The Five is a regular column where we will be looking that the five top technologies to solve common recruiting problems.
Daily, we get bombarded with so many words and images that it gets harder and harder to determine what is real and what isn’t. And somehow, you need to sort through this barrage of letters and acronyms to make one of the most important decisions for a company. The decision to find the person who will take your company to the next level. The challenge is sorting through public personas and not get distracted by all of the crap that will take you away from finding what you really need to find. A person whose work aligns with what you need in your next candidate. How much does a recruiter really need in order to determine if someone is worthy or not of a first phone call?
The key to sourcing is being abLe to find the largest pool of potentially qualified candidates and be able to quickly narrow the pile down to qualified ones and narrow that pile to ones you can actually submit. There are no recruiting “gurus” or super all stars. There are just people who “get” how to search and those who don’t. If you fall into the latter category, you can be taught. And yes, you can even find candidates with 140 characters or less on Twitter. But sourcing on Twitter is not the same as sourcing on the golden standards of LinkedIn or Facebook. It takes a little bit more knowledge about how social media works and a little bit more creativity.
Maybe why there is so much divisiveness regarding whether or not Twitter is an effective resource for Sourcers and Recruiters. Not feeling creative? No worry, there are some really smart folks that are here to help you out. Here are the five tools I recommend you use when sourcing Twitter.
Here Are The Five
#tagboard
I mention #tagboard first because it is one of my favorites. Mainly because it allows you to search multiple social media sites. Besides Twitter, with #tagboard you can search Facebook, Instagram, and Google+ as well. (Is anyone even using Google+?) By looking at a complete hashtag search, you can truly get insight into what is going on in the industry you are searching for and find out what could be interesting for candidates. This allows you to at the very least have interesting conversations with potential candidates.
At its most simplest, Tagboard is a great way to monitor keywords across social networks. This kind of feature is invaluable for those of you monitoring your brand online. The great thing about Tagboard is that, since its entirely free, it makes a great choice for someone who’s just starting out with their business and doesn’t want to spring for social media monitoring just yet.
Keyhole
Part of being able to find candidates on Twitter is being able to be able to track conversations. Keyhole is a allows you to track conversation by looking at hashtags. What makes this great for recruiting is that along with hashtags, you can also add location, demographics, keywords, and recent “Tweeters.” Not only can you use this to find candidates, you can also find important information about networking events, meet-ups and job fairs that are attracting the people that you are looking for. Try Keyhole by clicking here. Keyhole offers a 14-day free trial but pricing starts at $14 per month.
Keyhole not only tracks hashtags, but also keywords and website URLs. The platform also identifies the most active and influential participants talking about a topic and enables direct engagement with them. Users can track the volume of activity around campaigns in real-time, including number of users and total reach. Analytics and reporting tools are included, as well.
The One Million Tweet Map
Ever recruit on a super mega hard to find skill set? Where do you go first? With “The One Million Tweet Map,” you can visually see where the most traffic for a particular keyword or hashtag. For example, if you are recruiting vegan chefs, you would enter “vegan chef” into the search box. The results on the map show that at this time, Houston is the hot place for people talking about vegan chefs, so instead of searching the whole us, you can target it to where the chefs are. Use the One Million Tweet Map by clicking here. This is a free tool.
Powered by Maptimize software the map updates every single time a tweet is sent with 20 tweets arriving every single second. As new tweets arrive the 20 oldest tweets are removed from the maps figures.
Warble
Warble offers free daily email alerts for Twitter. You can search keywords, mentions, hashtags, and accounts. What is great about Warble is that not only is it free, you have an unlimited amount of searches. This is also great to see how your Employer branding is going. Us Warble by clicking here. This tool is free to use.
If you want to gain more control over the type of alerts that you receive eg exclude retweets, set up alerts for tweets in a certain topics; you may configure your search according to Warble’s supported operators listed on the alert creation page.
Advanced Twitter Search
You know about the standard search capability but may not know about the advanced search features. With Twitter’s Advanced Search, you can create complex keyword searches that are the most relevant for the candidates you are searching for. This is a free resource.
What do you know about what you’re looking for? If you’re searching for a word, phrase, or hashtag used in a Tweet or bio — start with the “Words” section. If you’re focusing on specific accounts, start with the “People” filters. “Place”, “Date”, and “Other” can add more precision to your search. Start broad, then make your search terms more and more specific.
Here is our webinar – 140 Characters or Less
.

By Jackye Clayton
Jackye is an acclaimed thought leader and inspirational speaker on recruiting and DEIB topics. She brings years of experience recruiting across a variety of industries including tech, HR, legal, and finance. In her role as VP of Talent Acquisition and DEIB, she leads all related work at Textio, provides critical expertise to customers, and serves as a leading voice in the products Textio creates for the broader ecosystem. Jackye has been named one of the 9 Powerful Women in Business You Should Know by SDHR Consulting, one of the 15 Women in HR Tech to Follow by VidCruiter, and is on the Top 100 list of Human Resources Influencers by Human Resource Executive Magazine.
Recruit Smarter
Weekly news and industry insights delivered straight to your inbox.