Is Social Recruiting Real?

The astounding growth in social media has revolutionized the way that people are connecting with each other, and forced companies to rethink how to find quality candidates. Industry specific stories, press releases, or infographics appear week in and week out claiming that social recruiting has arrived as the golden standard, and that companies not fully embracing social will lose talent to their innovative competitors. At TweetMyJobs, we believed an honest evaluation of the industry was necessary to determine whether or not job seekers and employers are “buying in” to the hype. So we went straight to the source.
We decided to listen to what job seekers and employers think about using social media during their job search. After surveying over 2,000 job seekers and 400 company representatives, we transformed that data into a brief video to evaluate the state of social recruiting in 2012 and pose the question: “Is Social Recruiting Real?”
The survey provided many interesting statistics, but a few caught our eye:

• 50% of job seekers still spend most their time searching on traditional job boards
• 29% of job seekers use social media as their primary tool for job searching
• 45% of companies plan to invest more in Social Recruiting in 2012

These stats portray an industry that is well publicized, but still in its early growth stage. There’s no denying that social recruiting will continue to grow. Job seekers are using social media to find work. Innovative, industry leading companies are embracing the technology. Smaller companies are investing more and getting involved… the answer to our question seems obvious to us.
What about you? Do you believe social recruiting is real? Sound off in the comments below or follow the conversation at #Time2TMJ.