Recruiting | Europe | Social media cannot yet compete with existing recruitment channels

Social media are more and more used for recruitment. But some recruiters are still doubtful. The debate is hot. Hard facts are needed.

StepStone recently carried out a survey to collect information and statistics about this increasingly popular use .

The key findings (extracted from the report)

• Organisations use social media mainly for recruitment
• About half of all responding companies say they are already using social media, most often for recruitment.
• The next most popular uses are to enhance brand awareness, encourage community networking, and attract new customers.
• HR-related businesses show higher adoption rates for social media than organisations in general.
• The vast majority of job seekers who use social media say they do so for personal reasons — searching for andresponding to friends and sharing information with them.

How are social media used in recruitment?

• The main reason organisations use social media in recruitment is to search directly for new employees, followed closely by making background checks on candidates. Using social media to post jobs comes right down in fifth place.
• Only a minority of job seekers respond to job messages via social networks. Moreover, a high proportion of job seekers don’t like the idea of recruiting organisations consulting their profiles, especially private profiles.

Recruitment results — social media lag behind

• In an overall evaluation of the recruitment results delivered by different tools, social media cannot yet compete with existing recruitment channels. Among these, job listings on job boards come out on top.
• Recruitment agencies score highest on candidate quality — hardly surprising, as their way of working is based on pre-selecting applicants. Job boards are rated highest when it comes to quantity of candidates.
• Social media sit alongside existing recruitment channels.
• The vast majority of responding companies regard social media simply as another channel for finding candidates, that won’t replace traditional recruitment media. The results of the job seeker survey reveal a compelling analogy regarding the future role of social media.

Source :