How to Use Instagram to Recruit The Best Grads For Your Graduate Program

Posted by Sasha

Instagram

Instagram should be seen as a serious employer branding platform for your 2018 graduate recruitment campaign. As it’s a visual platform comprising only of photos and video, it’s the ultimate storytelling medium that allows you to showcase your organisation; who you are, how you operate, who you hire, what you do in the day-to-day. It’s also the second most favoured platform for millennial grads.

Done well, you can build a solid employer brand that lures in top graduate talent and makes them want to be part of your brand.

Here are a few tips to help you make Instagram work for you.

1. Craft an engaging tagline

Will you create a focused careers profile, or will you incorporate your employer branding initiatives into your broader company profile? Clearly identify who is your audience and what they care about and craft a catchy tagline that lets followers know who your profile is for and what they can expect to see.

2. Emphasise behind-the-scenes stories

This is your opportunity to profile your employees, workplace, team culture, and company events. Give prospective graduates an insight into the everyday goings on so they develop an understanding of what your employees do to help you achieve organisation goals. Check out PWC and Australian Border Force (below) who do this well.

3. Encourage user-generated content

User-generated content is when your followers upload and share their own images or video with your account by tagging you or including your hashtags in their caption. How? The simplest way to engage followers is to run a competition and ask them to ‘take a photo’ related to your brand or campaign for the chance to win a specific prize. (Check out Telstra for an example.)

Telstra

4. Ask questions and encourage engagement

Instagram is a social network – don’t forget to be social! Encourage your followers to engage with your posts, to like or comment on them by asking them questions or to share their thoughts and experiences on the topic. And always respond to questions and comments – it will help your credibility if grads can see there is a human on the other end interacting and contributing to the conversation.

5. Create and use hashtags

More than just #yourcompanyname, can you incorporate your catch cry, tag line, or campaign slogans as hashtags that will become synonymous with your brand. Before you commit to a hashtag – first run a search for it in Instagram to make sure it’s not already in use! Check out these examples; #deloittegradsnz, #consultinglife In recent news for Instagram - you can now include hashtags in your account bio, meaning your profile is now searchable via the humble hashtag.

Hays Instagram

6. Get your employees involved

Create a flexible Instagram policy that encourages your employees to get involved. Like most of our examples below, employees (not your marketing team) generating the photos and video demonstrate a more genuine view of life in your organisation. Happy employees will love the opportunity to share their workplace with the world!

What Employer Branding Looks Like on Instagram

Check out our favourite examples of employer branding being done well on Instagram. You’ll notice some of our Top 100 employers in this list.

PWC (@pwc_au) - Unsurprisingly, our Top Graduate Employer are doing a great job on Instagram. PWC share stories about company successes (as Top 100 winners), insights into company culture, corporate policy and achievements, community contributions and charity partners, and inside their offices.

Pwc Instagram

Australian Border Force (@ausborderforce) - Everyone loves puppy photos! These guys also do a great job demonstrating human connection and sharing realistic role previews by showcasing the officers and the contraband their patrol dogs pick up at airports. Check out their #unwrapped series – it’s fascinating stuff!

Australian Border Force

Hays (@haysaustralia) – Hays are recruitment specialists, so we expected them to lead by example! Emphasising behind the scenes storytelling, Hays celebrate their community programs and support, company and employee wins (Top 100 winners), employee health and wellbeing, workplace culture, and a playful insight into what they do.

Hays Instagram

Hudson (@wearehudson) – Hudson share employee-generated stories integrated with their snapchat account, behind-the-scenes at company awards, employee successes, workplace diversity, and their different offices worldwide - generating an overall supportive team culture vibe.

Hudson

Telstra (@telstra) – Telstra provide a great example of how to incorporate user generated content encouraging their followers to share experiences with Telstra products. They also publish behind-the-scenes with employees, products and innovations, and their community support initiatives (for example, Women in Business Awards).

Telstra Instagram

Vodafone (@vodafoneau) – Vodafone share a full brand story, including product launches, store ambassadors, community support programs and initiatives, and their graduate recruitment events and activities.

Vodafone Instagram

Use Instagram to Stand Out

More companies are turning to Instagram to promote their employer brand and build an engaged talent community. However, it hasn’t been widely adopted by most of the top employers in our list – so, here’s your chance to stand out!

Stay tuned over the coming weeks as we explore more of our top graduate recruitment predictions. In the meantime check out our Instagram and get in touch - we’d love to hear from you.

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