The workplace chat platform Slack may have been intended for an office, but it’s never really been limited to that. Many people have used Slack as a personal, or at least out-of-office, tool since its 2013 launch.

Now, Slack is picking up steam as a recruiting tool—and it could be an opportunity for associations to jump in and reach new types of potential employees.

What’s the Strategy?

Simply put, Slack has become the home of a number of professional and work-based groups in recent years, giving people interested in expanding their networking prowess another option beyond after-work mixers.

Jimmy Daly, cofounder of the content marketing community Superpath (and a former contributor to Associations Now), noted to The Wall Street Journal that the somewhat exclusive nature of the groups (as they have to be discovered) can help to drive a self-selecting interest in a professional community.

“It does seem to be kind of an insider club,” Daly told the newspaper. “For the most part, people let you in on the secret as they discover it.”

That’s an opportunity that recruiters can lean into. People who join these groups are likely to carry a lot of passion for their given fields, making them potentially strong future hires. However, that also means a bit of homework—as recruiters also would need to do the legwork to find the right communities to promote open roles.

Why Is It Effective?

For recruiters, the immediacy of Slack seems to be a big win—especially in a world where recruiting often requires waiting for applicants to appear. Sherika Ekpo, chief diversity and inclusion officer of Anaplan, explained in a recent Inc. piece that the tool was effective because it encouraged direct communication with potential recruits, without the slowdown of emails or the untargeted nature of other social networks.

“Slack is revolutionary in this space in that it allows for instant messaging,” she explained. “It allows us to target groups and intersectional groups that share a common goal of value.”

That said, recruiters need to be careful about how they promote opportunities, as the Journal notes. Many groups limit how often promos can be posted. The immediacy can be a benefit, but joining a group and immediately trying to recruit is seen as a big faux pas. Instead, join the group, take part in it over time, and see how it goes.

What’s the Potential?

Beyond trying to recruit through Slack, there is potential to use Slack within the hiring process itself—a smart option if you’re still doing things remotely.

On its website, Slack makes the case for integrating the actual hiring process into the platform, noting that it enables people across disciplines to weigh in about a job applicant and communicate with them.

“Once you start using channels, you’ll need far fewer internal review meetings during the recruitment process,” the company wrote. “That saves time internally and makes the process faster overall.”

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