12 Steps to Make your Job Ads Go Viral (Part 2)

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diagram of a person talking with a speech bubble then how it spreads to a larger group In the first part of this article we outlined how research from Millward Brown suggests that only 15 percent of ads go viral online, yet it is the goal of almost every HR professional to get their job postings to go viral. In that article, we outlined the first 6 of 12 steps that recruiters could take to help perform this very difficult task of making their jobs ads go viral and these were:

  1. Create an infectious employer brand
  2. Build a job ad that reflects the employer brand
  3. Post/share your ads when job seekers are most responsive
  4. Identify influencers
  5. Include employer branding videos that people want to share
  6. Make it easy to share your jobs

Below you can find the second 6 steps:

1. Let candidates connect with your team in real time

Candidates are likely to have questions and queries on the role, so give them the chance to connect with your team members online using a chat client based on your careers page. This will present you as a responsive and engaged employer who really listens to their employees. Also, quick answers to questions will make the candidates more likely to apply or retweet, once again making your job ad viral.

2. Ask for a retweet

Although it’s not currently the largest social network, Twitter is reputedly the fastest growing network, so it certainly deserves some specific attention. Always remember to add the simple “please RT” on to your message and this will increase the amount of retweets you get from your article. It is the same for any form of marketing. You need to make sure to include a call to action.

3. Use social recruiting software

There are a range of social recruiting tools out there—such as Messhire, Zao, Jobvite—which allow you to quickly share your job adverts with your employee’s social networks as part of an employee referral scheme. Employee referrals are one of the oldest forms of viral recruiting and are proving to be the most influential form of hire today.

4. Start an employee referral program and gamify it

Whether this is a built-in part of your social recruiting software or if it’s done manually, make sure to gamify your employee referral process. This simply means creating a sense of competition and encouraging employees to compete so that they will put more effort into disseminating your job ads.

You can gamify this process by giving employees points for referring applicants and creating a leader board so everyone can see how well they are comparing against others.

5. Incentivize and reward sharing of your jobs

Reward employers who share your jobs using appropriate incentives. Do your research and make sure that you include large enough rewards to be compelling to your employees. This could include cash or prizes. Prizes, such as a weekend holiday, may indeed be more viral as they are more visual and employees will talk about it more than a cash reward. Just a thought.

6. Coach employees on how to grow their own network

The larger the employee’s network the more viral your referred job ads can be, so coach and advise your employees on how to grow and build their networks by mechanisms such as sharing industry and company related content with their networks.

As, I said, there is no guarantee your job ad will go viral, but taking these steps will help you to create the most infectious job advert possible.

By Kazim Ladimeji