The Growing Importance of Social Media in the Recruitment Industry
When I started at XL Recruitment in August, as a Social Media and Digital Marketing Apprentice, I had doubts as to how important the social platforms would be in the recruitment industry. What news would there be to talk about and discuss? What is there to blog about?
However, I soon discovered that my doubts were unfounded, as social media becomes more and more prominent for both companies advertising their vacant positions, and job seekers. As it has turned out, there are regular news developments, as the job market fluctuates on a monthly basis. Furthermore, there are numerous avenues to explore through blogs, ranging from interview tips, to how best to go about your search for a new job.
The three social networks most commonly used by recruiters are Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, with all three becoming more and more important in finding both job candidates and job opportunities.
Twitter is a very useful tool for recruiters. The amount of time people are now spending on the site means it is easier to target a larger, more active audience. There are currently 271 million active users on Twitter, highlighting the size of the audience that can be targeted. This has resulted in more recruiters attempting to engage with potential candidates, and posting their jobs on the site, in the hope that they can attract suitable applicants to the role. Success in this is demonstrated by the fact that 15% of recruiters have placed a candidate through Twitter, while 8 million applicants have reportedly found their job through the site. Therefore, Twitter is certainly an area of growth, which is leading to much success in recruitment.
Facebook is the largest social media network in the world, meaning it is predictably highlighted as an area to target for recruiters. The site has an average of 890 million active users a day, thus providing a huge target audience that can be tapped into. Furthermore, it is reported that 26% of recruiters have placed candidates through Facebook, highlighting the importance recruiters place on promoting their jobs on the site, in the hope of attracting suitable candidates. In addition to this, Facebook Ads allow recruitment companies to increase the number of people that are exposed to their posts, helping increasing the number of applications for a job position. Therefore, Facebook is also growing in importance for recruiters.
Finally, LinkedIn is predictably a favourite social media site for recruiters, due to the opportunity of networking with fellow business professionals. Many job seekers also use LinkedIn as a resource when looking for a new job, meaning there is a more engaged audience available to them than any other social media network. The popularity of LinkedIn for recruiters is highlighted by the fact that there are 44,000 mobile job applications posted on a daily basis. Moreover, a massive 89% of recruiters have placed candidates in a job through LinkedIn, stressing the importance of exploiting the number of potential applicants available to them. Therefore, LinkedIn is an important focus for recruitment companies looking to utilise the growing influence of social media in recruitment.
This all goes to show the growing importance of my role. As recruitment starts to develop into the digital era, social media takes up an increasing priority for recruitment firms up and down the country.
