Why Social Media Sites have Become Hunting Grounds for the Recruiting Industry?

A recently carried out survey has revealed a massive 52 per cent employers having searched social media for candidates. Although it began as just a natural fit for advertising social jobs, today social media is really the first place that recruiters depend on for realizing their hiring needs. Many small businesses across the world have found social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to be great hiring tools.

Low-cost alternatives to newspaper ads

The myriad social media websites available online are being looked upon by a great number of companies that tend to recruit intensely, as an inexpensive alternative to the job boards. As studies aver that presently around 500 million users of Facebook spent more or less 700 billion minutes a month on the website why should the recruiters carry on with the less productive method of posting adverts in newspapers and bill-boards? When another 100 million LinkedIn users and 200 million Twitter users add to the list it also adds more credibility for the alternative theory.

Sensing the new trend even these social media websites have started efforts to rope in the potential recruiting companies. Targeting those companies with comparatively lesser social media presence, Linkedln and Facebook have announced special advertisement promotions starting at USD 10 and USD 1 per day as fee.

Reports and reviews say that using Facebook as a job advertisement platform generates for the companies better results when the role is rather general. On the other hand, they also think companies recruiting for more professional roles such as managerial posts in specialized industries; Linkedln could be a better option. They cite for example, the Marketplace of Facebook that is free for firms advertising for the simpler jobs against the job-board of Linkedln where they charge USD 195 for posting an opening for thirty days.

The latest trend among professional companies is creating groups in Linkedln for the industry preferred by them. There they let the users post their thoughts as well as join a selected network of peers. Such groups also allow searching in forums where they get to know not just what people are opining but how they are being rated by their peers as well.

Passive Candidates can be focused on

Advertising purely on job boards limits the reach of the hiring firm to those that are searching for fresh roles. This is where social media have an edge over its predecessor. It is a tremendous tool for tapping into a much promising pool of potential candidates that are hardly seeking a fresh role in an active manner. This is crucial while hiring for niche roles such as Engineers or Developers. Such candidates are prone to be hooked up faster since there could be a skills shortage in the national level.

Great way to show-case professional culture

Companies have over the years tend to boast about their values as well as their edge over others as a recruiter on their own websites and career websites. Nevertheless, not many of them try hard to do the same on their Linkedln page or Twitter feed, despite the fact that these are ideal platforms to share their team photos, news updates and information on latest vacancies.

In fact, when companies tend to share content such as that on their social media accounts, they are more likely to reach people that are already following those companies. This might just ensure that people coming to work for such companies may be their brand’s existing followers.

For targeting particular jobs more

If a company is recruiting for a special job sector, a social media website such as Linkedln can do wonders with its thousands of dedicated pages for professional groups. There exists many professional groups dedicated to any job sector one can think of, such as Engineer groups, groups for Finance professionals and doctors.

There are also other social media tools that help the users target their vacancies. Twitter hashtags is a significant one to name.

Helps in screening candidates

Many recruiting companies today regard the social media websites as not just a remarkable tool for advertising their vacancies but also as efficient platforms for screening candidates.

Such media tools allow that hiring firms to review the skills of the candidates, their personal qualities and previous experience while assessing their applications. Nonetheless, recruiters are hardly allowed to check for alignment with their company values and culture. This comes as part of the social media check. Then the recruiters are advised to pay caution while tending to review the social media profiles of candidates without their consent. However, today they have the advantage of an increased number of candidates including links to their social media pages within their CVs.

Going through such candidate profiles are likely to provide the recruiting companies with a glimpse into their interests and hobbies besides the sort of information they regularly post.