Social Recruiting with the “Big Three”—Advancements with LinkedIn, Twitter & Facebook
According to the results, although social media platforms such as blogs, YouTube, GitHub, Stackoverflow, Yammer, and Instagram have emerged as channels recruiters also use to source talent, the “Big Three” social networking sites remain as recruiters’ top picks when social recruiting—LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.
A special thank you goes out this month’s Leadership Sponsor: Zoho Recruit. Please visit their site to understand how their quality service can elevate your recruitment practices.
Let’s take a closer look at the social recruiting habits and latest recruitment advancements of each one:
94 percent of recruiters used LinkedIn for recruiting in 2013
92 percent of recruiters made a hire via LinkedIn
The survey results showed that LinkedIn continues to dominate all stages of the recruitment funnel. Last year, recruiters used the world’s largest professional networking site to:
-Search for candidates (96%)
-Contact candidates (94%)
-Keep tabs on potential candidates (93%)
-Vet candidates pre-interview (92%)
-Post jobs (91%)
And with the many recruitment-related technologies LinkedIn added this year, it’s clear to see why this social network will continue to be a recruiter favorite.
For starters, in April 2014, LinkedIn unveiled three product updates designed to take the “work” out of finding and retaining top talent.
The first releases was Profile 2.0, a re-build of the LinkedIn recruiter profiles that included a simpler and cleaner user experience; topcard with concise summary of most relevant information about a candidate and updated recruiting toolbar. As a part of the improved recruiter profile, a candidate’s profile information was also presented in a more visual way, including the ability to add posts, photos, videos and presentations.
The social networking site also launched Recruiter on mobile for Android and updated its iPhone app. LinkedIn reported that many recruiters use Androids; so, the new Android app would give them access to LinkedIn Recruiter and would include all functionalities of the iPhone app.
LinkedIn’s final product release in April was its Internal Job Recommendations feature. Similar to the “Jobs You May Be Interested In” tool, the new feature shows members jobs at their existing company as opposed to jobs at other companies.
The update was largely due to the results of LinkedIn’s Exit Survey, where the company discovered that many employees who had recently quit their jobs wouldn’t have done so had they known about a better role in the company.
Later in April 2014, LinkedIn reached a milestone of adding 300 million members to the site. This increase presents even more opportunities for recruiters to find a range of top talent when recruiting with LinkedIn.
In May of this year, global recruiting software company,Bullhorn, announced the integration of the Bullhorn applicant tracking system and customer relationship management system (ATS/CRM) with LinkedIn Recruiter.
The integration offered users the ability to seamlessly use both Bullhorn’s and LinkedIn’s systems together. For example, recruiters can now access both Bullhorn and LinkedIn data sets, which offer the most up-to-date central repository of information on a client or candidate.
The following month, LinkedIn released both its Mobile Photo Sharing and Job Search apps. This implemented mobile photo sharing capabilities via the LinkedIn Mobile App, offering recruiters and employers a unique way to showcase their brand and attract talent when socially recruiting.
And the Job Search app for iOS users allowed LinkedIn members to find, research and apply for jobs on LinkedIn. The new app benefits recruiters in multiple ways. For example, LinkedIn now incorporates the rich media content of companies with LinkedIn Career Pages into their job descriptions and mobile Company Page in the new app, providing another opportunity to showcase their employer brand and culture.
The Job Search app also simplifies the mobile application process. If a company collects applications in Recruiter, members will be able to apply to their jobs through LinkedIn’s Mobile Apply flow in just a few clicks. If they collect applications on an outside career site or ATS, members will be directed to the regular application destination.
65 percent of recruiters used Facebook for recruiting in 2013
24 percent of recruiters made a hire via Facebook
Facebook comes in at no. 2 of the “Big Three” preferred social networks for social recruiting. According to the survey, recruiters leverage Facebook for the following stages of the recruitment funnel:
-Showcase employer brand (65%)
-Generate employee referrals (55%)
-Post jobs (48%)
-Vet candidates post-interview (35%)
-Vets candidates pre-interview (31%)
In 2012, Facebook tried its hand in the job board business by launching the Social Jobs app, which stemmed from its partnership with the U.S. Department of Labor, the National Association of Colleges and Employers, DirectEmployers Association, and the National Association of State Workforce Agencies. The online job board lists millions of job vacancies from other job boards—giving recruiters’ job posts a greater reach (as Facebook is still the largest social network in the world).
2013 included two releases from Work4Labs, a leader in Facebook recruiting technology. The first was an enhanced version of its Facebook recruiting application, Work For Us.The updated free version targeted small-to-midsize businesses (SMBs), allowing them to:
- Launch branded corporate career sites on Facebook and post an unlimited number of jobs to the site;
- Find and engage qualified applicants by using the sophisticated targeting features of the Facebook advertising system;
- Generate referrals from their employees by automatically matching open jobs with the profiles of their employees’ Facebook friends on a strictly opt-in basis where the employees alone decide to forward the matching job listings; and
- Utilize powerful applicant tracking and analytics features, making it a comprehensive recruiting solution for growing businesses.
The second was Graph Search Recruiter, the first recruiting solution to leverage Facebook’s Graph Search. The Graph Search engine helps recruiters find the best candidates out of Facebook’s 1.1 billion monthly active users worldwide. Graph Search Recruiter helps recruiters:
- Keep track of users they have contacted or users who have applied to one of their jobs;
- Receive suggestions for potential referral candidates by identifying talent in a recruiter’s network who may be connected to the company’s employees; and
- Minimize recruiting costs: If recruiters have an in-network connection, they will be able to contact the Facebook user they are sourcing for free; if not, they can pay as little as $1, which is ten times cheaper than sending a LinkedIn InMail.
55 percent of recruiters used Twitter for recruiting in 2013
14 percent of recruiters made a hire via Twitter
Rounding out the “Big Three” social networks recruiters use the most is Twitter. The Jobvite survey notes that recruiters use Twitter when:
-Showcasing employer brand (47%)
-Posting jobs (43%)
-Generating employee referrals (31%)
-Contacting candidates (19%)
-Vetting candidates post-interview (18%)
July 2014 in particular has seen some recent and important advancements with Twitter that will help recruiters when using this site to recruit top talent.
Career Cloud released Jobcritters.com, a new search engine allowing users to search, share and save jobs on Twitter. The search engine benefits recruiters by:
- Driving more traffic to their jobs posted on Twitter;
- Increasing a company’s Twitter followers through a keyword based profile so more job seekers can discover the business;
- Searching and saving candidates through the premium search engine; and
- Posting sponsored job tweets with “awesome visual hiring images” to stand out in job search results.
And social and mobile job distribution network, TweetMyJobs, partnered with Ceridian, a human capital management firm, to provide mobile and social recruiting solutions through Dayforce Recruiting. As writer for Recruiter.com, Joshua Bjerke, notes, “The agreement deepens the recruitment reach and functionality of Dayforce Recruiting, helping recruiters and hiring managers maximize and streamline social and mobile recruitment efforts executed within one HCM solution.
Dayforce Recruiting enhances the hiring manager and candidate experience by leveraging TweetMyJobs’ social and mobile recruiting capabilities to automate job distribution, accelerate time-to-hire, and boost employer brand awareness.”
The Jobvite survey explains that social recruiting has grown up and has seen universal adoption across industries. As social media evolves and new technologies keep being added to the mix, recruiters must continue to leverage this sourcing strategy to succeed in today’s fiercely competitive market.
Thank you again to this month’s Leadership Sponsor: Zoho Recruit. Please visit their site to understand how their quality recruiting software can elevate your recruitment practices.