Will Your Next Employee Find You On TikTok?

A fresh crop of college graduates is embarking on the initial job search, sending résumés, reaching out for networking opportunities and looking at online job postings. And according to a story on HR Dive, they may also soon be scrolling through videos on TikTok.  

The popular video app is beta-testing a feature allowing companies to post jobs and users to post video résumés, Axios reports. The new recruiting tool makes sense considering many young employees seek companies that share their values and sensibilities, which often are the focus on corporate accounts, while roughly half of U.S. adults age 18 to 29 use the app, per a Pew survey, suggesting it’s a potentially useful method to reach young employees.

Brands and businesses, however, may face a challenge being authentic, engaging and not annoying as they interrupt streams of lip-synching videos with a lame job ad. There’s also a wide gulf between the popularity of career advice accounts on TikTok versus actual advertisements for careers. Firms seeking to use social media for recruiting Gen Z talent need to recognize the nuances such an approach entails. Personality-driven videos avoid online applications filled with keywords and expose a bit more of an applicant’s creativity. Firms using newer platforms also need to understand Gen Z will be more tuned in to diversity and inclusion issues. 

Other social media platforms have given savvy brands a leg up on hiring. HR Dive cites a McDonald’s recruitment drive on SnapChat in 2017 that netted four times the standard number of applicants.