How L’oreal Used Social Media for Recruitment (case study)
Seems like every hiring manager of 2018 wants to win the war for talent. But what is the secret ingredient? What’s the strategy the most successful recruiters follow?
Today we’re bringing to you a case study of a winner: L’oreal; to tell you how it recruits new talent.
Well, since it is a case study we’re looking at, don’t panic if we geek out a little bit.
Getting right to the point, the question is what did L’oreal’s recruiters do that other companies’ recruiters didn’t?
Most companies don’t view recruiting as part of their branding but that’s not the case with L’oreal, whose recruiting techniques become known to the outside world and hence affect the perception of their brand.
This is the global Facebook page for L’oreal jobs. While most companies don’t view social media as a promising avenue,L’oreal creates a company culture around it. So, what’s the point of displaying company culture, right? We’re getting to it.
The truth is that your company motto and yearly company outings might feel deceptive to new candidates. They doubt whether the workplace is really what it portrays itself to be. It’s an age-old strategy: every company only boasts about its working environment. On another hand, L’oreal lets its employees do the boasting. They are encouraged (not pushed) to share their genuine testimonials and thus, L’oreal leverages user-generated content.
Why does this approach work?
People obviously trust their peers on social media more than a large organization. When they see real testimonials and pictures, they start believing that L’oreal must be a great place to work. And that’s what company culture is.
Initially, the hashtag #LifeatLoreal a way for corporate comms to find out what was going on in the various offices across the US. But, the trend of posting pictures with this hashtag caught on and L’oreal featured these pictures on the social media channels.
On Instagram, the hashtag #LorealCommunity was used to tag pictures of colleagues bonding with each other and genuinely having a fun time at work (which sounds unreal but attracts potential candidates)
The result of these hashtag campaigns was clear as day: An increase of 200,000 unique impressions on Instagram. With these posts, they also reached passive candidates.
What recruiters must learn is that banning social media or even pestering employees to stay away from their phones is not the ideal strategy. It is the norm that managers block Facebook surfing while at work because it is seen as distracting. But, L’oreal rode against the tide and won the employee engagement race.
Have deep thoughts and opinions on the L’oreal case study? Don’t shy away from the comments section! We’d love to hear from you.
