The Age Of Social Media Recruitment
Coming from a social media line of work and also have to “recruit” from time to time or just to have a look at other people’s profiles to see if they fit in with the big picture; I have found that social media can make that process a lot easier. A lot of people cross reference with social media platforms to see whether your CV adds up. Don’t believe me? Have a look at some of these stats I found on Mediabistro’s article How recruiters are using social media to find (and hire) hidden talent.
Recruitment lately has been really difficult. We are constantly on the lookout to see if there is anyone better. Someone with more experience. Someone that will make you fear your own position (that should be motivating). But according to Mediabistro, 78% of HR leaders that was surveyed said that finding top talent was their number one challenge. The biggest challenge is mainly that most of the CV’s that you receive are submitted by individuals not “fit enough” for the position.
The social media age has not only changed the way we recruit but also the way job seekers apply for work. Figures show that one out of every four job seekers apply to at least 10 other employers in recent job searches. Being provided with these stats, it is clear that if you are not sharp on your social media skills you will most probably miss the opportunity to find your perfect candidate.
That being said, the majority of job seekers are passively seeking for their jobs, where a hand full of candidates are really pro-actively seeking for jobs. Those that are actively seeking for jobs are involved on forums will most probably have their social media platforms set up, and will go out of their way to look for the perfect opportunity.
Alas, active candidates should be inspected thoroughly as there are reasons why you can’t rely on those candidates that are too active. Mediabistro provides us with three of those reasons where two of them stand out the most. They are:
Resume Fluffing
This comes down to candidates that provide biased/false documents. Users may state that they are one person on their resume but in fact if you have a look at their social pages (Facebook especially) you will most probably see a different side of the candidate. In the article from Mediabistro they found that 31% of people lie on their resumes. Use your social channels and double check your so called perfect candidate.
Lack of follow through
Mediabistro states that only 10% of visitors to your site will complete an application. In the case of Job Mail I beg to differ. Breaking a record this week with 280 000 registered CV’s. Take in mind that this is a job seeking portal so the rate will be higher.
Another thing that stood out in this article was reaching passive talent through social media. A lot of recruiters will use social media to recruit candidates that might not apply otherwise. Scouting for passive talent can be beneficial. Usually people will with passive talent are more likely to look for a company that fits their personality and they are more likely to want to make an impact. Another reason is that they are more likely to want some sort of challenge at work. The trick comes in when trying to identify this talent.
Social recruiting should start to form part of your general recruiting process. 90% of recruiters and hiring managers will most probably visit a candidate’s profile. In less than a couple of minutes you can see and make up your mind whether or not the candidate fits the description as a lot of managers will reject candidates based on what they have found.
What it comes down to is that social recruitment will be more beneficial for you.It provides you with the option to only consider serious applicants for interviews which in turn is more productive then interviewing people who won’t be considered.
As a recruiter, what is your take on this? Have you recruited anyone via social media? If you have, which of those social profiles did you use to recruit your candidate? Let me know by leaving a comment below.