How to Optimize Job Postings for Social Media Sharing

How to Optimize Job
Postings
for Social Media Sharing

2

InternEdge Social Recruitment
Extend Your Campus Reach
Your internship and entry-level positions
attract more qualified applicants in less
time when you use social media for
recruiting, which allows your team to
focus on hiring the very best fit.

 Increase Job Seeker to Candidate
Conversion
 Build a Subscriber Base of
"Raving Fans"
 Increase Internal and External
Referrals
 Attract Better Talent

Share this eBook

WWW.INTERNEDGE.COM Download PDF Version 

3

How to Optimize Job
Postings
for Social Media Sharing
by Adam Singh

Adam Singh is the Co-Founder and President of
InternEdge. He has held various management and
business development roles with top Fortune 500
companies including Charles Schwab and Wells Fargo.
As a Search Consultant, he helped companies recruit
highly sought after accounting and finance
executives. Adam earned an MBA in Management
from the University of Miami and a BSBA in Finance
from the University of Central Florida.
Follow me on Twitter
@adamhsingh

Share this eBook


4

Contents

Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………………5

The Value of Social Sharing……………………………………………………………………7

Customizing the Message to Your Target Audience………………………………8

Make Your Job Postings More Social Media Share-Friendly…………………13

Examples from Companies That Get it Right………………………………………17

Conclusion and Additional Resources………………………………………………….23

Share this eBook


6

The most effective job postings are the ones that produce conversions from job
seekers to quality applicants. In addition, they are engaging enough to inspire
social shares. These descriptions engage readers, showcase your brand,
culture, and environment, communicate the skills needed to succeed in the
position, and end with a compelling call-to-action.

In this eBook you will learn how to optimize job postings, so they will be shared
across social media. You will understand how to customize the message to
increase engagement, and you will discover the tools that make it easy for
readers to share. Finally, you will get coaching and guidance on adding a
compelling call-to-action, which is the key to getting those viewing your posting
to apply. You will also see some examples from companies that get it right.

Before we jump in, let’s talk a bit about why there is so much focus on social
sharing.

The best performing job postings
engage readers, showcase your
brand, culture, and environment,
communicate the skills needed to
succeed in the position, and end with
a compelling call-to-action.
Share this eBook


8

Social networks are arguably the most powerful, cost-effective recruiting tool
you can use. Not only can you promote your open positions and your
company’s brand to your direct network of fans and followers – you also have
the opportunity for your content to reach their personal networks, which is the
true value of sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, and Pinterest.
Recruiters can significantly extend their company’s reach by making it easy for
others to share information to their own social circle. A survey by Pew Research
Center indicates that Generation Y’s willingness to share content on social media
will not slow down, even as they get older and take on more responsibilities.

As recruiters, our objective is to attract, engage, and convert job seekers that
match the profile of our ideal employee. The old saying goes, “Birds of feather
flock together,” and that holds true for social media. The ROI (Return on
Investment) occurs when your content reaches qualified prospects who in turn
share it with peers who are also a good match for your available positions.

Share this eBook
Share this eBook

WWW.INTERNEDGE.COM

Customizing the
Message to Your
Target Audience

10
For your job postings to produce quality conversions, – get be widely shared,
with and produce applicants from individuals that are right for the job, you must
have a detailed picture of your target audience. Who are your ideal employees
and prospects? What are their concerns, needs and interests? Where can you
reach them – on search engines, social media, or blogs? These questions will
help you develop what we call candidate personas – comprehensive profiles of
the individuals that would be just right for your postings.

Personas are fictional
representations of your ideal
employee, based on real data
about employee demographics
and online behavior, along with
educated speculation about
their work, educational and
personal histories, motivations,
and concerns.

Start developing personas by top performers who are already doing the job.
Repeat this exercise to create a unique profile for each position in your
company. It’s likely that the personal qualities, attitudes, and values of your
ideal employee profile will be the same across jobs. However, the abilities and
skills required to do the job are likely to differ depending on the position’s
responsibilities. Be as detailed as possible with each profile. Include a detailed
description with information like job title, role and demographics.
Share this eBook
Share this eBook

WWW.INTERNEDGE.COM

11
Based on those profiles, you can outline the details of each persona by asking
yourself several important questions:
→ How would you describe these employees? What characteristics and
traits do these employees have in common?
→ What core attitudes, beliefs, and values do these employees have in
common?
→ How do these employees differ from your other employees? What
qualities or characteristics make them stand out from the rest?

Examine Candidates’ Online Behavior
Next, develop a profile for each persona around typical online behavior. You
know who they are and what their needs are; now think about all the ways they
research a potential employer. Consider these points:
→ What do they do online? Do they read blogs? Are they active on Twitter,
Facebook, or other social networks? What kind of search terms do they
use? Are they email newsletter subscribers?
→ What kind of information do they tend to consume online? Educational
pieces? Trend articles? Interactive tools like calculators or worksheets? Do
they watch videos or listen to podcasts?
→ Where do or did they go to school? What professional or other work-
related associations do they belong to? What hobbies and activities are
they involved in? What causes and organizations are they passionate
about?
The result of this process should be a detailed description of your personas’ use
of the internet. The more detail you pack into the development of your persona,
the easier it will be to create messages that speak directly your ideal prospects.
In addition, you will be better able to promote your openings and your employer
brand.

Share this eBook
Share this eBook

WWW.INTERNEDGE.COM

12

Create Engaging Job Postings
Now that you have taken the time to create candidate personas, you know
where your ideal employees are online and how to speak to their motivations.
Don’t just advertise available positions with job descriptions that consist of a dry
list of boring qualifications and requirements. The best performing job postings
are the ones that tell your company’s story. They provide an experience to the
reader. Not only do these descriptions explain what is needed to succeed in the
position – they also reflect the brand, culture, and environment of the business.

Incorporate multimedia in your job postings to bring life to your brand. Include
video testimonials from current employees or interviews with managers. Add an
image from your last community fundraiser. You get the point. (For examples,
see the section on Companies that Get It Right.) Now let’s move on to the tools
you need to get your job shared across social media.

The best performing job
postings are the ones that
engage readers by telling
your company’s story.
Share this eBook
Share this eBook

WWW.INTERNEDGE.COM

Make Your Job
Postings More
Social Media Share-
Friendly

14
You have an engaging job description that speaks directly to your target
audience and reflects your employer brand. Now enable readers to easily
spread the news about your opening with their Facebook friends, Twitter
followers, and LinkedIn connections. The more prospects you drive to your job
posting, the more candidates you will generate. Here are ways to make your
content more social media share-friendly.

Enticing Meta Descriptions

When you share your jobs on sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google+, they
automatically pull in a description from the web page where the job is posted.
Most sites generate this description from the URL's meta-description. While
meta- descriptions no longer mean very much for search engine optimization
(SEO), they are very helpful for social media optimization. Be sure each job
posting you create includes an enticing meta- description to motivate social
media users to check out your positions and share them with their own social
networks.

Attention-Grabbing Images
Similarly, when posting content, most social media sites will also pull in an
image for display. Make sure your social media shares are visually appealing by
including at least one image with your job postings. This can be your company
logo or another image that represents your brand.
Share this eBook


15

Social Sharing Buttons

According to a recent study from BrightEdge Technologies, websites that include
social sharing buttons generate seven times more mentions than those that
don't. Adding social sharing buttons for sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn,
and Google+ to every posting is a great way to encourage your site’s visitors to
share your job postings in social media. To make it easier, there are third-party
services like AddThis and ShareThis that provide an integrated social sharing
toolbox that you can add to your web pages for free.

Compelling Calls-to-Action
A call-to-action (CTA) is an image or text that prompts visitors to take action.
Examples of these include prompts to apply to a job or share content on social
media. An effective CTA results in more prospects and conversions for your job
posting.

Primary CTA Secondary CTA
Share this eBook


16

Considering the power that calls-to-action have, they are surprisingly easy to
create. The format of CTAs can vary from simple hyperlinked text and
screenshots with some text overlay, to elegant banners and popup overlay.
Here are a few tools and resources that are helpful for generating call-to-action
buttons:

→ Microsoft Word

→ PowerPoint

→ Pre-made Images

→ Outsourcing CTAs to Designers

Make the Call-to-Action Powerful and Persuasive
Clarity is the most critical component of calls-to-action. Make sure your CTAs
convey clear messages that are specific and action-oriented. The most effective
CTAs have these qualities:

→ Convey Value: Your CTA should answer the question “What’s in it for
me?”

→ Create Urgency: Convince your reader to act by answering questions
like “Why should I do this immediately?” You can do this by using adverbs
like “now” and “today.” One example of such a call-to-action would be
“Apply Today.”

→ Make It Personal: An example would be, “Like our culture? Become a
part of it!”

Test out variations on these themes to determine which are most effective with
your audience.

Share this eBook


Examples from
Companies That
Get it Right

18

Yelp
Yelp does a great job at customizing their message to their candidate persona.
This job posting is sells both the position and the company without being
overbearing. The description includes just two short bullets for each team, but
it takes the time to tell a story about this internship and why it’s important.

Share this eBook


19

HUGE Inc
Huge describes their internship in a way that makes it seem larger than life.
They are direct and to the point. “Here’s what we need. What about you?”
Their call-to-action placement is extremely effective, due to the contrast with
the white space around it – a successful recipe for conversions.

Share this eBook


20

TiVo
TiVo’s job posting is conversational in tone: “Here’s what you’ll get to do as a
PR Intern” and “What you’ll need to enjoy your internship.” They make this
position social media share-friendly by using a third-party service to integrate
with LinkedIn. Visitors can see which of their current LinkedIn connections
already work at TiVo.

Share this eBook


21

Meetup
Meetup does a good job of using images to present the company culture to
prospects. In addition, the opening statement is friendly and inviting: “Meetup
has had great luck with our internship program in the past and we expect this
summer to be no different!”

Share this eBook


22

Groupon
Groupon makes it simple and convenient to share positions with your network.
They use a third party tool that integrates with the major social networking sites
so you can share the position or update your status. Pretty cool tool!

Share this eBook


Conclusion and
Additional
Resources

24

Social media is an amazing source for quality candidates, but optimizing job
postings is only the beginning of social media recruitment. Once you’ve
implement the basic principles, you’ll have a foundation to start taking your
social recruitment efforts to the next level.

In summary, here are some of the key takeaways for further optimization:

 Create personas for your different types of ideal employee profiles so
that you can create more engaging job postings that convert the right
prospects.

 Add meta descriptions, an enticing image, social sharing buttons, and a
compelling call-to-action to all of your job descriptions.

 “Always be testing!” Test all variables on job postings. The best
format is the format that performs for your company. There’s always
room for improvement.

 Research companies that get it right and look for ways that you can
improve upon what they are already doing well.

Got it? Awesome! Now get optimizing and start reeling in those quality
candidates!

Photo credit: fredcavazza
Share this eBook


25

Extend Your Campus Reach
RECRUIT MORE EFFECTIVELY ON SOCIAL MEDIA

Sign up for InternEdge to start promoting your internships, entry-level
positions, and employer brand across social media today.

www.InternEdge.com/Recruitment-Marketing

Share this eBook


How to Optimize Job Postings for Social Media Sharing

Empfohlen

Empfohlen

Weitere ähnliche Inhalte

Andere mochten auch

Andere mochten auch (8)

Kürzlich hochgeladen

Kürzlich hochgeladen (20)

How to Optimize Job Postings for Social Media Sharing