Social networks are playing a growing — make that exploding — role in companies’ recruiting strategies.
At least that’s the claim of Jobvite, a firm that offers clients online social recruiting services.
According to the company’s recent social recruiting survey, 83% of companies polled said they currently use or are planning to start using social networks to ferret out new hires this year.
There’s more:
- 46% say they’ll spend more on social recruiting this year than in 2009
- 36% will spend less on job boards, and
- 38% will spend less on outside recruiters.
Where will these sterling new hires be found? Here’s where companies are looking now, according to Jobvite:
- LinkedIn — 78%
- Facebook — 55%
- Twitter — 45%, and
- blogs — 19%.
The research also gives us a glimpse of how HR people are using social sites. Eighty-four percent of respondents said they sometimes check social profiles when reviewing candidates — 32% said they always do so.
One odd twist: In this wired-in age, 69% of job applicants don’t bother to disclose their use of social networks.
Maybe they’ve still got pictures of last year’s Christmas party on their Facebook page.