Apart from effective recruitment software, agents should find other ways to source and work with potential talents. One of the possible avenues is social media where millions of users can provide a great pool of recruits. When LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and other networks come into play, the game will now be called social recruiting.

But how can recruitment agents maximise social media?

• Understand what every social network is about

The three major social networks — LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter — have different users and primary function. Although LinkedIn is the most obvious choice, since a majority of its users are professionals from around the world, you should not overlook how Facebook and Twitter can change the game in recruitment. But to source out as many candidates as possible, an agent must know how all three social networks work, how its members interact, and the tools used to communicate. Think of the whole process as the training phase after the staffing software was introduced in an agency.

• Know how to use it as a recruiting tool

In LinkedIn, recruitment agents can post a job for 30 days for a fee. A recruiter can also buy credits to pay less per job posted. Signing up for a LinkedIn Talent Advantage is another option, where recruiters can access exclusive suite of tools designed for hiring talents through LinkedIn.

Facebook also provides plenty of tools, including the Facebook Directory that makes it easy to search for users, pages and groups. The Facebook Marketplace is where jobs can be posted for free. This requires basic information to be provided, such as job category and description.

How about Twitter? A recruiter simply tweets job vacancies that need to be filled. But a recruitment agency must first build a following and continuously expand it.

• Use recruiting analytics

With emphasis on the quality of hire, it has now become a recruitment agent’s responsibility to match the right candidate with the right manager. This requires profile-based recruiting rather than traditional hiring methods.

Since social media is where a huge number of the world’s population converges, it must be used as a vital tool in hiring talents, along with the best recruitment manager software.