Feb 25 2019
A Trading Economics report has found that full-time employment in the U.S reached an all-time high of 129,913 thousand in December 2018. A high level of employment is good news for job seekers but can prove challenging for hiring companies because of the increased competition. Companies are finding it increasingly difficult to fill vacancies, as a survey found that almost one in five recent hires only applied for the work they currently do. This is why today’s companies are looking for the best ways to find employees online.
Whether you are looking for contract workers or employees you need to make the best use of the platforms that candidates rely on to search for job opportunities. According to the Pew Research Centre, 79% of job seekers used the internet to look for jobs in 2015.
There are many options available for your business when looking for the best ways to find employees online. Here are some of the best ways to find employees online.
Start with your website when looking for employees to hire
Add a careers or hiring page to your website just in case suitable candidates visit your site. Include open job opportunities and provide a form to allow speculative applications, if a particular role is not advertised. This approach helps to fill your talent pipeline with candidates who are already interested in your company. This is one of the best ways to find employees online as it leads to more engaged candidates.
Your careers page should give potential candidates an insight into what it would be like to work for your company. Use storytelling to show off your company’s culture to connect with the candidates.
The following tips will help you to make the most out of the careers page on your website:
- Keep the page in an accessible place on your website.
- Provide a frequently asked questions (FAQ) section.
- Include videos of employees that give an honest account of working with your company.
- Be very clear about how candidates should make an application for a job.
Review your careers page while taking into consideration the type of candidate you want to attract. Make sure that your careers page projects the right image of your company by providing the best user experience possible.
[Get the free Modern Hiring Guide to get a complete understanding of today’s workforce and hiring landscape.]
Industry specific job boards are one of the best ways to find employees online
Jobs available on niche job boards are specific to different industries. This increases the likelihood that you will get candidates that have the experience to work with your business. For example, if you are in the hospitality or restaurant business, using job boards specific to these industries could mean that more candidates have the necessary qualifications and experience. Therefore, your company will have more qualified candidates to choose from.
Want to post to the best job boards for your industry but don’t have the time? Try Fountain’s new feature – Boost! Using this feature could not be simpler because all you have to do is to let us know how many people you want to hire and we will recommend a budget and take care of the rest. You will then be able to manage all the candidates from different job boards in one convenient dashboard.
Request a personalized demo today to find out how Boost can make posting to job boards, easy and effective.
Social media can be the best place to find employees
Employees search for jobs on the platforms they use for social purposes. Given that 86% of American adults from the ages of 18 – 29 use social media, this is a useful tool to find good employees. If you have used a social media platform to engage with followers to provide a better insight into your company, post job opportunities to let people know that you are looking for employees to hire.
Sourcing candidates from social media has several advantages if you’re looking for employees to hire, including:
- Familiarity – Engaged social media followers will already be familiar with your brand. They will know what you stand for as a company and be excited to work for your business. This removes a hurdle of trying to sell yourself on a job description because your followers will already be used to positive interaction with your business and will be excited if they know you’re looking for employees to hire.
- Cost effectiveness – You can save money by using social media to post job opportunities. This can be the best way to find employees online, as you can create a free post to let your followers know that you are hiring. For example, you could include “we’re hiring” in your profile description.
- Brand building – When you make jobs available on social media, you can turn your hiring into a social campaign. Current employees can tell stories about what it is actually like to work with your company. Accounts from employees boosts your brand and provides more credibility to the claims you make, about why you should be the candidate’s employer of choice.
- Employee involvement – As well as using employees’ stories when using social media to hire workers, you can also encourage your employees to share job openings letting their connections know you’re looking for employees to hire. Involving your employees in your social media hiring increases the reach for free, which is especially useful if the job position is difficult to fill.
How to post a job on Facebook to find the best employees online
The Pew Research Centre reports that 68% of American adults use Facebook, which makes it the most popular social media platform for finding employees online. As more than half of the U.S population uses Facebook, it is a good idea to include this social media platform into your hiring strategy.
The following tips will help you find good employees on Facebook from the right candidates:
- Be mobile friendly – Most people use a mobile device to access their social media accounts. If you’re looking for good employees to hire, then your job opportunity should be presented in a way that makes it easy for the reader to skim. Use simple and straight to the point language, especially in the opening sentence to grab attention.
- Use images – Take advantage of the fact that posts with images have higher engagement than text only posts. The images you use should portray a positive image of your company. Post images of employees performing their job or of a bright and inviting workspace. Using user generated content is one of the best ways to find employees online, as it organically grows your online presence.
- Remember multi-media – You can use different visual aids, like GIFs or videos to grab attention of Facebook users. The advantage of videos is that they stand out because they play automatically as people scroll through their newsfeed.
After you have created the perfect Facebook post to advertise your job opportunities, you can upgrade your normal post into a sponsored post. This means that you can direct your post to a more targeted audience of job candidates, which makes it easier when you’re looking for employees to hire. You can narrow down your audience by using filters, like current workplace, location and education level.
Facebook allows you to post jobs directly to your business page .
If you are wondering how to use Facebook to find employees online, follow the steps below:
- Start from your company’s Facebook page.
- Find the options under “Write something.”
- rChoose “Publish a job post.”
- Add the details of the position you are hiring for.
- Include an image.
- Review and select “Publish job post.”
- You have the option to “boost” your post to reach more potential job candidates after it has gone live.
Best way to find employees on LinkedIn
LinkedIn is distinct from other social media platforms as it focuses on professionals, such as business owners, employees and independent consultants. LinkedIn is used by recruiters to source candidates online, and is one of the best places to find employees. Job seekers also make connections with different companies to secure their next role.
LinkedIn is one of the best ways to find employees online because:
- There are over 500 million professionals who use the platform to find jobs online.
- Employers have access to a wide network, which could include former colleagues who may be suitable job candidates.
- Employers can find employees by using references from people they trust.
- The keyword function helps you to search for suitable candidates.
- Employers can ask their network for assistance to find the right candidate.
- The paid premium version allows employers to access a host of recruitment functions to target their job search and increase the chances of finding the ideal candidate.
LinkedIn is one of the best ways to find employees online because candidates actively use this platform to look for job opportunities.
Job search engines are one of the best places to find employees online
Job search engines are also referred to as job aggregators and gather information related to jobs. Job aggregators search the internet and collate job listings from different places to make it easier and more convenient for job seekers, which is a great way to find employees online. Career websites, job boards and other job search engines are used to collect jobs to be displayed on the job aggregator website. You can also post job opportunities straight to the job aggregator website. Indeed.com is an example of a job search engine.
Job search engines are one of the best places to find employees online because they are known for listing different types of jobs. For example, Indeed.com is recognized as a job search engine that lists jobs in different parts of the world and caters to different industries.
Shared economy sites are great places when you’re looking for employees to hire
There may be times when you need to hire a contract worker instead of an employee. The shared economy, which is sometimes known as the on-demand or the gig economy are synonymous with certain types of businesses, including:
- Ridesharing.
- Freelancing.
- Tutoring.
If your business depends on gig workers, you can either choose to build an expensive and resource intensive app to recruit your workers or you can use specialized hiring automation software.
Companies like Deliveroo who utilize on-demand workers depend on Fountain to source, screen, hire and onboard about one million job candidates every month.
Whether you need to recruit, one, ten or thousands of workers, Fountain has the functionality to meet your hiring needs. We have helped companies to process over 12.3 million applications and hire more than 1.6 million hourly workers.
Request a demo today and we will give you a personalized tour of how Fountain can benefit your company, even if you are in a high-volume industry, through smarter hiring.
Freelance platforms are one of the best places to find employees online
Freelance platforms are online marketplaces that help you to find independent contractors to help with one-off projects. You can utilize freelance platforms if your company has a lengthy time to hire but needs to complete a specific project. Popular freelance platforms include Upwork and Fiverr. You can also use these platforms if you have irregular or time-limited work that you do not need to hire an employee to do. You can be connected with the right independent contractors quickly to complete specific projects.
The best ways to find employees online include a mixture of different approaches. You will be able to reach different candidates by making use of the approaches above. Ideally, you should avoid just using one type of online platform to advertise your job positions because you may not know where the ideal candidate will come from. However, it is important to ensure that the platform you choose reflects your brand.
For example, a social media platform like Snapchat is associated with people aged 18 to 24 years old and would most likely be unsuitable if you are looking to fill a job position for a senior executive. However, if your company wants to attract millennials, you should utilize the social media platforms that are popular amongst this age group.
When you have identified the best online platforms to post your job positions, make it easy for candidates to apply by providing an efficient hiring process. Fountain has the functionality to help to impress your candidates with features, like automated messaging to make communication with your company seamless and convenient.
Sign up for a free trial of Fountain today to find out how we can help you to source and secure the candidates that your company deserves.
