Hire Cleaning Professionals Faster with Social Recruiting

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Using social media to find talent makes sense, says Lorianne Bauer, HR manager with ESS Cleaning, Urbana, Ill. 

 

“You might have a Facebook page with 500 people. Then your [connections] have 500 people,” she says. “You can reach a lot of people geographically — for free.”

 

Employers say the social recruiting process is shorter, less expensive and more streamlined, effectively weeding out non-qualified applicants from the start. 

 

“I like the speed in which applicants can apply,” says Josh McCullough, a division manager for Mid-America Cleaning Contractors in Dayton, Ohio. “In today’s environment, when so much of what we do is instant, waiting three days for a newspaper to even run your ad, then hope people see it when it’s in the paper and [waiting] for the applicants to call…it’s just not realistic anymore.”

 

Another advantage is that social recruiting works like a two-way street, says Kathleen Bands Schindler, vice president at My Cleaning Service Inc., in Baltimore. 

 

“I have had people reach out to me over LinkedIn,” Schindler says. “I think almost everything is going that way.”

Social recruiting also provides another service — pinpointing so-called “passive applicants.” 

 

“Use of computerized search engines can identify qualified individuals who may not currently be looking for new jobs,” says Perry Heidecker, senior counsel at Milman Labuda Law Group, Lake Success, N.Y., a group that specializes in labor and employment law, including in the building service industry. “These [people] can be a fruitful source of potential candidates.”

 

A recent JobVite survey said about 50 percent of social job seekers were employed but “open” to finding new employment. 

At Jani-King, social recruiting has given the company the opportunity to file away workers they would like to hire, but for whom they don’t have an opening for right now, says Kelly. 

 

“We can eliminate ‘hiring from need,’” he says. “I believe in developing a ‘bench’ of potential employees that we would love to hire, and who in turn, would love to join our team.”