5 Ways TikTok Can Enhance Your Recruitment Strategy
At first glance, TikTok may appear to be a platform for aimless scrolling and sharing funny clips. But a closer look at the platform reveals a type of creativity that you rarely see on other social media.
In fact, a TikTok video can tell you more about an employee than any LinkedIn resume. And vice-versa, your company’s profile can showcase more information than any conventional hiring ad or social media post. That’s why so many companies have jumped on the TikTok bandwagon.
In this article, we’ll explain why you should incorporate TikTok into your recruitment strategy. We’ll also discuss five ways this platform can enhance your recruiting efforts, providing real-world examples and actionable lessons you can use.
Why Use TikTok for Your Recruitment Strategy?
TikTok statistics prove that most of your employees are probably already consuming content on the app. The average monthly time spent on TikTok worldwide is 19.6 hours, and they have a user base of over 136 million users in the US alone.
While the app’s audience trends on the younger side, 67.8% of TikTok users are 18-34. This age bracket makes up the largest percentage of people looking for jobs. To back this up, Google Trends shows that TikTok engagement for job-related content and queries are on the rise. For example, TikTok queries for “HR professionals” has increased by 400%.
TikTok has also proven to have specific marketing and employer branding benefits like increased visibility and engagement, user-generated content, and the ability to authentically convey brand values.
Those benefits are essential for your recruiting strategy. Building employer-brand awareness and outlining your work culture allows you to:
- Differentiate yourself from the competition
- Get more high-quality employees that fit your work environment in the long-term
- Get more attention on your job posts
5 Ways to Leverage TikTok for Recruiting New Employees
Now that we’ve gone through why you should be incorporating TikTok in your recruitment strategy, let’s look at how you can actually implement this tactic:
1. Tap into Hashtags
One way TikTok can help you in your recruiting strategy is through hashtags. Using hashtags allows you to:
- Organize your search efforts
- Find the best candidates
- Share the right hiring posts
Here’s one example: Virgin Atlantic was hiring new cabin crew members and decided to make a TikTok about it.
The first thing you notice is the fun dance and laid-back atmosphere created by the cabin crew members. That’s a nod to the company culture – but we’ll discuss that tactic later.
For now, look at the hashtags:
@virginatlantic Looking for your next adventure? We have some exciting news
#virginatlantic #cabincrew #hiring #travel
When someone is interested in a job as a cabin crew member, they will almost certainly look for the hashtags #cabincrew and #hiring. If they’re also hunting for a job at Virgin Atlantic, they will also search by the #virginatlantic hashtag.
So, they made it as easy as possible for their target audience to find this video.
Here’s a neat catch, though:
The hashtag #travel isn’t there randomly. This generic hashtag increases the video’s visibility. As more and more TikTok users view the clip, it has a better chance of reaching the FYP (For You Page). Therefore:
- More people will view their hiring post
- More people will share, like, and comment
- The large public will be more aware of the company culture and thus more likely to fly with this airline
Main Takeaways:
- Use specific and intuitive hashtags for your hiring ad. These may include #hiring, #careeropportunities, #jobsearch, and your company’s hashtag.
- Use at least one generic hashtag to increase awareness and your chances of reaching the FYP. This could include your niche (e.g., #nursesofTikTok if you’re a clinic or #teachersofTikTok if you’re a school) and #FYP.
2. Leverage Your Recruiters
One of the unique pulls of TikTok is that the content is more relatable and less curated than other platforms. Having your HR and talent team create content is a longer-term and more time-consuming strategy, but it does pay off.
They can speak to topics such as:
- Work environment
- Brand values
- Office structure
- Work culture
- Expectations
- General HR tips
This strategy has two major benefits:
- Great content with little effort: Compared to content that requires a lot of editing or production like podcasts or YouTube videos, TikTok clips can be made by anyone. Features like auto-captioning make it easy to turn around quality posts quickly.
- Positive brand associate: Reaching a wider audience means more people will learn about your product, company culture, and future job openings.
Here’s a great example: Attention Seeker is a personal branding agency in New Zealand that used TikTok to promote its hiring needs.
@theattnseeker Replying to @with_navya stitch/duet/come to the office and beg on your hands and knees. whatever you feel like. The Attention Seeker is hiring #jobad #officetok #officehumor #personalbrandingagency
♬ Monkeys Spinning Monkeys – Kevin MacLeod & Kevin The Monkey
This clip breaks all boundaries of traditional hiring promotions.
- It’s built as a reply: This video is a stitch/ duet with @with_navya, thus raising more awareness and views.
- It’s funny: The TikTok clip is an informal hiring ad for a part-time video editor, outlining the company culture and enticing more applications.
- It snowballs awareness: People sending their applications must stitch/duet this video, thus creating more views and TikTok content. The result is more people view the original TikTok because the platform’s algorithms will deem it relevant, thus pushing it higher on people’s feeds.
Main Takeaways:
- Get your HR and talent teams involved in your long-term recruitment strategy. On top of being subject-matter experts, they know who your ideal candidates are.
- Alternatively, partner with a firm that has already built a reputation on TikTok. There are many creative agencies that now specialize in helping brands cultivate a presence on TikTok.
3. Use TikTok Influencers
Before you skip this section (we’re looking at you, B2B folks!), know that influencer marketing looks much different on TikTok than it does on other social platforms. When it comes to brand marketing, an influencer might look like:
- An expert in your industry who can vouch for your company or product: Best for partnering on brand awareness
- An HR or talent influencer: Best for partnering on your recruiting process
- An employee: Best for creating trustworthy hiring posts and cultivating a positive association for company culture
TikTok influencers primarily work in two ways:
- Long-term: You can partner with creators to increase your brand awareness and drive engagement. This will help to grow your audience and expose your brand to potential employees and customers.
- Short-term: If you’re looking to have an immediate impact, you can partner with creators on a specific video or campaign. For example, working with them to create and promote one hiring video or one product tutorial.
It’s essential to pick the right people, though.
- Larger influencers have more followers and can disseminate your hiring message faster, which means your brand will get more exposure, more views, and more engagement. However, more views don’t necessarily equal better results. It’s important to do an analysis of the influencer’s followers to ensure they are your target audience.
- Micro- and nano-influencers have fewer followers. They are often more engaged with their audience because they can get to know these people personally. As a result, they’re more convincing and can have actual discussions on your brand or job post with interested people.
You can choose different influencers to partner with according to your marketing goals and current recruiting needs. Most of them provide a contact email in their profile for brands to easily get in touch. Don’t forget to use a DMARC record generator to check whether your messages are authenticated and can avoid phishing.
Side note: Use a fake follower checker to ensure the creators you’re shortlisting are legit and a TikTok engagement rate calculator to ensure their audience listens to them.
Veronica from @peopleculturecollective is a great example of this. She is an HR expert that uses her platform to share a slew of helpful and hilarious content and has collaborated with other creators in the HR space like the People Problems podcast.
@peopleculturecollective #TechRecruiting is not for the fainthearted @hiredinc
In this post, Veronica partnered with hired.com on a Tech Recruiting campaign. People following her profile are more likely to apply or look into companies that she partners with because she’s established a strong level of trust and expertise.
Main Takeaways:
- Working with a trustworthy influencer can increase the visibility of your recruitment posts and help you reach a larger candidate pool.
- Think outside the box of traditional hiring ads. Influencers can help you create engaging and creative content that appeals to your target demographic and resonates with your brand values.
- End with a strong CTA so interested people will know how to send their applications.
4. Showcase Your Company Culture
Another way TikTok can enhance your recruitment strategy is by helping you showcase your company culture. This is a crucial aspect of attracting top talent, as great company culture can differentiate your brand from the competition.
Unreserved is a real estate company with a funny and relatable description on TikTok, “My boss told me to make this page go viral.”
Their posts certainly fit this narrative.
Here is an example showcasing a manager at Unreserved fooling around in the office:
@gounreserved Time to bring out the big guns #managergoals #meetmyboss #officehumor #attheoffice #officevibes
This post shows future potential employees that they’ll be working in a laid-back environment where they won’t be afraid to bring up issues with leadership.
It resulted in an array of funny comments that kept the momentum and popularity going.
Notice the effective hashtags used for this post: #managergoals #meetmyboss #officehumor #attheoffice #officevibes.
You can also present your whole team like Handcrew is doing, instead of zooming in on one team member.
@handcrewgear Meet the Handcrew team! #officetok #officehumor #funny #officelife #socialmedia #coworkers #corperatetiktok #fyp
This clip associates each Handcrew team employee with a funny archetype, like The Fashionista or The Snacker. Therefore, potential employees get a sense of office culture.
Again, notice the array of hashtags used in this video:
- Keywords such as #officetok and #corperatetiktok define the niche.
- #funny and #officehumor define the genre for this TikTok video.
- #fyp aims to build awareness and send this post to the For You Page.
Main Takeaways:
- Using TikTok to showcase your office culture can help attract potential candidates and build a positive brand association.
- Featuring real employees creates a sense of authenticity and engagement.
5. Consider Advertising on TikTok
TikTok is starting to rival Facebook and Instagram as the most popular social media platform to spend advertising dollars. It cost more, but advertising your hiring needs on TikTok will bring increased awareness and help you reach more qualified candidates.
There are different ad formats to choose from depending on your hiring strategy, audience, and budget:
- In-feed ads: Best for mobile and engaged TikTok audiences
- Top-view ads: Best for brand exposure and catching people’s attention because they fill the entire screen
- Video ads: Best for storytelling
- Spark ads: Best for organic engagement and building authenticity because they boost your existing TikTok posts
- Carousel ads: Best for capturing attention and eliciting action because they’re interactive
Many companies are taking advantage of this feature, but one example is this ad created by Spin Brands:
@spinbrands
*SPIN IS HIRING!!*
Head to our website to apply!
The ad starts with an enticing and catchy question: “Are you looking for your dream job as a content creator?”
- It features real sequences from real people’s work lives
- Presents the benefits of working for this company
- Includes a brief list of job responsibilities
- Ends with a CTA with clear directions on where to send their job-winning resumes.
Main Takeaways:
- Catchy ads on TikTok can help you increase the visibility and candidate pool for your open positions, as long as you choose the right format for your audience.
- Keep it short. Present the most important benefits of getting a job at your company and the major responsibilities.
- End with a clear CTA so there is no question as to how/where they can apply.
Start Your TikTok Recruitment Strategy
When used thoughtfully, TikTok is an excellent channel to incorporate into your long-term and short-term recruiting strategies. It can help grow your audience and candidate pool, build positive brand recognition, and increase the visibility of your job posts. Remember to do your research, use the right spokespeople, and harness the power of hashtags.
If you are looking for job opportunities in tech, click here.
The post 5 Ways TikTok Can Enhance Your Recruitment Strategy appeared first on CloserIQ.
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