Image Credit: Nordskov Media
One of the biggest challenges that every manager is facing is where to find new employees to join their team. We’ve tried all of the standard places and it seems like it is getting harder and harder to find the kind of talent that we want. Perhaps now is the time for us to start to do some new thinking. That TicTok application seems to be all the rage right now. Do you think that we could use it to find the people that we would want to join our team?
Is TikTok A Place To Find New Employees?
The question that managers should be asking themselves right now is if the TikTok social media video sharing application is more than a place for internet memes; could it be a source for potential new company talent? Most companies have long accepted job applications via the app. In these applications, users often tagged your company in public videos where they describe their personal qualifications, showed off past content, and made the case for why they would be a good fit for your company.
Over at TikTok they’ve seen what job applicants are doing and TikTok formalized this process with a program called TikTok Resumes. Using this new feature, the Gen-Z-centric video-sharing app invited more than 70 million U.S. users to apply for jobs at companies like Chipotle, Shopify, and the Detroit Pistons. Users posted TikTok videos listing their qualifications to their public profile with the hashtag #TikTokResumes. And, simply because this is TikTok, plenty of the video résumés also featured a dose of trending music and internet culture.
TikTok went to the effort to make the jobs searchable by company name, location, and experience level, similar to sites like Indeed or Monster.com. This allowed recruiters to also seek out publicly posted résumés using the app’s search function. The service has been popular – videos posted with the official #TikTokResumes hashtag have amassed more than 349 million views.
How To Use TikTok To Find New Employees
As a manager, do you want to broaden your talent search to include video résumés? You are going to want to identify applicants with “soft” skills like creativity and social media savvy. Unlike traditional the 8.5″x11″ paper résumés that have been sent to us forever, video applications can give you a tangible sense of how candidates approach tasks like social media and content development. You are going to want to keep an ear out for applicants following the latest trends. When an applicant can use a trending song or storytelling device that’s currently going viral on the platform and turn that into a résumé, we should all agree that’s impressive.
A video resume is good, but as a manager you are still going to have to check whether candidates fit your company culture. We need to keep in mind that TikTok’s résumé feature is only available to users with public accounts, thus giving recruiters a chance to explore applicants’ profiles. Checking other social media posts can give you insights as to whether a candidate shares your values or fits with your company’s culture. Keep in mind that it can also expose some red flags, which may save you a headache down the line.
Managers need to understand that using TikToc to locate candidates can be an opportunity to build your brand. Hiring on the platform is a new way for companies to go viral. Hiring through TikTok also could be a useful way to seek out employees who have a broad social reach. This means that employees like this can moonlight as an influencer while they also work on their day job. These side-hustling employees double as brand ambassadors and can help your company to expand its digital footprint.
All too often managers can start to feel like each one of the candidates for an opening all start to look the same. Using TikTok may allow you to find a new pool of potential hires. Managers need to realize that TikTok’s demographics skew younger, with nearly 50 percent of users below the age of 30. As Gen-Z students start to graduate from college, TikTok’s native hiring interface offers a company an opportunity to meet them on their home turf. The good news for managers is that TikTok isn’t restricted to the young, though. Most TikTokers just happen to be either tech-savvy or entertaining, and they’ve found the right platform to express the things they want to share.
What All Of This Means For You
One of the most important jobs that a manager has is hiring the right people to join their team. It can be difficult to find the right mix of candidates. This is why managers are always looking for new places to find qualified candidates. It turns out that the social media platform TikTok that has been associated with funny dance videos may be a good place for you to go looking for the right workers the next time that you have an opening to fill.
Many firms have already been accepting video job applications. The TikToc application recently created a way for their users to make searchable video resumes. Using video resumes to find candidates allows managers to recruit tech savvy people. When reviewing a video resume, managers are still responsible for checking to see if a candidate will fit with the company’s culture. TikToc users who have a big following can help a company to build its brand. The use of TikToc to look for job candidates can help a manager to expand their search.
TikToc is a very popular social media platform. Managers need to understand that if they go about doing it correctly, they can use this new platform to search for new talent to join their team. The use of video resumes is new and will take some getting used to. However, if done correctly, then your pool of candidates for a given job opening may have just become much larger!
– Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World IT Management Skills™
Question For You: What jobs do you think would not be good candidates to be filled by someone who used TikTok to create a video resume?
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What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time
As a manager, we are always looking for ways to become better at our job. We attend training courses, we read books, we watch videos. Some of us even have a chance to tag along with managers who we feel do a good job in order to find out how they do things. Our goal is to find ways to motivate the people on our team. We have a lot of options: fear, civility, etc. The big question that every manager is facing is what approach works the best?