Does social media work for recruitment?

Posted by Nesreen Bakheit, December-19-2011

With fierce competition for jobs opportunities, we have been keen to see what impact the social media space is having on recruitment.

There is no doubt that job seekers are more prepared to be creative in order to gain a competitive edge in the job market. Part of that creativity is being focused on social media which is increasingly the place for people to network, get new job leads or to promote and showcase their experience.

LinkedIn is the new hangout for corporate as well as agency headhunters, and many corporations have Twitter accounts and Facebook pages. The info graphic below, based on a recent post EconMatters as well as various survey originating out of the U.SA finds some interesting statistics regarding using social media for job search. For example,

• 1 in 6 workers use social media to get hired
• Almost 90% of job seekers have a profile on a social media site
• 54% of all job hunters use Facebook, Twitter or Linkedin to find jobs
• 50% of job seekers used Facebook, 25% used Twitter, and 36% used Linkedin to look for a job in the last 12 months
• 18.4 million Americans say Facebook got them their current jobs. The numbers for Twitter and Linked in are 10.2 million and 8 million respectively

Of course, this is U.S specific but we can take some pointers as to how it may affect matters in the UK. It does not mean social media will completely replace traditional advertising or traditional recruitemnt, but rather as something to add to the job searching tool bag. Even for the gainfully employed, social media provides an open and easy way to network, being sociably cool and keep you updated on the new technology and social trend.

So it is beneficial for anybody, regardless if you are looking for a job, to be on at least one of the major social media site (Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin)?

Created by: MBA Online