ie8 fix
madison

Survey shows influx of companies using social networks for recruiting

By | May 20, 2009, 10:55am PDT

Summary: Jobvite, a recruitment solutions provider, today issued the results of its second annual Social Recruitment Survey. The data shows that employers are more and more extensively recruiting on social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter. It also shows that the companies appear more satisfied with these types of recruits versus the ones they find solely [...]

Jobvite, a recruitment solutions provider, today issued the results of its second annual Social Recruitment Survey. The data shows that employers are more and more extensively recruiting on social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter. It also shows that the companies appear more satisfied with these types of recruits versus the ones they find solely from job boards.

According ot the survey, due to these satisfaction levels companies are likely to invest more in these type of candidate sources in 2009, trimming down their spend with job boards and even search firms. Here are some more data points:

  • 76 percent of companies surveyed plan to invest more in employee referrals
  • 72 percent plan to invest more in recruiting through social networks
  • 80 percent of companies are planning to use social networks to find or attract candidates
  • LinkedIn use grew from 80 percent in 2008 to 95 percent in 2008
  • Facebook use grew from 36 percent in 2008 to 59 percent in 2009
  • Twitter ranked third at 42 percent

According to Jobvite, however, employee referrals and internal transfers are the most highly rated sources in terms of quality of candidates generated, however, employee involvement in referrals is still low.

More from the survey:

Additionally, recruitment and human resource professionals are using a variety of online sites to research candidates: LinkedIn (76 percent), search engines (67 percent), Facebook (44 percent) and Twitter (21 percent). Respondents reported that 24% of candidates disclose their social networking presence when applying for a job.

It appears based on Jobvite’s data that while cost savings of using social networks versus job boards and the like are a driver for this move, quality is a larger consideration. But are companies sacrificing a more human element by relying on social networks?

“It is my belief that recruiting is a dying profession in its current form. As the use of social media becomes ubiquitous, there will no longer be a need,” said Jennifer Wojcik, CEO of YouGuru LLC. “I often consult with my smaller clients on how to engage with candidates via these channels.”

Wojcik also says that she herself leverages social networks to find candidates and there’s rarely a need to pay for a job search board these days.

“Social media enables me to build that initial network and make connections thousands of times faster than picking up a phone book and a phone calling into my client’s competitors,” she said. “I also put calls out on Twitter when I have a position to fill…this basically enables my network to identify candidates for me that I would otherwise not had access to. Facebook serves a similar purpose.

“It is a rare case that I would be forced to actually advertise a position. Generally speaking, using my methods, I can have fully screened candidates for a client within two to three days. This is weeks faster than other agencies who use no social media and choose to advertise only.”

Read the full survey.

Kick off your day with ZDNet's daily e-mail newsletter. It's the freshest tech news and opinion, served hot. Get it.

Topics

Jennifer Leggio, aka "Mediaphyter," writes about the "social business" side of social media - including enterprise, security and reputation issues.

Disclosure

Jennifer Leggio

Jennifer is employed full-time with Fortinet, a leading network security appliance vendor. She is also actively involved in the network security community and works with the Security Bloggers Network. She co-manages the annual Security Bloggers Meet-UP at RSA Conference.

Jennifer is also involved with Silicon Valley Tweet-Up, a philanthropic networking event that brings people together to raise money for local family-oriented charities.

The blog posts here are solely her opinion and do not represent her employer or any other organization with which she may be affiliated.

Biography

Jennifer Leggio

Jennifer Leggio (@mediaphyter) has been a communications professional for more than 15 years, focusing primarily on enterprise technology and security. She is currently the director of strategic communications for a leading network security vendor. Jennifer is also passionate about all things social media, especially enterprise, security, privacy and reputation issues, which is why she writes about these things for ZDNet.

A well-connected communicator, Jennifer has led or supported interactive social networking efforts for security industry conferences including RSA Conference, Black Hat USA and SOURCE Conference, and founded the Security Twits, a community for network security professionals. She also helps run communications for the Security Bloggers Network.

Finally, Jennifer co-hosts the Quick'n'Dirty social media podcast with Aaron Strout, is a founding member of Technically Women, a communal blog project, and manages marketing and public relations for Silicon Valley Tweet-Up, a networking group that raises money for family-oriented charities. Jennifer was profiled in Silicon Valley San Jose Business Journal's "40 Under 40" edition, as a rising star for 2009.

6
Comments

Join the conversation!

Just In

very nice topic ugg boots
luminary911 25th Sep
0 Votes
+ -
I believe it is important to separate the types of roles companies are recruiting when it comes to Social Media.

Companies are still in very early stages of understanding Social Media, how to monetize on it, how to integrate with current Marketing plans. They also are still in infancy when it comes to push versus pull...moving from selling to conversing.

It's easy to hire heads to twitt for a company, put up a facebook fan page, or get bloggers to write about the company...but when it comes to true Social Media strategy that clearly defines objectives, metrics, and organizational changes needed, I find that good resources are scarce.

In the coming months I predict the lines between strategy and tactics; planning and tactics will become more solid and recruiters will also be able to get the right resources for companies.

With best regards,
Ravit
Ustrategy, LLC.
http://ustrategy.com
@ravit_ustrategy Wow amazing work, looks really good..! wink discounted uggs discount uggs discount ugg boots
We at eGrabber Agree with the statement made
"The data shows that employers are more and more extensively recruiting on social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter"

And

"?It is my belief that recruiting is a dying profession in its current form."

We believe recruiters will have to upgrade their social networking and internet mining skills, if they want to be competitive.

My company, eGrabber, last year started developing new Internet research tools that the new generation of Recruiters and Sales folks would need. We just introduced the first product "eGrabber LeadResearcher"
http://www.egrabber.com/leadresearcher.html

Chandra
CEO/FOUNDER
eGrabber
www.inparser.net allows you take advantage of your social
network and turn it into real usable data. Great for
finding passive candidates information and email.
0 Votes
+ -
USA Job Blast - free recruiting tool
mtedesco@... 24th Jul 2010
Just wanted to point out that thousands of companies either don't have the resources or manpower to effectively integrate social networking into their recruiting mix. There's a new website called www.usajobblast.com that will do the work for you. All you need to do is post a job (it's free for the time being) and they'll do the rest--blasting your job out to hundreds of websites, including your LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook accounts (as well as theirs). If you don't have any social media accounts, they can help with that too...
0 Votes
+ -
very nice topic ugg boots
luminary911 25th Sep

Join the conversation!

Formatting +
BB Codes - Note: HTML is not supported in forums
  • [b] Bold [/b]
  • [i] Italic [/i]
  • [u] Underline [/u]
  • [s] Strikethrough [/s]
  • [q] "Quote" [/q]
  • [ol][*] 1. Ordered List [/ol]
  • [ul][*] · Unordered List [/ul]
  • [pre] Preformat [/pre]
  • [quote] "Blockquote" [/quote]
ie8 fix
Click Here
ie8 fix
Click Here

The best of ZDNet, delivered

ZDNet Newsletters

Get the best of ZDNet delivered straight to your inbox

Facebook Activity

White Papers, Webcasts, & Resources
ie8 fix
Click Here
ie8 fix