The Rise of Social Media Use Within Recruiting Departments

As consumers begin to gain more and more from social media, businesses embrace the challenge of catching and holding the attention of their customers. Similarly, growing companies are flocking to social media to catch and the attention of their candidates- both passive and active. According to the recently distributed results of the Jobvite Social Recruiting Survey, 92 percent of companies are using social networks or social media to support their recruiting efforts. That’s up from 89 percent just three years ago in 2009.

More and more recruiters are sourcing for candidates online other than job boards. This change may add to a recruiter’s “to-do” list throughout the day, but the results of this survey suggest that it may be worth the extra time to tap into the additional resources. Almost half of those surveyed saw an increase in the amount of candidates and 43 percent saw an increase in the quality of the candidates. According to the survey, 73 percent of recruiters have hired a candidate from social networks or social media. That is a 15 percent increase since 2010. Not only are the numbers of candidates increasing, but the candidates found are more suitable for the position.

Social media also makes it easier for employees to refer candidates to their corporate recruiters and almost one-third of those surveyed said they saw an increase in employee referrals since implementing social recruiting. If a company has a career Facebook page, like we do, then using an app like Jobvite’s enables fans to view and share current opportunities with their own network of friends. Encouraging employees to like the careers Facebook page can increase the number of employee referrals that come in.  Similarly, sharing updates about job openings on LinkedIn and Twitter make it easy for employees to spread the word to their own networks through sharing and retweeting. The survey also showed that 65 percent of recruiters are compensating their employees for referrals and more than half of those pay over $1,000.

What’s the take away? That companies with a high number of positions to fill should embrace social recruiting. The question isn’t “should we put up a careers website?” It’s “what social capability or apps can we supplement that site with to improve our candidate experience?” This candidate experience is important to a company’s reputation and is largely influenced by a company’s employer brand. If a candidate has a negative experience during the interview process or finds something negative about the company while researching a position or history, it’s possible that the candidate will share that information with other job seekers in social platforms such as Glassdoor, LinkedIn and the like. The take-away from this survey isn’t only that job seekers should be more careful within social media, but that employers also have the responsibility of monitoring how they are perceived online and also challenged with the task of establishing presence within social media for candidates to engage with in an effort to build a strong employer brand.

At Vocus, our corporate recruiters share job openings within social networks on a daily basis, sometimes several times a day. Corporate Recruiter Lia says, “Social media allows you to connect with passive candidates, pass on information about your open jobs and speak positively about your company across social networks. It has definitely helped me with my recruiting and I’m continually learning every day how to best use it.” Our team also participates in online career fairs through which our recruiters can chat live with interested candidates via a virtual “booth.” One of our Corporate Recruiters Skyler is a regular at the online career fairs and says “By attending virtual career fairs, a candidate has the ability to interact with several different employers that have available positions. For recruiters, it’s also nice to have a variety of candidates that are actively seeking opportunities who are free to chat and share information in a convenient manner.” Visit our events calendar to see which online events we’ll be participating in this month.

Are you a recruiter? How has the increase in social media use affected your recruiting strategy? Leave your comments below.

Stay tuned: The survey also includes data about what employers pay attention to when looking at a candidates profile and we’ll focus on how this might impact candidates’ profiles in our next post about the survey. (Featured Image At Top Via)