Latest Social Recruiting Survey Results

Sometimes our clients just need some data or statistics to further convince them. This I find true, especially with older clients, when trying to educate them about the importance of using social media as a job search tool. The recent Jobvite's Social Recruiting Survey for 2012, shared some fabulous statistics. They polled more than 1,000 human resource and recruitment professionals regarding their social recruitment activities. Here are some highlights.

-92% of U.S. companies are using social networks and media to recruit talent (up from 78% five years ago)
-LinkedIn is still the most popular recruiting network and is used by 93% of the respondents
-Facebook and Twitter have seen significant growth in the past year
-2/3 of polled companies now use Facebook to recruit
-More than half of polled companies use Twitter to find new talent

As for what employers like to see (or not see).
-Over 75% positively reacted to candidates listing professional organizations and volunteer work
-As could be expected, candidates using profanity in posts and tweets, making reference to drinking and illegal drugs or using poor grammar or misspellings all received negative responses from employers

Recruiters  and HR professionals  say they like social recruiting because it is inexpensive, they receive a better pool of candidates and it takes less time to hire. Interestly, the survey also found that 2/3 of surveyed companies offer referral bonuses to current employees who make a successful referral. In 1/3 of the instances, the reward is more than $1,000.