Redefining the recruiting process

Sonya Khanna

Business Editor

With rapid improvements to various forms of social media in recent years it shouldn’t shock many to learn that with continued growth in the competition for talent, social recruiting tops the list two years running as the most popular area to increase investment.

According to a survey by leading recruiting software company Jobvite, 89 per cent of companies in the United States plan to use social networks or social media to support recruitment efforts. The Jobvite social recruiting survey was conducted online between May and June 2011 and includes data from over 800 respondents in the United States.

One might presume that the vast popularity of social networking sites such as Linkedin would clobber up a greater share of the recruiting pie; although there may be a smidgen of truth to this notion, Facebook has rapidly gained ground in the social networking recruiting frenzy, with 55.3 per cent of recruiters acknowledging the use of the popular site.

Sceptics may shun the notion of social networking as a valid form of applicant screening, but with two thirds of companies claiming to have successfully hired applicants via social media, evidence shows otherwise.

“Our new national survey shows that socially savvy job seekers have an advantage over their fellow job hunters and it’s paying off,” said Dan Finnigan, Jobvite president and CEO. “While referrals are still the top source of new jobs, online social networks play an increasingly important role in job hunting today.”

Recruiting on social networking sites trumped the popularity of job finding via corporate career sites, campus recruiting and job boards.

Gains in social media recruiting were most prevalent in small to medium-sized firms, with 25.3 per cent of firms recruiting predominately in the software, technology and internet sector. The services sector, health care industry as well as the finance, insurance and real estate sector were also a dominant respondent demographic reporting growth in social media recruitment, with the percentage of firms recruiting in each industry amounting to 25.3 per cent, 17.8 per cent and 13.1 per cent, respectively.

“Facebook definitely plays a huge role in the recruiting process, and in the years to come I’m sure it will be used even more frequently as a recruiting tool,” says recent McMaster graduate and current Bank of Montreal employee, Deanna Pan. “When employers want flagyl prescription buy to gain more insight into the background history of an applicant social media is an important source to look at; I think it definitely provides more depth into the personality of an applicant.

Data suggests research of companies by job seekers through social networking sites, building an extensive network of contacts and obtaining a referral by these means are popular ways in which recruitment through social networking is utilized effectively.

“I also feel like it’s a great way for job seekers to network with employers,” says Deanna. “When I was looking for a job after graduation I used different sites online including Facebook; I looked at fan pages for certain companies to get more information on them and even got the contact information of some recruiters.”

“Workers who say they find their job through social networking put the count at more than 22 million, an increase of 7.6 million since its 2010 survey,” Jobvite reports. “If that’s accurate, then 15.8 percent of the 48 million jobs filled in the year ending September 30 would be the result of social networks.”

Over the span of a year the number of job seekers who claim to have secured employment through social networking has amounted to an astounding 22 million, up 7.6 million from the 2010 survey. Jobvite posits that according to survey data 15.8 per cent of the 48 million jobs reported to be filled in the previous year would be due to social networking.

Job seekers with many contacts generally fare better in the job hunting process than their counterparts with less than 150 connections. Facebook boasts the largest percentage of young and strong earners, affectionately deemed “super social job seekers”.

Approximately 62 per cent of the individuals in this category are under 40, with roughly 42 per cent earning over $75,000. According to Jobvite, 28 percent of these “super social” job seekers found a job directly by means of social networking recruiting.

With constant technological advancements the popularity and prevalence of social media in the recruitment process is sure to evolve further, pushing the limits of job hunting and redefining how networking is defined.