Study: Facebook population rapidly getting older
July 10, 2009 by Sam NarisiPosted in: In this week's e-newsletter - Tech
Using Facebook to find employees? You may find more than you expected.
A new study by iStrategyLabs reports that Facebook members over the age of 55 increased 513% from January to July of 2009. For folks age 35-54, the numbers went up 109%.
Incidentally, the same report shows a 20 percent drop in high school and college users in the same time period.
Experts expect similar changes in the Facebook population to continue.
What’s it mean to HR? Though it’s always been a decent place to recruit recent graduates, the site is rapidly become a resource recruiters can use to find new employees at all levels.
July 21st, 2009 at 6:22 pm
I do not have time to sit in my computer and look up people in Face Book. I’m suprise that there are Human Resource people using this method.
July 22nd, 2009 at 7:59 am
I agree with Maria. I don’t have time for that stuff!
July 28th, 2009 at 10:44 am
If so many HR peopel are using it there must be a quicker way of sourcing people. Does anyone know how it is being done?
September 1st, 2009 at 4:52 pm
You can create targeted ads on FB and they are not very expensive. You can target certain employers or by keywords that people have on their profile. If you personally have built up a network of “friends” you can post that you are hiring for a particular position and have people refer their friends to your organization. One last suggestion, if you have a company page you can post job opening announcements on that page or create an event for job fairs.
September 10th, 2009 at 9:18 am
The highest rise in percentage was in Women over 40 re-entering the work-force or after beinglaid-off. The e-conomy is born of such.
September 25th, 2009 at 8:52 am
Who has time to look for people on Twitter, Facebook etc since it sounds like a shot in the dark.
October 6th, 2009 at 9:19 am
Ironically, most companies have facebook (and other networking sites) blocked on their networks. My company is one of them.
So if I’m to “recruit” with facebook, I’d have to do it on my own time. No way. I work my butt of at work, I’m not going to spend my free time facebook’ing for work.
I’m wondering what companies use this technique. It seems they must have a very relaxed outlook if their HR’s are spending time surfing instead of taking a more active role…
November 17th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
As Robyn above suggests, their are several ways to take advantage of the substantial market reach of social networking sites to SUPPLEMENT our other, more traditional, methods of recruiting. It is just another way of reaching your target market in today’s fast-changing, high-tech society. I have hired a few solid employees utilizing Facebook connections/methods that cost us virutually (no pun intended) nothing, other then a little time on my part.
Just last night I had a known individual contact me via Facebook advising us of her availability for a position I am looking to fill.
I just had to convince my IT Director that I was WORKING with Facebook as another tool in my HR Toolkit, not goofing off SURFING the Net. LOL!
November 17th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
There is too much emphasis on social networking and most of it from what I have seen is a waste of time. With a few exceptions of companies like Google whose culture is all about internet searching, no one I know is going to use Facebook for job search. Rather than Facebook time, employees shoud put in more face time at work.
November 17th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
@Carla: “…employees should put in more face time at work.” I like that, Carla, and agree! At our facilities, we have our internet access locked down nice and tight, as well as we attempt to put strict control on personal phone/device usage within our work areas. I was suggesting above, through my own experience and some of my colleagues’, that the social networking venues CAN be fruitful recruiting grounds for more PASSIVE candidate sourcing. Honestly, for me it is not even close to being a mainstream source, and probably never will be, but as I said, through a steady presence and some savvy (I think) networking strategies, I have netted three successful hires via Facebook and a fourth just presented herself last evening. Hey, I’ll take it! In my world of cut-throat health care recruiting among an increasingly questionable (quality-wise, IMO) pool of candidates, the social networking sites are simply another avenue to be tapped into, in addition to the Careerbuilder.coms, Monster.coms, LinkedIn.coms, other .coms, agencies, employee referrals, etc., etc.. Works for some, not for all.