A guide to using Twitter to recruit chefs: As a generation of digital natives enter the workforce and Millennials transition into leadership positions, it’s easy to see why traditional recruiting strategies are no longer enough. If you want to secure the best pool of applicants for your chef jobs having a digital focus and – in particular social media focus – as part of your recruitment strategy is vital. Especially, if your chef jobs are likely to see the highest percentage of applicants coming from these age groups.
Recruit chefs: Headhunting via Twitter vs. LinkedIn
It’s important to research your ideal candidate profile as part of considering where your next potential hire are most likely to spend their time on social. But here’s an interesting fact to keep in mind. Twitter has over 300 million users a month and is the third most-used social media app. LinkedIn has 27 million fewer users per month.
The largest age segment of Twitter users range from 25 -34 years at 28.9%. This is closely followed by 35-49 year olds at 28.2% – making it potentially a strong platform to find Millennials and Gen X chef candidates. What are job seekers mostly doing on Twitter? 76 percent are looking at company profiles.
And unlike LinkedIn, Twitter doesn’t require you to spend money on any type of premium subscription to view extra profiles, or send direct messages (DMs).
Recruit chefs: Finding chef candidates via Twitter
Finding suitable candidates is the goal of any recruitment activity and it’s no different when using social media platforms. On Twitter you can find people that are relevant to the job you are recruiting for by using hashtag searches, advanced search, lists and tweets. One of the key features Twitter offers its users is an ‘Advanced Search’ functionality to find best match prospects.
Hashtag (#) searches
Hashtags (#) are an enormous part of why Twitter is such an invaluable search tool. In a nutshell, they’re the internet’s way of connecting Tweets (messages) by topic. As you do your candidate research, try typing in different hashtag combinations and see what pops up in the list.
For example, if you type #chefjobs, you can get an idea of who is tweeting what about jobs in the industry. You will also get a sense of what related hashtags others reference, helping to refine your searches further. As you discover what content is posted against what hashtag, you’ll get a better sense of how to leverage hashtags to return the best and most relevant search results.
The best part about using hashtags in your candidate search is that Twitter allows you to save your searches and come back to them later, once they’ve been repopulated with new information. This hack is great for keeping tabs on content over time, without forgetting how you first came across it!
Make use of Advanced Search
Twitter’s Advanced Search feature lets you filter and refine your search terms to help you find exactly who or what you’re looking for. You can narrow it down by keywords, post date, engagement, hashtags and more. Even search by sentiment (positive, negative, ask a question) if needed.
If you’re trying to build your talent pool, try searching industry-specific hashtags like:
#chef #chefjobs #cheflife #chefs #chefstalk #chefslife #masterchef #chefjob #professionalchefs #restaurantjobs #hospitalityjobs
Follow candidates of interest that you find as a result of your searches. There’s a high chance they will follow back and will then be subscribed to your tweets.
To access the advanced search function, click the three little dots next to the search magnifying glass on the twitter top navigation menu.
Pro tip: Don’t forget you can also discover potential job seekers by searching for people that mention your company in their Twitter conversations.
Lists
Once you’ve followed a few prospects, use Twitter lists to categorise and stay in touch with them. On your lists page, you can easily create customised lists based on your hiring needs by department, seniority level, or location. After you put a list together, you can access all those users’ tweets in one convenient place.
The best part of the lists is their privacy settings. They can either be public or private and accessible only to you.
Pro tip: If your list is private, Twitter won’t notify the users you add to your lists that they’ve been included in them, so your headhunting activity isn’t shared.
Building Relationships
Next, you should look to cultivate relationships with the prospects in your curated lists.
Twitter can make engagement quick and easy. Interacting can be as simple as liking, retweeting, and replying.
Chats
Another route you can take is Twitter chats. Twitter chats are conversations that take place on assigned dates and times and have one designated hashtag. People follow and contribute to the discussion by using the designated hashtag.
As a recruiter, you can participate in industry-specific Twitter chats or those specifically focused on job search and recruitment. Keep in mind, though, that these are conversations, and they should be treated as such – don’t just push your recruiting pitch! But they will allow you to gain insight into contributors in the process of your participation, and could identify future candidate matches for your chef jobs.
Recruit chefs: Finding chef candidates via your company Twitter feed
Your Twitter account
If your company has a strong web presence, you might opt to create an offshoot Twitter account like @MyCompanyJobs or @MyCompanyCareers dedicated your recruitment activity. Having multiple accounts helps segment your audience, and prevents dilution in content.
But remember your branding. A jobs specific account should have the same look and feel of any other Twitter accounts and your company branding elsewhere.
Whatever Twitter account you use for recruitment activity, make it really clear that you’re hiring. If you have one, add a link to your website’s career page within your bio too.
Generating content
Twitter is known for its short word limit at 280 characters, so all content should be concise and to the point. Specifically for recruiting, consider introducing your brand or company culture in the first tweet.
Aim for 2-3 tweets every day talking about your culture, open positions and company. If you have unique benefits, tweet about them. Better yet, pin the tweet to the top of your account, so everyone who visits your Twitter profile gets to see it straight away.
Remember to keep a balance between employee branding and job posts, as these go hand in hand. Your employer brand is the face of your company, what goes on behind the scenes, and what will ultimately attract people to want to work for you.
Sharing stories from your team on your profile is an easy and authentic way of attracting job applications. After all what’s better than telling people your company is great to work for? Showing them! For further reach, ask your team to tweet about job opportunities to their networks.
Chef job ads
These will be in the form of tweets and should contain a link to more detailed information about your chef job, signposting to where and how someone applies for it. Remember to include the job title, location and salary details in the actual tweet you post.
Use relevant sector and hiring hashtags in your chef job ad post
Make it easy for people to find your chef jobs by using hashtags and keywords. But do research your hashtag before you use it. Use hashtags relevant to the job and the skills needed to do your job, for #chefjobs
But also add #jobs, #jobsearch or #jobhunt to any industry-specific hashtags you include in your posts to help active jobseekers find you. And always use a standard hashtag for your company job postings for every job you post on the platform, for example #yourcompanyjobs
Maximise your use of features
From hashtags to videos and even polls, these are many features Twitter offers which can maximise the engagement and reach of your job posts.
Run a paid campaign on Twitter
If you want that reach to be highly targeted, you could consider paying to promote your tweets. Running this type of reach campaign will drive awareness that you’re recruiting and could connect you with suitable potential applicants (quicker).
Recruit chef: Reasons to love Twitter
A different algorithm
On LinkedIn, the more you post in 24 hours the less exposure each post gets – this means you need to have a fine-tuned posting schedule in place. Twitter’s algorithm doesn’t operate like this. It’s the opposite. The more you tweet, the greater the exposure.
Tweets appear in Google searches
If you’re active on Twitter you should find that your most recent tweets appear in search results on Google in a carousel format. This means any candidates or prospects using organic search (search engines like Google) can easily find you online, and get a quick understanding of the type of content and topics you’re talking about. Given the average lifespan of a tweet is around 18 minutes, this means your posts stay visible for longer thanks to this carousel feature.
Twitter is great for branding
Twitter continues to be a great place to build and showcase your company and employer brand. Everything you post, share and engage with on the platform helps candidates, clients and prospects get a better understanding of who your company is, what it does and your company culture.
In conclusion
Social media continues to be an effective tool for employers sourcing new talent.
To get the most out of using Twitter to headhunt your next chef, keep in mind that your goal is to communicate with potential employees in a more personal and casual way (frequently and consistently). You don’t need to use Twitter for the ‘heavy lifting’ of recruiting. But it can be a good place to scout for chefs of interest to you, learn more about them and gauge culture fit for your team before meeting them in person.
And finally..
The industry has changed, but has your approach to hiring chefs?
A smaller chef talent pool and much more competition means it’s vital for every employer regardless of size to utilise the most effective recruitment tools in the market to engage the talent they need.
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