The trend toward using social media in the employment process is continuing to grow, as recruiters claim in a new survey that they’re able to find the best candidates by tapping into social networks.
Of the 1000 HR and recruitment professionals surveyed in the US-based Jobvite research, 92 percent said they use or plan to use social media in their hiring process and 43 percent said they saw an increase in candidate quality when adopting social recruiting tactics.
The results revealed LinkedIn as the most popular social network used for recruiting at 93 percent, followed by Facebook (87 percent) and Twitter (54 percent).
Similar results were uncovered in a survey conducted locally by Randstad earlier this year. Social recruitment research among Australian employers found that 26 percent of respondents use social media for recruitment.
About 65 percent of local employers said it should be part of an organisation’s recruitment strategy and 35 percent of respondents claimed they would use social media for recruitment in the future.
Randstad CEO Fred van der Tang said although Australians are not the most active social recruiters in the world, there is an upward trend in its use nationally.
“Social media has become a highly effective recruitment tool that it fast being integrated into employer’s talent attraction strategies,” he said.
“As such, Australians should be aware their next job offer could come via LinkedIn or even Twitter. It’s critical therefore, for those who might be curious about what other jobs are out there, to ensure your online profiles shows you in the best light to potential employers – particularly if they are actively seeking a career change,” he added.
Van der Tang believes social media provides huge opportunities for employers to access talent, however employers need to think critically about their recruitment strategies.
“Any approach to a potential candidate by a recruitment consultant needs to be tailored to suit the forum. It’s more acceptable, and practical, to approach talent on a professional network site like LinkedIn, than it is on Twitter or MySpace,” he said.
According to the Jobvite survey, grammar and spelling mistakes in social profiles were perceived with higher negativity by recruiters (54 percent) than alcohol consumption (47 percent).
The survey also suggests employees avoid doing the following on social media if they want to find a job in the future, or hold on to their existing employment:
- Do not make references to doing illegal drugs.
- Do not post/tweet anything of a sexual nature.
- Do not use profanity in posts/tweets.
- Avoid spelling or grammar mistakes in posts/tweets
- Do not post pictures of consumption of alcohol
