Recruiting through social media is often confused with posting a vacancy on the company page. That is publishing, not recruiting. The difference between a post and a campaign is the difference between hoping someone sees it and making sure exactly the right people see it, repeatedly, with a message that prompts a response.

Why social works where job boards stop

On a job board you only reach people who are actively searching right now. That is a small slice of the labour market. Most people have a job, aren't unhappy enough to search, but are curious when something passes by that pays better, sits closer to home or involves less hassle. You only reach that group where they already are: Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.

For agencies that is structurally useful, because you're no longer dependent on search volume per vacancy. You build reach within a region and a trade, and reuse that reach for whichever role is the priority this month.

The four building blocks of a campaign that fills roles

  • Audience: one trade, one region, one campaign. Broad campaigns produce broad, unusable leads.
  • Creatives: several variants live at once, so the algorithm can choose and you can learn what lands.
  • Funnel: a short question set with no CV requirement in step one, keeping the barrier low.
  • Follow-up: contact within hours, not days. Yesterday's lead is often already talking to someone else.

What your ad has to say

The best recruitment ads don't read like a job posting, they read like a concrete offer. What you earn, where you'll be based, who you work with, what the first step is. Vague lines about a dynamic organisation filter nobody and convince nobody. Being concrete does two things at once: it attracts the right people and keeps the wrong ones out, which lowers your cost per usable candidate.

“A recruitment ad doesn't have to be beautiful. It has to be concrete enough that someone knows within three seconds whether this job fits them.”

What you can realistically expect

With our Job Acquisition Machine campaigns we work with 20 to 100+ candidate leads per campaign, depending on trade, region and budget. At De Klusbaas one Meta campaign delivered 46 candidates at €12.76 each. For Bureau In Techniek, 107 candidates came in within 90 days. Those aren't averages to expect everywhere, but they show what's possible when reach, funnel and follow-up all line up.

The mistake most agencies make

Campaigns get switched on and then left alone. Recruitment marketing is a weekly discipline: refresh creatives, adjust audiences, sharpen funnel questions and measure what happens after the lead. Agencies that adopt that rhythm typically get a multiple of usable candidates out of the same budget.