The ultimate guide to social recruiting

Recruiting has changed drastically in the past decade. Businesses must rapidly grow their workforce in an increasingly competitive landscape. In order to attract top talent, social recruiting strategies are pivotal.

The job market is shifting. Not only are companies searching for new skill sets and talents, but the way that businesses find their ideal candidates has turned on its head. In fact, 49% of HR professionals say their organization plans to increase virtual methods of recruitment and candidate engagement.

The question for modern organizations is: how can you make this work to your advantage? As a generation of digital natives enter the workforce and Millennials transition into leadership positions, social media will continue to be an important source for employers sourcing new talent.

Social media recruiting through employee advocacy and referrals could allow companies to tap into brand new spheres of talent. In fact, plenty of businesses have already gotten into the social recruiting game. Nine out of ten brands now use some manner of social media to source, attract and engage their new recruits.

• The most effective social recruiting strategies
• Consistently engage your social audience
• 5 companies that have mastered the art of social recruiting
• Building an effective employee referral program
• How to create a great onboarding plan
• Retention strategies to improve company culture

What is social recruiting and does it really work?

Yes, social recruiting works. Social recruiting can serve as a complement to traditional recruiting methods. However, social recruiting is also quickly taking over traditional recruitment as the norm.

Recruiters find that social media allows them to narrow the candidate pool more effectively and quickly find qualified individuals.

When businesses implement social recruiting strategies correctly, they get their brand message across numerous social platforms while showing potential candidates an enticing picture of what their company culture is like. In fact:

• 96% of job seekers use social media when conducting a job search (CareerArc)
• 49% of professionals follow companies on social media to stay aware of job opportunities (LinkedIn)
• 81% of jobseekers want to see job opportunities posted to Facebook (Link Humans)
• 78% of recruiters expect social media recruiting activities to increase (Jobvite)
• 46% of companies said social media recruiting investments are a focus in 2020 and beyond (Jobvite)
• Instagram recruiting more than doubled between 2017 and 2020 (Jobvite)
• Nearly 40 million people search for jobs on LinkedIn each week (LinkedIn)
• 71% of U.S. hiring decision-makers feel that looking at candidates’ social media profiles is an effective way to screen applicants (Express)

Why traditional recruiting strategies are no longer enough

Traditional recruiting relied on finding prospective employees in a way that was time consuming and expensive, making them less efficient than social recruiting strategies. While a lot of these methods are still in use, they come with significant disadvantages over a well-formed social recruiting strategy—primarily when it comes to cost.

For example, some job sites charge on a cost-per-click basis, such as between $0.25 – $1.50 per click. This may not seem like much, but if your job posting accumulates 2,000 clicks, costs can add up quickly.

The most effective social recruiting strategies

Social recruiting can be done in both a passive and active manner. It is important to formulate a concrete plan before posting job openings on social media. Below are some social recruiting strategies to get you started.

Determine your goals

The path to success always starts by creating a solid foundation. It’s easy for companies to get tangled up in connecting with candidates through a variety of platforms as you work on your recruitment strategy.

If you start dividing your attention between dozens of sites without any clear ambitions, you’ll be setting yourself up for unnecessary struggle. Instead, make a detailed plan that focuses on the best social media platforms for your ideal candidates, and funnel prospects through a single communication channel.

Today, 92% of employers use social media to hire talent. However, the way you use social media to inform your recruitment strategy can involve several different tactics, such as:

• Using LinkedIn to learn more about a candidate’s professional experience
• Engaging candidates on Twitter to learn more about their interests and what they value—which also helps gauge culture fit
• Monitoring Facebook to get a glimpse into how candidates present themselves to strangers, friends and family
• Promoting jobs with hashtags on TikTok or Instagram and using these platforms to show audiences what it’s like to work for your company
• Creating YouTube videos that showcase your company values and culture

Tap into the right platforms

While LinkedIn or Twitter might seem like the obvious place to start your social media recruiting strategy, it’s important to research your ideal candidate profile and consider where they’re most likely to spend their time on social. For instance, a graphic designer might spend more time on visual channels like Instagram or Pinterest, while video editors likely enjoy YouTube and TikTok.

As a result, recruiters must be agile in where they plant their flag to find the most talented and qualified candidates. Finding high-quality employees means tapping into the right platform for the role you’re trying to fill.

Each platform you consider will require a slightly different approach for candidate sourcing. For example, on Twitter you’ll want to incorporate hashtags to join the right conversations and make it easier for your team to reach out to possible referrals. On Facebook, it may be appropriate to visit careers pages and job groups to seek out potential employees.

Update your approach and make applying easy

In the age of remote work and distributed teams, social recruiting has emerged as a powerful solution for companies not just because it gives them access to a wider range of potential applicants, but also because it could simplify the recruitment process. In order to thrive, businesses need to monitor and update their strategies regularly.

Companies are beginning to recognize that strictly posting on job boards won’t cut it. Eighty-six percent of job seekers use social in their search—a number that will only grow as more hyper-connected digital natives enter the workforce. Especially if your company embraces work-from-anywhere policies, you’ll want to take advantage of recruiting that reaches candidates around the world.

One particularly important factor to keep in mind is that your application process should be as intuitive as possible, with as few steps from the social recruiting post to submission as necessary. This might sound obvious, but you may be surprised by how many companies have slow, buggy application processes, or job portals that aren’t mobile-friendly.

Ensure your online presence reflects your brand

A work environment that’s both desirable and reflective of your employer brand will continue to climb the ranks of your future candidates’ list of requirements. Company culture attracts the top 20% of candidates, meaning a strong reputation and positive online presence carries a lot of weight, particularly with passive job seekers. In fact, 75% of active job seekers are likely to apply to a job if the employer actively manages its employer brand.

To develop a more active and positive social media presence, think about your brand manifesto and how you can highlight your people, values and other differentiators. For most companies, this will be about featuring current employees—after all, if you have a strong brand identity, they’ll be your biggest advocates. By showcasing employee stories, team events and other company culture touchpoints through written, audio or visual content, you give candidates a behind-the-scenes glimpse at what they can look forward to should they join your team.

Involve employee advocates

Social recruiting through employee advocacy automatically increases your recruitment reach. Just by sharing job listings on their social profiles, your workforce exponentially boosts your ability to connect with new and diverse talent.

Employee social media content is shared 25 times more frequently than when the same content is shared by brand channels—that’s a wide reach.

The easier it is for your employees to get involved with your social recruiting strategies, the more likely they are to naturally share content on behalf of your brand. After all, 72% of U.S. adults use at least one social media site, and 40% of professionals use social media for business.

True employee advocates will organically spread the word about your company culture and use their own social networks to help fuel your candidate pipeline. If your employees are posting and Tweeting about how amazing it is to work for you, it will naturally draw a bigger audience to not only your recruitment efforts but also your overall presence online.

Potential candidates want proof that people enjoy working for you. Your employees are the only ones who can do that.

Consistently engage your social audience

When it comes to social recruiting, it’s important not to lose sight of what this approach is at its core—social. This means that your conversations should be a two-way street, and you should always be prepared to both ask and answer questions.

At the same time, make sure that you don’t focus exclusively on job postings. You should always strive to spark conversations that engage different groups of people, share helpful resources and infuse your messaging with your company’s unique tone and values. Talented individuals should engage with your brand even when job roles aren’t available, helping you create a pool of talent to dip into whenever roles open up.

Participating in Facebook or LinkedIn groups helps you get the word out that you’re hiring to a potentially large group of individuals. Be an active participant in groups before making a one-off post about a job opportunity, however, to avoid looking promotional and drawing negative attention.

Engage with the communities you’re a part of and provide value to group members. Once group members get to know you, they will be much more receptive to posts that promote job opportunities.

Use social networks’ advanced features

Your target demographic on each network can vary greatly. Once you understand who is listening, tailor your message to reach the right individuals at the right time. Most of the major social networks have native features to support your hiring efforts—use these to actively target and engage prospective candidates on a one-to-one basis.

Facebook Job Postings

As one of the most popular social platforms, Facebook is an excellent recruiting channel for many brands. Facebook job posts appear on your business page under the jobs bookmark, as well as alongside regular posts. Employees can share job posts to their personal timelines or via Messenger. Job posts can also be boosted for a fee to appear in the news feeds of your target audience based on location, education and work experience.

LinkedIn Advanced People Search

Because of the business-oriented nature of LinkedIn, its advanced search capabilities give recruiters significant advantages over other networks. While about half of its advanced search features are free to use, some require a LinkedIn Premium account. Still, the free portion of their advanced search provides a lot of flexibility and power for finding qualified individuals who may be a good fit for the positions you’re hiring for.

Once you’ve identified potential candidates, recruiters can use LinkedIn’s native video meeting feature to quickly set up introductory conversations.

Twitter Advanced Search

Twitter’s advanced search feature is more limited than Facebook’s and LinkedIn’s, but can be powerful when used correctly. As you probably know, Tweets are limited to 280 characters, so this search is better for finding individuals who are Tweeting using a specific phrase or hashtag. Find what hashtags are used most in your line of work, use them in the advanced search and narrow your results by location if relevant.

TikTok Resumes

Recognizing a rise in career and job-related content, TikTok introduced TikTok Resumes in 2021. The pilot program lets select companies post open positions, while interested candidates can submit short video resumes. Using hashtags like #CareerTok and #TikTokResumes, brands can join in on the conversation and put out calls for video resumes from talented creators on the platform.

Measure your results

As with any strategy, it’s important to establish KPIs to gauge the impact of social recruiting. To measure your social recruiting efforts, focus on the following:

1. Traffic: How many people landing on your application page were referred from social media? You can dive into this more and see which networks are driving the most traffic so you can focus your efforts on those that perform best.
2. Conversions: How many applications were filled out and submitted from social referrals? This number will allow you to calculate the ROI from your social recruiting efforts. If this number seems to be significantly lower than expected, revisit your application process to see if you can improve it.
3. Engagement: This number will allow you to A/B test your posts to see which types of posts are doing well and which are falling flat.

5 companies that have mastered the art of social recruiting

Notably, 75% of active job seekers are likely to apply for a job if the company actively manages its employer brand. This often takes dedicated employees to populate the company career page with entertaining, culture-related content, as well as provide fast, thorough responses to reviews and inquiries. It’s an ambitious undertaking, but these five companies are totally nailing it.

1. NJ Transit

With over 245,000 followers on their main Twitter account and 14 additional accounts for separate service lines, NJ Transit’s Tweets certainly have reach. In 2020, the public transportation provider leveraged this in its hiring strategy. They also used their social media presence to highlight existing employees and community initiatives. When they started using social media to assist with hiring bus operators, NJ Transit saw a 60% increase in resumes.

2. Verizon

Verizon is one of many companies joining a growing trend on Facebook. Dedicated career pages such as Verizon Careers take advantage of Facebook’s page management tools to post jobs and share information about their company culture. Facebook pages include areas for reviews, photos, videos and more which Verizon makes the most of for its audience of 218,000.

3. Zappos

Taking a slightly different approach, Zappos turned heads with a strictly social approach to recruiting in 2014. The shoe company launched dedicated accounts on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube under the name “Inside Zappos” with the goal of sharing company culture, information, news, events and open positions with prospective employees.

The move was better suited to some platforms than others. While Inside Zappos is still active on Twitter and Facebook, the YouTube channel eventually migrated back to Zappos’ main YouTube account, and Inside Zappos’ last Instagram post was in 2018.

4. Disney

Making the most of its video content, film giant Disney has perhaps unsurprisingly dedicated an entire YouTube channel to their career opportunities and boasts over 9.5k subscribers. The Disney Careers channel uses video collections to describe positions in technology, engineering, “Imagineering” and more. This is an excellent example of a brand playing to its strengths with recruiting.

5. Cactus Club Cafe

For an example of recruiting on TikTok, look no further than the Cactus Club Cafe. A completely recruitment-dedicated account shows behind-the-scenes footage of what it’s like to work at the venue. In between fun dance videos and drink pour reels are widely shared hiring announcements. Cactus Club Cafe has undeniably mastered the use of video to capture and keep its audience’s attention, fostering interest in employment.

Using social recruiting to top up your talent

Companies have discovered that using social media for recruiting isn’t just a useful way to expand the applicant pool—it’s also an excellent way to find great candidates. One survey found that 92% of recruiters use social media to find candidates they consider “high quality.”

For most businesses, social recruiting and employee advocacy are programs that go hand-in-hand. When you focus on building a positive company culture where employees can share their thoughts and feelings about their careers in a focused and productive way, you attract referrals who are more likely to be a perfect fit for your work environment.

Building an effective employee referral program

Brands across the US continue to peg talent recruitment as one of the most difficult business needs to fulfill. In fact, 73% of employers claim they have difficulty attracting employees. As a result, many companies domestically and abroad are rethinking their hiring solutions.

Employee referral programs are one outcome of this new approach to hiring. Companies use them to revitalize their recruitment strategies and enrich their talent acquisition programs as a whole. Not only does the right referral program improve the quality of the applicants you receive, but referred employees come with higher engagement levels and higher retention rates, among other benefits.

We’ll show you the necessary steps for creating an employee referral program that drives measurable value and yields results for both your company culture and your bottom line.

Why you need an employee referral program

Not only is it increasingly difficult to find the right candidates for crucial roles, but it’s also often a challenge to convince those people why your company stands apart from other employers.

The best referral program examples lead to significant results for growing companies. This includes:

• A higher quality of applicants: Research shows that referred candidates are of a higher quality than applicants from the general public. After all, your current employees are unlikely to recommend just anyone for an open role. They want recognition for an exceptional hire.
• Better employee engagement: Employees referred by a friend stay 70% longer than non-referral hires. Additionally, the effectiveness of referrals is rising. Between 2020 and 2021, the percentage of workers likely to click on a job opportunity posted by someone in their social network rose from 74% to 82%.
• Time saved for recruiters: With an employee referral program, your colleagues become an extension of your hiring team. This reduces cost in time and resources usually attributed to talent acquisition.

Participation in referral programs is on the rise. Seventy-one percent of workers were likely to share job openings at their company on social media in 2021 compared to 63% in early 2020, and 38% participated in a referral program compared to just 27% a year before.

So, how can you create a program that works for your business?

Create an environment employees are proud of

Any exceptional referral program begins by designing a work culture that makes employees feel recognized, engaged and inspired. In other words, you need to create an environment that people actually want to refer their friends to.

You need to cultivate a positive environment that encourages strong internal communication and healthy employee engagement. Ensure that your company is worth recommending by communicating with staff, rewarding hard work and providing growth opportunities. Without these elements in place, no amount of effort will prompt workers to refer your brand to others.

Pay attention to little things in daily employee interactions, and identify meaningful ways to recognize key contributions. These actions strengthen relationships with employees, which are the pillars of your employee referral program.

Develop clear messaging for referrals

A disjointed message can be a threat to even the best referral programs. When you’re tapping employees as an extension of your hiring team, it’s important to make sure everyone is on the same page about company goals, motivations and aspirations.

One way to achieve this is by creating an employee referral program outline (along with referral program examples) to guide the process. Detail how you want employees to describe your company and its culture, as well as more practical details like:

• How employees can make referrals (e.g., with links, social media posts, emails, etc.)
• What you’re looking for in referrals (who is your ideal candidate, which characteristics do you want to avoid?)
• How employees will know when job roles become available
• How employees will learn (and even be rewarded) if their referral is hired

It may also be helpful to educate employees on the value of an employee referral program. This will help them understand what they’re giving back to the company and may make them think more carefully about the suggestions they make.

Share statistics, such as how 50% of referrals stay with companies for three years, to show employees the value of their networks and the opportunity they have to make your business a better, more successful place to work.

Celebrate program participation

Just as employee engagement programs are improved with regular rewards and acknowledgment, referral programs can benefit from incentives as well.

Employees are more motivated to refer hires if they know what’s in it for them. Though there isn’t a list of hard-and-fast rules to follow when deciding which incentives to offer or what achievements to recognize, many organizations offer bonuses once a referral is hired or once they’ve stayed on the team for a certain period of time.

You don’t have to instantly hire candidates sourced through an employee referral program, but it’s important to at least offer them an interview and communicate quickly and effectively. Provide referral candidates with a strong hiring experience to reduce the risk of tainting the relationship between you and current employees.

You can also establish a feedback system for referrals to improve employee engagement. This lets employees know that you truly value their suggestions and establishes a benchmark for future referrals.

Set and track the right goals for your referral program

Referral programs can save you thousands of dollars per hire, but it’s equally important to make sure your strategy yields the right results for your company.

When implementing an employee referral program, consider what long and short-term goals you, your team and your leadership want to achieve. This will help identify which metrics to use to measure success. For instance, your goals might include:

• Improving the quality of job applicants
• Increasing employee retention
• Boosting employee satisfaction
• Fostering alignment with company culture

There are various ways you can track each outcome, from measuring the costs of referrals against traditional hiring practices to quantifying the amount of time saved by your referral program. You can even look at the productivity and production levels of new employees to determine whether referral candidates yield better outcomes than external applicants.

Building the right employee referral program

The right referral program can do wonders to help a talent acquisition team better source candidates within your existing employees’ networks.

For example, an employee advocacy tool allows you to easily share open roles internally and provide employees with approved messaging to share with their own networks. This streamlines the hiring process and reduces cost-per-hire.

Referral programs increase hiring frequency, provide access to better candidates, produce greater ROI and reduce turnover. That means that these programs work, surfacing better candidates delivered by people who are familiar with the characteristics and skills most essential to your company.

Once you’ve identified new hires from social recruiting and employee referrals, make sure the rest of your onboarding experience is equally streamlined and reflective of your culture.

Successful onboarding leads to improved productivity

Bringing on new talent takes significant time and money. While the true cost of hiring new employees has been long debated, a recent report by the Society of Human Resource Management found the average cost of hiring a new employee was $4,425. Replacing an entry-level employee can cost roughly 30% of the person’s annual salary, and mid- and senior-level roles cost even more.

Clearly, the cost of a new hire can’t be ignored. This is primarily due to the investment that goes into onboarding and training. The onboarding process sets the tone for a new employee’s experience with an organization.

This is especially important in the case of remote workers. In these situations, employers must make sure that their virtual onboarding programs are structured, thorough and accessible (or risk new team members falling through the cracks).

Studies show that burnout and emotional exhaustion can occur if employees go through a poor organizational socialization process. Effective onboarding has a significant impact on job performance, employee engagement, satisfaction and organizational commitment.

Welcome new employees with a comprehensive onboarding strategy to make the most of your hiring investment.

Ease onboarding with Employee Advocacy by Sprout Social

Not only can Employee Advocacy by Sprout Social support your social recruiting efforts and lower your cost-per-hire, it can also improve your onboarding process.

Employee Advocacy makes the onboarding process more efficient and much simpler for everyone involved. When new employees come on board, you can upload materials such as the employee handbook into the platform and direct new hires there. This same technique can be used with corporate guidelines, company policies and benefits and wage information.

Employee Advocacy is also a great way to share company culture with new hires and get them engaged with other team members. Its embedded content curation tools allow new hires to read and share their peer’s content on social. This gets new employees engaging directly on the first day, which leads to a happier and more connected team.

How to create an effective onboarding plan

Onboarding plans have many facets. Each one will be different depending on your company, but all onboarding plans need to accomplish a few common goals.

It’s extremely important to create an onboarding plan with purpose. Organizations potentially lose tens of thousands of dollars on ineffective onboarding. Most failed onboarding plans revolve around a sink-or-swim approach where new employees get thrown into work with no context or resources. Others fall back on an excessive hand-holding approach, with new hires monitored without any room for independent growth.

We’ve put together a list of five onboarding best practices to help you avoid the pitfalls of welcoming new employees:

1. Have an organized process

While it may seem like a no-brainer, it’s important to make a plan. You’d be surprised how many businesses don’t put a lot of time and effort into welcoming a new employee on board.

This step includes logistical items like making sure on-site employee workspaces are set up and that they have access to the building and the company intranet. For remote workers, it means ensuring they have access to the tools, software and platforms necessary to communicate with the team and do their job effectively (a little welcome gift doesn’t hurt either.)

It’s a good idea to have some sort of employee welcome packet. This packet should introduce new hires to your company culture, provide information about your onboarding plan and detail what to expect over the coming months. It should also include a point of contact for any questions or issues new hires encounter along the way.

2. Explain your culture and vision

Every new hire needs to be informed about your company vision and goals. This will help them better understand the direction of your organization as a whole, and how their role and work fits into the bigger picture. This will give new employees an immediate sense of your corporate culture and start planting the seeds for engagement early.

Getting new employees in touch with your overarching strategy is important for empowering your team, sharing core values and helping them assimilate into the company. Carve out time for new hires to meet with other departments and leaders to better understand how each facet of your business works toward your company goals.

3. Clearly define expectations

Outline clear goals and expectations with new hires so they know what success looks like at your organization. Set aside time to explain how your team measures its impact, including which KPIs you track and how frequently you report on them. When you’re transparent with your expectations from the start, it’s easier for new hires to stay positive and productive.

4. Introduce and connect peers

Giving new hires a point of contact, peer sponsor or “buddy” gives them a safe space to ask questions. Choose a mentor who interacts with them on an equal level, such as a member of their department, but not a manager.

If your organization onboards multiple new hires at a time, you can also try moving them through the process together in groups or cohorts. This way, new team members won’t feel alone and can ask each other questions as they get familiar with the company. This also makes it easier for new employees to support one another and bond.

5. Build out an extended onboarding schedule

It can take one to two years for a new employee to become fully productive. Having an onboarding plan that lasts 30-90 days will give new hires time to get familiar with the tools, processes and responsibilities associated with their new roles. An extended onboarding process also gives new employees time to lay the fundamental groundwork for success.

Here is what a typical 90-day onboarding process for new employees could look like.

• By 30 days: Your new hires will be introduced to the people and tools they’ll work with every day. Set small goals and have them start working on initial projects. One of the most important things for them to do within the first month is to get acclimated to the company culture. At the end of this period, they should have a solid understanding of their responsibilities, their role and expectations.
• By 60 days: During this period, employees should take on bigger responsibilities. The bulk of training should be done by now and the focus should be placed on what they do. They should be collaborating with other team members in different departments and contributing to larger projects.
• By 90 days: New employees should start to work more independently. They should accomplish bigger tasks and take on more responsibilities. This is the period where they’re able to complete tasks with limited guidance from you or others and become more accountable for their work.

Retention strategies to improve company culture

According to Bankrate, 55% of Americans expect to look for a new job heading into 2022. In a phenomenon dubbed “The Great Resignation,” workers are seeking more flexible employment arrangements, higher pay and job security.

If businesses want to not only hire the best talent for their organization but keep that talent around for the long-term, they need more effective employee retention strategies.

Employee retention is all about holding on to the people that you’ve worked hard to recruit into your network. This might seem like an obvious factor for companies to consider, but 20% of HR departments report that competing priorities prevent them from focusing on their employee retention rate.

Don’t think this will be a temporary battle. Historically, 27% of employees change jobs each year, 46% passively look for new careers and 17% actively job hunt. The key thing to remember is that your employee retention rate isn’t exclusively based on compensation issues. Instead, it often hinges on the ability to keep employees satisfied with tactics for growth, security and appreciation.

Why is your employee retention rate suffering?

To ensure an effective employee retention strategy, businesses need to listen to the needs of their employees and implement strategies for success from onboarding to exit interviews.

Approximately 88% of employees leave their roles for reasons other than pay, but 89% of employers think that employees leave entirely for salary-related reasons—clearly there’s a disconnect.

Common reasons for turnover often include:

• Mismatched company culture
• Insufficient feedback
• Limited growth and advancement opportunities
• Lack of recognition or work/life balance
• Loss of trust or confidence in senior staff

By developing an employee retention strategy that addresses the root causes of turnover and employee engagement, you can reduce your cost-per-hire significantly. Here are some best practices for your retention strategy.

1. Use metrics to provide feedback and motivation

Many employee retention strategies hinge on feedback. While positive feedback can motivate employees to do their best work, constructive criticism can help rectify issues in the workplace. Both forms of feedback boost engagement, which is key in a world where employee engagement has decreased since 2019.

People have a desire to feel they’re succeeding in their goals, and vague feedback isn’t enough. Find a way to share key metrics like profit and loss, customer engagement, and brand growth with your employees through your business intranet or collaboration platform. This will help to not only engage your employees but establish pride in your company culture.

As engagement increases in your company, you’ll find that productivity starts to grow. Measure the speed at which projects are completed in your company and whether your business becomes more efficient over time. You can also conduct surveys and polls to ask your employees whether they feel they’re getting the right information to measure their performance.

2. Encourage work/life balance

If you want to ensure that your employees continue to stay motivated and work efficiently, you need to be an advocate for work/life balance.

Since today’s workers are more concerned about flexibility, work/life balance solutions such as opportunities for remote working or support for their health and wellbeing make your business more appealing to job candidates. Discuss the idea of work/life balance with people in your company and find out what appeals to them most.

3. Create and emphasize opportunities to grow

Though they are some of the most notorious job-hoppers in the current market, the average Millennial in 2020 planned to work for their current employer for 10 years. Millennials are happy to stay in a job when they know they’ll have access to advanced technology, upward career mobility and annual raises.

Providing opportunities for your employees to grow and evolve in their roles not only helps to improve retention but also significantly reduces cost-per-hire. After all, the more you use in-house training solutions to boost your employee retention rate, the more you develop highly skilled staff members who can naturally advance when new positions open up. By implementing training programs and promoting from within, you create powerful incentives for team members to stick with your company.

4. Empower your team

Today’s employees want to work for a company that understands, trusts and respects them. In fact, 94% of employees say that they would stay at their company longer if it simply invested in helping them learn.

Empowering your team with upskilling and reskilling at work is essential to improving your employee retention rate and minimizing cost-per-hire. By developing your team’s skills, you allow each member of staff to take full ownership of their careers. This means that you’re not micro-managing and you enable your company network to innovate, create and take chances where necessary.

You can also empower your team with other strategies. Offer employees stretch or reach projects that both interest and challenge them. Make a point to create 1:1 face time with your organization’s leadership. Offer employee resource groups where colleagues can connect with people they don’t usually work with and band together to enact positive change in the organization or wider community.

Use social recruiting to retain top talent

From recruiting to retention, ensuring your employees are engaged at every step of their career helps create a productive, rewarding work culture. Social recruiting is a great match for the needs of today’s job seekers, but employers need to follow up with a streamlined recruiting process and meaningful onboarding and retention strategies.

A well-designed strategy that covers recruitment through retention is essential if companies want to build a great team and stay ahead of the competition. It’s hard to implement a new framework for promotion and growth if you’re constantly backfilling roles or fixing the productivity and morale challenges that stem from frequent turnover.

It’s not the salary or bonuses that matter most in your culture, recruiting and retention efforts—it’s the ability to engage your employees in an atmosphere that offers respect, room for growth and empowerment.

Ready to revisit your approach to social recruiting? Swipe these 11 LinkedIn recruiting tips to stand out from the crowd.