Business

Now Hiring: Social Recruitment on the Rise, Study Says

A new report shows that most recruiters are using social networks to find and vet job candidates. And social recruiting offers more than just cost savings for employers.

When hiring a new employee, are you using social media as part of your recruitment effort? Probably, according to a recent study by recruiting technology provider Jobvite, which found that 94 percent of recruiters use or plan to use social media to hire new employees.

“With responses from over 1,600 participants, our results clearly show that it’s no longer a question of whether an organization is recruiting through social media—it’s about how they are leveraging social tools to achieve the biggest benefits,” Kimberley Kasper, Jobvite’s chief marketing officer, wrote in a company blog post. “And this is not just a high-tech phenomenon anymore. With participants providing input from more than 50 different industries, we can see how social recruiting is now a universal hiring practice.”

Our results clearly show that it’s no longer a question of whether an organization is recruiting through social media—it’s about how they are leveraging social tools to achieve the biggest benefits.

The study found that 78 percent of recruiters had already made a hire through social media. Recruiters also reported a 33 percent improvement in time to hire, a 43 percent improvement in candidate quantity, and an almost 50 percent improvement in candidate quality through the use of social media.

“If you think this is all about saving money, think again,” Kasper wrote. “While some companies state in our results that social recruiting has helped to lower hiring costs, others believe the real advantage is in finding more qualified job seekers or upping their ability to attract passive candidates.”

LinkedIn was the most widely used social network among respondents, who post jobs on the site and use it to search for, contact, and keep tabs on candidates, as well as vet candidates before an interview. While 94 percent of recruiters use LinkedIn, 65 percent reported using Facebook, and 55 percent use Twitter to recruit.

Facebook and Twitter were more commonly used than LinkedIn to showcase employer brands and generate employee referrals. Recruiters are also now turning to blogs, YouTube, Google+, and Instagram to find employees, although less often.

Last year, in an effort to boost social recruitment, Facebook, in partnership with several associations, launched the Social Jobs app, which allows Facebook members to search more than 1.7 million job listings posted by recruiters.

How do you use social media to recruit job candidates? Let us know in the comments.

(iStock/Thinkstock)

Katie Bascuas

By Katie Bascuas

Katie Bascuas is associate editor of Associations Now. MORE

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