NHS launches social media recruitment guide

Jo Faragher

The NHS has launched a guide for managers on using social media to recruit new staff.

NHS Employers, which deals with workforce issues within the NHS, has created the guide in response to increased enthusiasm within the NHS to make greater use of networking sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. It is part of a wider drive for more permissive use of social media in the NHS.

As one of the UK’s biggest employers (and the fifth largest in the world) the NHS has increased its use of online recruitment in recent years, but it believes that social media can help it attract a higher percentage of quality applicants than a ‘passive’ online advert.

The guide makes a number of suggestions for managers looking to expand their use of social media for hiring, including how to target relevant individuals and groups of people and being consistent – so if they attract candidates using social media, it urges them not to prevent them from using it once they join the organisation. 

It also suggests that hirers connect via social media with key organisations that interact with their recruitment strategy (so a cardiology department might link up with the British Heart Foundation), and ask them to promote job opportunities and relevant career-related content.

It also advocates existing employees nominate colleagues and friends for available roles, advising: “By leveraging your own workforce to help advertise job adverts to their friends and colleagues through their social media accounts, you increase the likelihood of a greater number of quality candidates applying for the job, without giving those people an undue advantage.”

The NHS’s efforts into expanding its social media use are meeting with some success. Earlier this year, the NHS Graduate Management Training Scheme won the ‘Best use of social media in the public sector’ award at the National Graduate Recruitment Social Media Awards.