If you’re not using social media to find your next hire, you might be missing out on some really great talent.
That’s the finding of a new report from recruiting firm Hays Canada, which found that just about every job candidate is on at least one social network, and more than half of them are trawling social media to find employment. However, in stark contrast, just 23 per cent of employers are using social media as part of their recruiting strategy.
For this report, researchers polled 1,000 Canadian employers, recruiters, and job candidates from 20 different sectors. Respondents were almost evenly divided between Gen Y and Gen X, and their job titles ranged from junior staffers to people in the C-suite.
Among those seeking work, 77 per cent of respondents said they’re currently on LinkedIn, while another 72 per cent said they use Facebook. Closely behind that is Twitter, with 71 per cent of respondents saying they regularly use that social network. However, just 21 per cent of job seekers have their own YouTube accounts, and 12 per cent are on Google+.
So with such a wide swath of people getting surveyed, it’s interesting to see why employers are shying away from using social to find new employees. Researchers noted employers actually depend on their job postings themselves to build up their brand and to find new talent.
That’s interesting, considering that aside from job boards and listings, the top way for employers to promote openings is through their own career pages. About 35 per cent of respondents said that’s their top source of job postings, with just under 20 per cent saying they have a LinkedIn Careers page. Only five per cent had a Twitter job feed, with even less respondents saying they have postings on Facebook. The numbers were also less than five per cent for YouTube and Google+.
Plus, just over 30 per cent of employers said they actually don’t have any way of posting their opportunities. And just over 10 per cent said they’re not sure whether they have any branded career postings.
There’s a big gap between where job seekers are looking, versus where employers are telling people about their opportunities. If employers want to attract the best talent possible, it may be a good idea to grow their social presence – that could be all the difference in getting the right person for the right job.