When posting on a job board, you’ll likely reach one type of candidate, an active job seeker. The problem is that active job seekers only represent a proportion of the total talent pool.
Having launched over 40,000 campaigns for some of the world’s largest and best-known brands, including McDonald’s, Amazon, Walmart, and major healthcare providers, we have deep expertise in how social advertising platforms perform and how smart employers are building richer pipelines using social recruiting.
With an estimated active audience of over 5 billion daily users, who are estimated to spend more than two hours per day on platforms including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat, these platforms offer a phenomenal opportunity to reach passive job seekers. Employers who only post on job boards are missing this opportunity entirely.
Reasons to consider social hiring in your strategy
Social media recruitment isn’t designed to replace job boards, as both channels serve distinct audiences; with traditional platforms targeting active job seekers and social platforms engaging passive candidates who may be open to the right opportunity when presented effectively. We believe that the best outcomes can be achieved through a hybrid approach.
Adzuna’s social hiring guide highlights four reasons to run social media source, and they hold up as a working checklist for any campaign:
Strategic visibility to stand out in a crowded space
Job boards put every employer in front of the candidates actively looking for a new job. On the other hand, social platforms give you the opportunity to place a role directly in front of specific audiences, using location and interest targeting. In addition, every like, comment and share on that ad extends its reach further via the platform’s algorithms, helping you expand reach, and generating the richest pool of candidates.
Passive candidates are the majority, not the minority
In addition to reaching active applicants, social media sourcing opens opportunities to engage passive candidates, who represent roughly 80% of the overall candidate pool. While not actively browsing job listings, passive candidates may be open to compelling opportunities delivered through engaging video and tailored creative content directly within their social media feeds.
Targeting combined to refined layers increases relevance
Social media location targeting allows you to put a role in front of candidates who may be going past a specific site, store or warehouse every day without realising it’s hiring. Adding the layer of behavioural targeting, based on interests and browsing behaviour, narrows that further to people who’ve shown signal for the sector or job type. The combination is what makes a social hiring campaign relevant and targeted rather than just purely expanding reach.
Employer brand supports better recruitment process
If we consider that more than 40% of Gen Z use social media as their primary search engine, then employer brand and reputation become another important consideration. Candidates who already have a positive impression of a company are considerably more inclined to take a job offer seriously when they see one.
Employer branding in social recruitment means authentically showcasing company culture, employee testimonials, and behind-the-scenes content directly within candidate feeds. Employers should actively publish content highlighting daily life, outline clear career progression paths, and ensure prompt response to comments and messages to build trust and encourage active applications.
What’s the right platform for your recruitment campaign?
Each social media platform offers distinct formats, demographics, and user behaviour:
Facebook: Primary channel for general outreach. With 3.07B active users, concentrated between ages 25-49, it performs best for low- to mid-skilled frontline roles in retail, logistics, manufacturing, healthcare, and transport.
Instagram: Brand-first channel with 2 billion active users (mostly women, Millennials, and Gen Z) and double the engagement of Facebook and X. Ideal for junior to mid-level roles and employer brand visibility.
TikTok: High-engagement channel where over half of users are under 30, averaging 45 hours/month on the app. Effective for entry-level, graduate, logistics, and hospitality recruitment.
Snapchat: Delivers high daily touchpoints (opened more than 30 times/day), with more than 35% of users aged 18–24 globally. Highly effective for reaching young audiences for entry-level, temporary, and seasonal roles.
LinkedIn: Has 1.1 billion members, but targets white-collar and executive roles. Frontline candidates are less active here, making high-volume recruitment expensive compared to Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat.
How to create your social hiring campaign
- Targeting & Audience strategy
Combine geographic targeting around key sites with broad interest signals, allowing creative matching engines to discover relevant candidate pools.
- Creative & Format optimisation
Produce short-form video and authentic workplace content tailored to each channel, using diverse hooks to fuel platform algorithms.
- Frictionless Application format
Build mobile-first, 30-60 second application forms with basic screening questions, dropping upfront CV requirements to minimise drop-off. Employers should consider offering quick-apply options (such as social logins), streamlined multiple-choice screening questions, and instant assessment scheduling to make the process as seamless as possible.
- Speed & Candidate engagement
For the candidates that do apply, follow up within 24 hours by integrating lead forms directly into your CRM or ATS to trigger automated SMS workflows, instant phone calls, and self-scheduling links. This keeps candidates engaged.
Key recruitment metrics for evaluating campaign impact
Measuring full-funnel performance gives clearer visibility into ROI.
Unlike traditional job boards, which rely on job seekers actively searching for roles, social media sourcing benefits from first-party data, demographic and behavioural segmentation, and real-time algorithmic optimisation to target relevant audiences and continuously refine campaign performance. :
Cost per Hire
By targeting candidates efficiently on the channels they already use, you can realise efficiency savings including reducing cost per hire, particularly as part of a full funnel campaign targeting both active and passive job seekers.
Time to Fill & Time to Hire
Frictionless mobile application processes combined with immediate automated engagement significantly accelerate the hiring cycle, moving qualified candidates from initial ad view to interview faster.
Quality of Hire
Targeted social reach connects employers with high-quality passive candidates matched by specific demographics, location and interest signals, improving candidate fit, engagement and retention.
How Adzuna Social helps employers adapt
We combine recruitment data, social advertising technology, creative and ongoing campaign optimisation to help employers reach candidates beyond the active jobseeker market and turn that reach into meaningful hiring outcomes.
As social platforms and candidate behaviours continue to evolve, enterprise hiring teams need a social recruitment strategy that can keep pace with how candidates are reached, engaged and converted.
Book a demo to see how Adzuna can help your enterprise hiring strategy reach further.