How to use Facebook Ads to create a talent bench full of A-Players.
Who this article is for: CEOs, Company Owners, Recruiters, HR Directors
With increasing specialization of professions and unemployment rates dropping below 3.9%, filling job positions with qualified candidates has become increasingly difficult.
Traditional hiring methods, for one thing, take more time and expense than ever.
Companies and recruitment agencies are looking for new ways to find A-players and improve their hiring processes.
Well, a new opportunity for recruitment has risen, since Facebook updated their targeting options in August.
From now on, Facebook advertisers can create audiences based on very specific job titles and fields of study, which lets them reach out to potential candidates with unprecedented precision.
In this article, you will find out the main benefits of using Facebook Ads for hiring and why you should consider moving away from platforms like Linkedin and Indeed today.
Facebook lets you select candidates from a much broader pool
So, you have decided to hire a top-tier salesperson. Your next step then is usually to figure out where you should be looking for them.
Sure, you could post a job on Indeed, or just look around on Linkedin.
Chances are, though, that the best candidates are not actively job-hunting.
That’s why Linkedin is not the best platform when it comes to hiring passive candidates.
According to Linkedin Talents, only about 25% of professionals are reaching out to potential employers, although up to 85% would consider moving positions.
Okay, then what is someone’s main motivation in using platforms like Linkedin?
Obviously, the goal is to do business. So, if you are not a business owner, sales representative or hiring agent, chances are you are not going to be checking in on Linkedin often.
The number of daily active Linkedin users is 40%, compared to 66% on Facebook.
If you take that into consideration and the fact that Facebook has 4 times the number of Linkedin’s total users, you can see how broader the pool of potential candidates is.
Theoretically, the broader the pool, the higher the chance that you’ll find someone qualified to work with you. Plus, as we’ve discussed, you’re much more likely to reach out to people who aren’t actively job-searching, but would go for the right opportunity, like working with you.
Cost per hire on Facebook is much lower
Have you ever tried to hire an applicant with an HR agency? This usually costs thousands of dollars per candidate. According to the Society for Human Resource Management, for example, the average cost per hire in 2016 was well above $4000.
Everyone knows that Facebook has the cheapest advertising costs among all social media platforms, but few realize this is also the case for recruitment.
“I have run hiring ads both for Facebook and Linkedin for the same client,” says Catalin Mordocea, Head Advertiser at Leads4Sales. “Facebook Ads performed a lot better than Linkedin. So much so that Linkedin was not worth pursuing by comparison.”
Facebook will let you hire people much faster
With a $100 budget a day, your job post on Facebook may be seen as many as 13,624 times, with the average cost per click (CPC) of $1.10, compared to $5.26 on Linkedin.
Although the cost per 1000 ad views is actually lower on Linkedin, we can conclude that with Facebook Ads, CPC is almost 5 times lower than that of Linkedin. So, the relevance of Ads is much higher.
Such a dramatic difference in CPC means that the cost per application is also going to be lower. This means since you’ll receive plenty of applications faster, then you’ll be able to find the right fit faster.
The nature of Facebook advertising is that it incentivizes acting immediately by creating urgency:
On the contrary, once you post a job on Indeed or similar platforms, you’re competing with hundreds of similar job offers. The urgency disappears and site visitors don’t feel like they have to contact you immediately.
Precise targeting options let you make sure that you are going to aim at qualified applicants
At the beginning of the article we mentioned new targeting options for Facebook. Those let you target people based on their job position and their university degree.
That’s not the only targeting options, though. Other options include behaviors, interests, age, gender, location, and much more.
As a result, you’re getting the most precise targeting tool that currently exists on the market.
Below, you can see an example of Facebook’s targeting options. It’s a search for current students at either Harvard or Columbia who will soon be entering the job market for management or sales.
With Leads4Sales, for instance, we targeted very narrow audiences, like Indian expats who were looking to refinance their homes in India with American credit, or Amazon sellers who wanted to introduce their products to European markets.
No other media buying platform lets you be so precise. This means that not only will qualified candidates see your job post, but also that your message will really speak their language. In other words, it will resonate with them, which will further increase your chances of finding your best fit.
On top of that, since Facebook targeting is so specific while still reaching a wide pool of candidates, it increases the chances you’ll find someone for a very specific role. For example, need a part-time Big Data specialist? Facebook ads can make them easier to find.
Facebook lets you properly convey your brand message
One of our clients and partner companies uses Facebook as the default platform for recruitment. Here is why Justin MacDonald, president at SixthDivision uses Facebook:
“In our company, we want to make sure not only that the person is qualified for the job, but also that we are a good fit together. What it means is that they need to understand our brand, mission and work culture. When we hire, we put a brief job description with a link to our hiring landing page.
The landing page explains exactly who we are looking for and who we are. This lets us find the right fit, especially because a chunk of those who are going through the funnel will know our brand already.”
Landing pages similar to this one produce engaging content that makes candidates excited and ready to apply. Compare it with dull Linkedin or Indeed job ads that make your candidates want to run away and never hear from you again:
Another problem with these ads is that the main benefit they’re selling is the salary and to some extent, your company’s popularity with employees:
With ads like these, you can’t convey your brand message properly, which will make people apply for the wrong reasons.
On a related note, if you already have a Facebook Page, posting job ads on your page will give people immediate access to the information you want them to see. That means they can see what’s great about your business from the start.
You can create a whole talent bench
The result of all the previous benefits–a wide pool of candidates from which to choose, cost efficiency, quick turnaround, precise targeting, and the ability to convey your brand message effectively–is the final benefit: the ability not to just find one good candidate for one position, but to create a whole hiring bench.
Employees come and go for many reasons. Even for the most successful companies have employee turnover.
Usually, it can take up to 6 months and $30,000 to replace one employee.
Since Facebook can find you dozens of qualified applicants, you can use this to create a talent bench full of people qualified to work for your business. You can stay in touch with them, contacting them whenever an opportunity comes, or even create a process where they can get ready to take over a position gradually.
This will give you your business a lot of extra security and will essentially make hiring hassle-free.
Summary
Here are the 5 benefits of using Facebook Ads in recruitment:
-Lower hiring costs
-Finding candidates faster
-Deeper access to talented candidates
-In-depth targeting
-Ability to create a talent bench
