The term “social recruiting” has been around for a while. In fact, the web is flooded with articles and materials advising both recruiters and job seekers on the basics of social recruiting. Despite that, there was not really much insight into this emerging trend and the actual level of its popularity. However, a new study shows that social recruiting has become something very big. Furthermore, it is actually predicting that it will soon become one of the leading trends in recruiting.
Conducted by TweetMyJobs, the “Social Recruiting in 2013 Survey” is based on the responses of over 2,100 job seekers and 350 hiring companies. It has found that the relatively new practice of social recruiting has already gained popularity among people who are searching for job. According to the survey, about half of all job seekers today spent an average over 6 hours every in the social media websites in an attempt to find a job opportunity. Moreover, 1 in 3 uses social platforms as their main job search tool.
But do companies and recruiters show the same interest in the social media? The study is quite positive on that. It points that over 70% of employers rely on social networks to promote and announce job openings. In addition, the practice offers them great benefits. Nearly 60% of the companies that use social recruitment receive more applications. Another 50% of them get more referrals when hiring with the help of social media.
According to the survey, this emerging trend is here to stay. In fact, it has discovered that it already shows signs of impressive growth. Today, three times more companies are investing more in social recruitment.
What is more interesting is that this practice is expected to continue to rise in 2014. More than 66% of the companies which took part in the survey have shared that they will increase the number of their social recruitment initiative during the next year.
The research has found that even governments have become more open to the trend. Among them are the those of the US and Puerto Rico, for example.
But what causes this growth in the popularity of social recruitment? The answer is actually really simple. Social platforms attract billions of people. Users, on the other hand, spend more and more time browsing them. In addition, unemployment rates remain rather high. Naturally, at one point, these tendencies merge into one.
