8 Tips for Using Instagram as a Recruitment Source

Instagram is a goldmine when it comes to finding talent. The platform, popular among millennials and zoomers, is known for its visual appeal, but it’s also an extraordinary resource for companies that hire in large volumes. Especially now, as Meta has recently announced the opening of the Messenger API for all businesses on Instagram.

More than half of Instagram users are between 18-34 years old, the same population that is now largely inactive on Facebook, making Instagram a star resource for attracting young talent across various industries. This opens up a unique opportunity for the recruitment and selection sector.

Designed for mobile use, Instagram is the perfect place for quick and simple recruitment. Plus, with the opening of its API, Talkpush has launched the first recruitment chatbot on Instagram, which attracts and engages candidates directly on the platform.

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Instagram for mass recruitment

Having a chatbot is already half the battle won, but marketing experts know that every platform requires careful planning and a specific strategy to attract consumers—or in our case, candidates. Below, we’ll explore how Instagram can become a key component of your recruitment strategy to maximize the benefits of ease of use, popularity, convenience, and speed.

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Attracting talent on Instagram

Every day, 620 million Instagram users spend 53 minutes on the platform, and 200 million of them explore at least one business profile daily, positioning Instagram as an effective platform for potential candidates to discover your brand. However, Instagram is not just a friend of marketing—it’s also an excellent ally for recruitment.

Instagram can be transformed into an effective tool for talent acquisition, as it allows candidates to apply for jobs without leaving the platform. This is great news, especially for recruiters seeking to hire a large number of young people, as 65% of users are between 18 and 34 years old. This population of millennials and zoomers (Gen Z) is highly tech-savvy and spends most of their time online.

Unlike Facebook, Instagram is naturally fast and visual. Users consume content quickly, often without reading the captions, so recruiters need to create a content strategy that complements the recruitment process while also being visually appealing to the target audience. The best way to achieve this is by leveraging features like Stories, hashtags, reels, and more.

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8 Tips for your Instagram recruitment strategy

Being a content creator on Instagram can be challenging. It’s difficult to make decisions and execute them correctly when there are so many content styles and options available. After defining your strategy, you need to figure out how to ensure your content reaches your target audience and generates engagement. At this point, you might be wondering if it’s worth it, and the answer is always yes!

Here are 8 data-backed tips to help you maximize your content and, in the process, grow your Instagram audience.

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Use Hashtags 

Posts with at least one hashtag get at least 12.6% more engagement.
Hashtags are a quick way to find relevant content based on user preferences. By using relevant hashtags in your post, you’ll help your target audience find you faster and interact with your content. Always remember that how you use keywords within hashtags plays a crucial role as well.
For example, if you’re posting about job openings at your company, you might choose between #Vacancies and #Jobs. The difference is that the latter has around 8 million associated posts. The same concept applies to general hashtags like #Jobs or niche ones like #TrabajoMexico, which would narrow down the post to job offers in Mexico.

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Tag your location 

Instagram posts that are geotagged get nearly 80% more engagement compared to those that aren’t.
Tagging your location on Instagram posts is an underrated trick. Using location tags requires minimal effort and can be a powerful tactic for local brands to be discovered. It enhances brand recognition by increasing the visibility of your content on the ‘Explore’ page and in geotagged stories (for these, make sure to use the ‘Location’ sticker).

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Emphasize your Call to Action 

Stories with a call-to-action button perform better 89% of the time.
A great option to get users to engage with your content is by including the ‘swipe up’ feature in your stories to direct them to a conversation or landing page without leaving the app. This feature should always be utilized, and to ensure its effectiveness, find ways to direct attention to the swipe-up option within the story.
The second most important thing is to optimize the step and adapt it to the candidate's behavior. If you redirect them to an ATS to create an account, you’ll lose them. If you ask them to send their resume to an email address, making them copy and paste it, you’ll also lose them.

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Use Instagram Videos and Reels

Videos on Instagram get twice the engagement of photos.
Last year, Instagram launched a new feature called ‘Reels.’ It allows you to record and edit 15-second clips in a TikTok style. It comes with multiple creative tools and effects to use in videos. Videos are great for letting your audience know what your company is doing and what it’s like to work there.

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Post Instagram Stories 

62% of users become more interested in a brand after seeing its content in a story.
Instagram stories are 15-second images or videos that are only available for 24 hours. They appear at the top of the screen and play automatically, making them highly engaging and interactive for the 500 million people who check this content daily.
Another interesting aspect of Instagram stories is that you can select which ones you want to feature on your profile permanently. Some stories can stay on your profile forever and are a simple and quick tool to segment content by niche topics, such as company culture, events, open positions, testimonials, etc. This makes it easier for your audience to learn about you and choose their topics of interest.

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Schedule your posts 

On average, Instagram users are most active on Wednesdays and Thursdays.
Generally, Instagram users are more active during weekdays. This information can help you plan when to schedule posts to maximize your content’s reach and engagement. Additionally, if you want to plan according to when most of your users are active, you can check the ‘Insights’ tab from your Instagram account profile.

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Run a paid recruitment Ad Campaign 

Instagram’s advertising reach is approximately 928.5 million people.
While most of those 928.5 million people won’t be your target audience, having a paid ad plan is a good idea if your target market has a presence on Instagram. With such a high reach, it’s almost guaranteed that a significant portion of your audience will be there. Remember, to run paid ads on Instagram, you need a Facebook business account to use the Facebook Ads Manager. For more information, check out this article from Facebook for Business.

Lead Ads on Instagram are a powerful tool for capturing potential candidates without requiring them to leave the platform. These ads allow users to express interest in a job opening or company by filling out a quick form, all within Instagram. This not only makes it easier to collect contact information from potential candidates but also significantly reduces abandonment rates, as it eliminates the need to redirect users to an external site. Additionally, you can precisely target your audience, ensuring your ads reach the right people at the right time, maximizing the effectiveness of your recruitment campaigns.

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Show authenticity 

Photos with visible faces get 38% more ‘likes,’ and surprisingly, ads recorded on mobile devices perform 68% better than those shot in a professional studio.
The narrative of Instagram is its ability to tell stories through images. That’s why it’s the perfect platform to build brand positioning with potential candidates. When companies showcase their culture and corporate image, they highlight the qualities that a potential candidate might be looking for in an employer.
Users will recognize the authenticity of your content, even if it’s an ad. The response is always positive when the content features real people, as it gives the company a human touch and makes it feel more approachable. The same logic applies to content generated from mobile devices—there’s a more realistic and honest vibe. This helps candidates picture themselves in your company, working as part of the team, and being immersed in your corporate culture.

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Attracting talent on social media using chatbots 

Once you’ve applied all these marketing tactics on Instagram, you’ll start generating a high volume of applications. And if your team has ever managed mass recruitment processes for candidates sourced from social media, you know how overwhelming it can be to manually process each application. Fortunately, with Instagram’s new API opening, a friendly chatbot can save the day.

Talkpush is a pioneer in delivering a rich and interactive experience to candidates using recruitment chatbots that can:

• Provide immediate answers to candidates’ open questions;
• Allow candidates to interact with customized menus to learn more about the employer and job offers; and
• Accept text, audio, and video responses for pre-screening questions.

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But that’s not all! Talkpush will also help automate most of the top funnel of the recruitment process when it comes to processing these candidates. Recruiters can select rules and triggers to filter candidates and send automated messages to candidates as they progress through the selection process.

Talkpush also enables automated reminders for candidates who haven’t completed certain steps of their interviews, and it creates parameters to automatically move candidates to the next stages of the process. It even offers the option for candidates to schedule interviews, submit documents, or complete assessments. Recruiters can set their preferences in Talkpush and communicate with candidates on Instagram (and other messaging platforms like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Telegram, SMS, and email).

Would you like to implement your own recruitment chatbot on Instagram? Click here to schedule a demo.

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Frequently Asked Questions About Instagram Recruitment

1. Can you use Instagram for recruitment? Even before the opening of the Instagram API, companies were using the platform for recruitment. The difference is that before, candidates had to click an external link to apply for job openings, causing them to abandon the process. Now, with the help of a chatbot, candidates can apply directly through their direct messages on Instagram and receive updates on the platform.
2. How do you recruit on Instagram? Recruiters need to know their target audience and understand the type of content and approach that resonates with their interests. From there, the strategy is to maximize reach and create visually appealing content for their specific audience.
3. How can people find jobs on Instagram? Job seekers actively search relevant hashtags indicating available vacancies, and they follow companies they’d like to work for or that are frequently hiring. For more passive candidates, it’s more effective to reach them through ads in their stories or posts.
4. Is Instagram a good platform for recruitment? Unlike Facebook, Instagram attracts a younger audience, positioning the platform as an excellent place to find young professionals who are tech-savvy. It provides an opportunity to expand your talent base with people who fit the candidate profile you’re looking for.
5. What are the advantages of hiring on Instagram? Instagram has a more defined demographic, with the second-largest base of active users on social media. It’s perfect for companies that hire in large volumes or want to explore their creative side through recruitment marketing. This brings you closer to your target audience, allowing you to nurture leads and eventually convert them into candidates.

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Want to learn more about how Talkpush can help your team recruit faster and better on Instagram and other messaging platforms?

Schedule a Demo.

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