Many recruiters jumping on the social media bandwagon risk failing to take advantage, according to the founder of Tweetjobs.

Richard Sutcliffe, who launched Tweetjobs last autumn, told Recruiter: “There are a lot of people who are looking to dip their toes into social media, but they don’t know how to do it.”

Sutcliffe says that rather than using social media “to pump out jobs” recruiters need to take a smarter long-term approach.

Sutcliffe, whose company tweets jobs to candidates on behalf of Harvey Nash, Hays Corporate and FPSG, and carries out the back office administration, outlined his formula for success:

• make the jobs relevant to the candidate - for example, if a candidate is only interested in working in Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, and Lancashire, only tweet those jobs;
• engage the candidate.  For example, a candidate may ask a direct question about a job through Twitter or send a message or an app message to the client, allowing them to respond. “It’s a good way to engage and start a conversation with the candidate,” says Sutcliffe;
• understand that using social media successfully isn’t going to happen overnight “It’s going to take three, six or nine months;”
• don’t underestimate the amount of investment required.