We show an advertisement for a narrow target audience, which we determine ourselves according to features that are important to us - geography, age, education, interests, etc. If for marketers it is a familiar tool that brings a bunch of benefits, then in HR the use of targeted advertising in social networks is a new direction.

Max Kolpakov is a project manager, marketer, targeting specialist and for some time a bit of HR. He plunged into recruiting after closing several vacancies using targeting techniques. To search for candidates for the position of targeting manager, Maxim created a landing page for a vacancy and launched targeted advertising on social networks as an experiment. After three days from the date of publication of the advertisement, 10 quality relevant resumes arrived. The cost of an advertising campaign amounted to 25 dollars.

Let us see why it is worth trying a marketing approach to find candidates for work:

• Narrowed target audience. Targeted advertising allows you to narrow down your advertising campaign on the most accurate target audience, up to the participants of a particular closed thematic community.
• Low cost. Advertising vacancies in social networks has one of the lowest cost per click (clicking on the link in the ad). The reason is that such posts do not carry a pronounced advertising character and are perceived by users and social networking algorithms as high-quality.
• Searching for the best. Valuable professionals rarely post their resumes on job search sites. Especially if they are already employed. Targeting in social networks allows you to find even those who are not looking for work and do not publish resumes on career sites. As a result, the quality of the candidates increases.

Three groups to whom this technology can help in the work:

1. Small and medium entrepreneurs - to search for contractors and freelancers.
2. Heads of departments and top managers - to search for candidates above average and interns who are ready to learn.
3. HR managers - to improve the quality of incoming candidates.

We share step-by-step instructions on how to start creating and launching an advertisement about finding candidates.

An important principle when creating a landing for a job is to think like a marketer. Selling a job is like selling any other product or service to your company. It is important to show the benefits and bonuses of working with you.

• The first landing screen. To make a candidate interested with a short phrase. Example: "Vacancy for a marketer who wants to make a cool case."
• The second landing screen. We acquaint the candidate with a potential boss. The appeal may be in writing or in the form of a video. It is important to "sell" a vacancy and leave bright impression about the company.
• The third landing screen. Sell vacancy. Just remember that the vacancy has its own face and history, like any other company product. Provide feedback from customers and employees, company values.
• The last landing screen. We finish the page with a form for a vacancy response.

Important note: the more valuable the specialist, the less time he wants to spend on filling out forms. After numerous case studies for the selection of candidates, Max and his team settled on a form that consists of the following fields:

1. Name
2. Email
3. Phone
4. Achievements, skills, experience that the candidate is proud of.

• Use free website builders that don't need special programming skills to create a page.

• Consider the pitfalls by checking the candidate's personal qualities and skills: for example, for SMM specialist's position, "find 10 incorrect statements on the page"

• Offer a bonus for a successful recommendation - the strategy is suitable for opinion leaders.
• Offer a paid trial. In this case, you will attract strong professionals.

The social media advertising targeting tool allows you to focus your search on the narrowest and most suitable audience. One of the most effective ways is to search for closed thematic communities.

Example 1. To close a vacancy of IT director, groups of IT directors by region were selected.

Example 2. In the case of searching for candidates for a position of a targeting specialist, a post with a vacancy is aimed at a closed group of graduates of the targeting course.

Which communities to look for potential candidates:

• Industry Media
• Events, conferences, meetings, meetings
• Clubs
• Training courses
• Industry software
• Theme Public
• Leaders and Followers
• Education, university groups
• Closed groups up to 500 people
• Forums

To do this, just read the instructions for running advertising in social networks: LinkedIn and Facebook.

After the launch of the advertising company remains to monitor the results. In addition to the number of received responses to the vacancy, we estimate the following parameters:

• CTR - the number of clicks per 1000 ad impressions
• eCPC - cost per click
• Transitions - the number of transitions from the link to the landing page (hereinafter you can compare with the number of responses on the page)
• Spent - total budget advertising company

The method of targeted advertising to search for candidates for an open position is not universal. Below are situations in which the method does not bring the desired results.

1. Inadequate sentence. This is a description of the position and working conditions that the company offers to the candidate. For example, the vacancy of the targeting specialist should allow for a remote version of the work and the position of sales manager to be tied to the premium part of the salary.Positions of top management.
2. Targeted advertising is suitable for mass selection of candidates. In the case of high positions, the search should be more accurate and thorough

In this case, we shared one of the many marketing tools that may be useful to recruiters. The use of targeted advertising will help the HR department specialist or hiring manager to increase the level of selection of candidates, reduce the financial and time costs of finding suitable employees.