Many businesses are turning to social recruiting as a strategy to increase the size and diversity of their applicant pool. Recruiting on Twitter is now a common tactic used by recruiters throughout the world.

If you’re new to Twitter or been on it for a while and wonder what will kill your twitter recruiting strategy, think about this: It may be that you’re committing one of the following mistakes.

If you are looking to maximize results on twitter, you must diligently avoid the following 5 mistakes:

1. Neglecting the profile!

Your Twitter recruiting account should have a profile photo and a completed profile that includes a link to the company career site. Twitter profiles, like tweets (Twitter posts), have a 140 character limit, which eliminates the possibility of posting a lengthy company description. If possible, include a catchy motto or short description of the business that will encourage potential applicants to visit the company’s career site. Filling out all these basic details makes your twitter account look authentic, and helps candidates to find and remember your company.

2. Posting protected tweets

All recruiting tweets should be public. Twitter offers users the option of “protecting” their tweets, which means that they’re only visible to a list of other Twitter users approved by the account holder. This is a crucial mistake. To reach the most potential applicants, make sure that the recruiting profile is on the “public” setting. You may have good reasons to lock your account, but if you want to be that private you might want to reconsider why you have an account on Twitter at the first place.

3. Not interacting with potential applicants

Twitter offers recruiters and applicants the opportunity to interact with one another on a social level. Key elements of a long-term Twitter approach are: be responsive, accessible, and build a community, not just a following. You should involve with the community by replying to mentions, be accessible to candidates during business hours and response to questions/queries candidate might have. Doing this will keep people interested in what you have to say and entice new followers to join in the conversation.

4. Tweeting only about open jobs

Recruiting accounts should be more than just a litany of links to open jobs. Conversing with other Twitter users and posting links to interesting websites or news articles builds goodwill and promotes your company as a multi-dimensional entity. Assign one person to manage the account; this will help you give the profile a uniform tone and personality.

You can also increase the effectiveness of your Twitter profile by sharing a bit of the daily lives at your company. You can regularly upload workplace photos, pictures of events happening at your company, or pretty scenes you saw around your office. These tweets emphasize human face of your company that is approachable and a pleasure to communicate with. This can be accomplished without compromising the company’s privacy, as well.

5. Not tweeting regularly

Letting your social-media business accounts languish may hurt your brand in the long run. If you are not actively tweeting and maintaining your twitter presence, you’re missing opportunities to interact with existing and potential candidates. You don’t have to tweet every day, but if you’re only tweeting once or twice a week (or less) the chances are candidates will miss your tweets and you really won’t interact at all. Plan your content in advance (weekly, bi-weekly, monthly), however be flexible to add in time-sensitive or newsworthy content.

Recruiting on Facebook, Twitter and other social media websites is an increasingly trendy practice. Social networking sites are free, easy to set up and allow recruiters to communicate quickly and easily. Very large companies may have so many job openings that a single Twitter liaison is insufficient to post them all. Recruiters at these firms may find automated posting services like HireRabbit quite valuable. These programs save time by automatically posting available jobs. In this case, recruiters must be exceedingly careful to not run their Twitter profile on proverbial autopilot. Automated links lists don’t pose a problem, provided that the human recruiter is actively involved with the Twitter profile as well. The importance of this human element cannot be underestimated and is an absolutely crucial aspect of hiring on social media.

 What are some other things to avoid when recruiting on twitter? Let me know in comments!