so they do have to modify what you see or your feed would be insanely fast. To do this they stop showing you updates from people and pages you stop engaging with. So if your fans don’t continue to like updates, they stop seeing them. (Tip: ask fans to click the drop down next to Liked and select Get Notifications)

So let job seekers register their interest in your company while they are on your careers site. Use the same email provider as you are for your marketing, and keep them in the loop the old fashioned way. It’s easy and cost-effective.

Test it, make it easier.

Is your company remembering our natural love of ease or is your job application process way too complicated and hampering your social recruiting efforts?