For small to mid-size businesses the hiring process is often ongoing throughout the year. Marketers need to step in and help companies realize the value of social networking platforms to help with their constant state of recruiting. Social media can provide construction businesses with an authentic and meaningful way to reach job seekers.
Today, it’s simply not enough to post job openings on Indeed, Monster, and Construction Jobs. While they might provide your business with loads of resumes, the candidates may often be unqualified for a lack of truly understanding the position and its requirements. Online job boards may be helpful, but there are also other valuable ways to recruit through social media.
Social Media Recruiting Power
LinkedIn is a great place to start. To begin the process, try these three tips from recruiters:
- Post your job openings or advertise them on LinkedIn. The nice thing about LinkedIn is it combines open positions, candidate searches, and referrals into a high-powered network that can deliver results for a range of jobs.
- Actively do your own searching. You’ll do this by inputting keywords relevant to the positions you’re trying to fill. Next, cross-reference the position’s requirements with the qualifications listed in the candidate’s profile.
- Make sure your company’s profile is keyword relevant as well. Job seekers are doing the same thing you are – using keywords searches to find companies. Then, prospective employees look at the company profile to determine if it’s a place they think they may like to work.
Try Video Content
For many builder and remodeling firms a visual presentation often sells the clients. This can be true in recruiting as well. If your company is utilizing Instagram and YouTube, consider creating video content to attract interested job seekers to your openings. You can even invite current employees to co-create videos, photos and other content to show what projects your company works on and what it’s like to work at your company.
Social media offers companies a way to recruit people where they spend the majority of their time and it increases a company’s brand awareness too. Sharing photos and videos of your employees living your company values can be highly effective in today’s labor market.
Strategic Onboarding Importance
Now, given the time, commitment, and resources you’ve put into finding the right employees, it makes sense to put that same kind of energy into your company’s onboarding efforts. In many respects, the first 90 days of their employment can make all the difference in their careers at your company.
Accepting an offer for employment is a big deal for the candidate and you. So when new hires begin work, it’s important – right from the start. They want to fit in, understand their responsibilities, learn the ropes and identify with the company’s values and goals.
So getting the onboarding process right is critical. This is especially true because 20% of employee turnover happens within the first 90 days of employment. And finding a replacement is at least 30% of first-year earnings for each position-holder, according to recent U.S. Department of Labor statistics.
Build Early Engagement
Construction companies need to believe in the value of transitioning to a strategic onboarding process and move away from the checklist approach about paperwork, computers, and workspaces. If you’re willing to change your approach, you’ll be helping new hires connect to the company and their coworkers, understand their purpose and value and build engagement from day one.
How do you implement a strategic approach? Training experts offer five essentials tactics to get your onbaording process beyond just an administrative checklist:
- Assess your current orientation process. What is its duration? Be mindful of your brand – is it leveraged throughout the process? Gather communication pieces and determine alignment with company goals.
- Create a strategic approach. Outline an onboarding program that supports a continuous journey for new hires, helping them to understand the business strategy of their areas and the company, delivering job scope and performance expectations and setting them upon the road to becoming highly engaged employees.
- Develop an onboarding portal. If your organization has the resources, creating an information-filled new hire portal helps employees have a constant resource for company learning.
- Provide a mentor. Partner new hires with your best employees. These employees are champions of your brand and can mentor new talent, help answer questions, and model the attitude and behaviors your company is striving for.
- Build a business case. A strategic onboarding program requires the right resources. Determine and present the number of new hires per year and the cost of quick turnovers along with the cost-savings on having engaged, productive employees.