​Use Twitter Interviews to Hire Better Candidates – Tweet Your Way to Top Talent

Recruiters commonly turn to social media to find and hire employees. Facebook and LinkedIn tend to be the go-to platforms for this, but Twitter is becoming an increasingly popular tool for recruitment – employers are not only using it to source candidates, but also for interviewing them. 

In a Jobvite survey, 94% of recruiters use or plan to use social media to hire, and 49% said they’d found better quality candidates recruiting via social. With stats like these, using social media to strengthen your recruitment strategy is a no-brainer, but how can Twitter interviews help you with hiring? First let’s look at how a ‘Twitterview’ actually works.

The workings of a Twitter interview

The basic principle is having a conversation entirely by tweets. Twitter recently upped the 140-character limit for tweets to 280 characters, which means that although both the interviewer and interviewee will still need to keep what they say fairly short and sweet, it’s much less restrictive.

Twitter’s Tweet Chat function makes it easy to follow hashtags and see the whole interview unfold, and your chosen hashtag will be automatically added each time you tweet, so there’s no need to enter it every time. You’ll also be able to see a live stream of people using your hashtag, and any comments from your audience, so you can keep track of how people are getting involved as it happens.

Top 5 benefits to ‘Twitterviewing’

Interviewing someone on Twitter from a journalistic stance, such as a celebrity or person of interest, makes a great deal of sense for PR. But how can this help with recruitment?

1. Greater engagement – Interviewing in this very public way increases engagement from candidates, as well as allowing your employees, customers and clients to get involved and interact.

2. Pre-interview contact – It gives you the opportunity to get to know someone a bit better before having a face-to-face meeting, which can be good for initial interactions before proceeding with a formal interview.

3. Find the best candidates – You’ll be able to sort the really strong, engaged candidates from the on-the-fence ones before they get any further in the hiring process, which will save you time and effort.

4. Clear and concise responses – Cut the interview waffle and get straight to the point. Candidates will have a limited word count to answer questions, meaning they’re forced to give more focused, relevant responses.

5. Show some personality – This can be a fun alternative to a traditional interview, and not only gives you a chance to show a bit of your character and brand culture in the type of questions you ask, but also allows your candidates to show some of their personality and creativity.

Whether you’re using Twitter interviews to short-list candidates, as an engagement exercise before an open day, or just to keep your recruitment strategy fresh, make the most out of the experience – post a transcript of your interviews on your career site or on social media to show other candidates and clients how you tackle recruitment and candidate engagement.

Liking what you’re reading? Get useful marketing, recruitment and career advice sent directly to your inbox – sign-up below.