Latest / Social Media Marketing with Fexingo: Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, and Platform Strategy / Why Brands Are Using Social Media to Recruit Talent
Transcript
- Lucas: Luna, I want to talk about something that's quietly become one of the most effective uses of social media for brands — and it's not about selling a product. It's about hiring people. Luna: Recruitment through social feeds. I've seen more and more companies doing it, but I think most marketers still treat it as an afterthought. Lucas: Right. So let's anchor on a specific case. Boeing — yes, the aerospace giant — started a TikTok series last year called 'Day in the Life of an Engineer.' Not a polished corporate video. Just real engineers showing what they do. And according to their internal data, each post in that series generated over 300 qualified applicants for entry-level engineering roles. Luna: Wait, three hundred per post? That's wild. What was the content actually like? Lucas: Low production value. An engineer named Maria showing how she uses CAD software, another guy walking through the hangar, pointing at a wing assembly. The hook was always something like 'People think I just push buttons — here's what I actually do.' No script. The authenticity was the whole point. Luna: It's the same principle as influencer marketing, isn't it? People trust a real face over a corporate brochure. Lucas: Exactly. And Boeing didn't just post and hope. They had a clear call to action in the bio and pinned comment — 'Apply for our early career program, link below.' They tracked click-through rates all the way to application submission. And the cost per hire from those TikTok posts was about one fifth of what they spent on traditional job boards. Luna: That's a massive efficiency gain. But I imagine not every company can pull off a Boeing — they have a naturally interesting product. Planes are cool. Lucas: True, but the principle scales. Let's talk about a B2B software company — say, a mid-size CRM platform with maybe 500 employees. They started a LinkedIn video series where their customer support lead did weekly 'Ask Me Anything' sessions. Not about the product — about what it's like to work there. The culture, the pace, the weirdest client request. Luna: So it's almost like a live job preview. You're letting candidates self-select out before they even apply. Lucas: Exactly. And that's actually the key metric that most brands ignore. It's not just views or likes — it's application completion rate. This company saw that candidates who watched at least three of those LinkedIn videos before applying were 40 percent more likely to complete the full application and 25 percent less likely to drop out during the interview process. Luna: Because they've already been pre-sold on the reality of the job. The mismatch risk goes down. Lucas: Right. And there's another angle I find really interesting: using Instagram to hire for roles that aren't even advertised yet. I spoke to a founder of a small natural skincare brand — about 30 employees — who told me she hired her current VP of Marketing entirely through Instagram DMs. Luna: She just slid into someone's DMs and offered them a job? Lucas: Pretty much. She had been following this woman's content for about a year — she was a mid-level marketer at a larger CPG company, but her Instagram was full of smart takes on indie brand strategy. So the founder reached out, said 'Hey, I love your thinking. We don't have an opening right now, but would you ever consider a conversation?' Six months later, they created a role for her. Luna: That's a great story, but it's also a gamble. What if they'd misread the person? What if the vibe on Instagram doesn't match the reality of working together? Lucas: That's the risk. But the founder told me she had a process. She asked the candidate to do a small project — a mock strategy doc for a product launch — before any formal interview. That project, combined with the person's public content, gave her more signal than a traditional resume ever would. Luna: So it's not just about posting content. It's about having a system to evaluate people who emerge from that content ecosystem. Lucas: Exactly. And I think that's where a lot of brands fall short. They post a 'Join our team' graphic on LinkedIn and call it recruitment marketing. But the brands that are actually getting results treat social recruitment as a full funnel — from awareness all the way to conversion. Luna: Let's talk about the downsides though. I've seen some cringe examples — companies trying too hard to look cool, or posting performative diversity content that doesn't match the actual team makeup. Lucas: Absolutely. There's a fine line between authentic employer branding and what I'd call 'culture cosplay.' One that comes to mind: a fintech startup posted a TikTok of their team doing a beer pong tournament in the office. The comments were brutal — people asking 'Is this what you do with my transaction fees?' They deleted the video within hours. Luna: Right. Candidates — especially younger ones — are incredibly good at sniffing out inauthenticity. If your content says 'we're a family' but your Glassdoor reviews say otherwise, you're actually hurting your hiring. Lucas: And that's the thing: social recruitment is transparent by nature. Candidates will cross-reference your content with employee LinkedIn profiles, with Reddit threads, with Blind. You can't fake it. The best approach is to let real employees tell real stories — and give them guidelines, not scripts. Luna: Speaking of real — and this ties back to the idea of building something that actually works — I want to mention something. A couple of dollars a month is genuinely what keeps these conversations going. Buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo, if you've gotten something out of them. Lucas: Yeah, that's a good point. It's listener-supported, no ads, no sponsors — just the stuff we actually want to talk about. So if these episodes have given you a useful framework or a concrete example you've used, that's the place. Luna: Alright, back to hiring. I want to know what the actual metrics are. If a brand is starting social recruitment from scratch next week, what should they measure? Lucas: Three things. First, cost per applicant — what you spend on content production and promotion divided by number of completed applications. Second, source quality — which platform and which content type yields the highest offer acceptance rate. And third, time to hire — from first social touchpoint to signed offer. Luna: So it's not just about getting applications. It's about getting the right applications faster and cheaper. Lucas: Exactly. And here's a number I love: a mid-size logistics company I looked at found that applicants sourced through TikTok had a 50 percent higher retention rate after six months compared to applicants from job boards. Why? Because the TikTok content scared away people who wouldn't like the job — long hours, physical work — and attracted people who were genuinely excited by it. Luna: That's the self-selection we talked about. The content acts as a filter. And that's way more valuable than a high volume of unqualified applications. Lucas: Right. So the playbook is: pick one platform where your target talent actually hangs out — not where your HR team thinks they hang out. Then invest in employee-generated content, not polished brand content. Then track what happens after the view — not just the view itself. Luna: And the employees who participate — do they get anything? I've seen some brands offer bonuses or commissions for hires that come through an employee's social content. Lucas: Yes, that's becoming more common. Some companies pay a referral bonus if a candidate mentions the employee's post. Others give the employee a small stipend for content creation — like $200 a month to make three TikToks. It's cheap compared to recruiter fees. Luna: That makes sense. And it turns every employee into a potential recruiter. But you need to give them guardrails — what not to share, how to handle questions about salary, that kind of thing. Lucas: Exactly. A simple one-pager with do's and don'ts is enough. You don't need a 50-page brand guide. The more you control it, the less authentic it feels. Luna: Final thought — do you see this becoming the primary way companies hire in, say, five years? Lucas: Not for every role. Senior executive hires will probably still rely on networks and headhunters. But for early career, for high-volume roles, and for roles where cultural fit matters a lot — like creative or customer-facing positions — I think social recruitment will be the default. The cost advantage is just too big to ignore. Luna: It's also just more human. You get a sense of who someone is before you ever see a resume. Lucas: Exactly. And that's the whole point. It's not about replacing traditional hiring. It's about adding a channel that actually shows the real person behind the application.