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    Social Recruiting Heats Up in Competitive Job Market

    Jobvite, a leading recruitment platform for the social web, recently announced the results of its annual Social Recruiting Survey. Now in its sixth year, the Jobvite annual Social Recruiting Survey was completed in July 2013 by more than 1600 recruiting and human resources professionals.

    “It’s no longer a question of ‘are recruiters using social media?’” said Dan Finnigan, president and CEO of Jobvite. “It’s a question of how. We’ve seen a significant jump in social media engagement over the years; in 2013, it’s a given. Companies are ready and willing to pay for the best talent, and now they’re looking for ways to optimize spend on their recruiting programs to find those people. Social recruiting provides a way to quickly and easily find those ‘under the radar’ candidates — people who might not be actively looking for a role, but who are a perfect fit for open positions at your company. This data speaks to the power of social recruiting, and it is exciting to think about what’s on the horizon.”

    Social Recruiting Heats Up in Competitive Job Market - slide 1

    Click through for findings from a social recruiting survey conducted by Jobvite.

    Social Recruiting Heats Up in Competitive Job Market - slide 2

    This year’s data underscores that social recruiting is an essential HR practice used by 94 percent of surveyed recruiters across industries, up from 78 percent in 2008, the first year the survey was conducted. In an indication of the increasingly competitive hiring environment, only 1.5 percent of respondents predict that hiring will become less competitive in the coming year.

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    The report affirms the ROI of social recruiting, with 60 percent of recruiters estimating the value of their social media hires as greater than $20,000 per year, and 20 percent estimating the value as greater than $90,000 per year.

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    With nine out of 10 surveyed companies using social media in their recruiting strategy, candidates and companies are now in direct communication, all the time. LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter continue to be the most used channels by recruiters, with an increase in adoption of emerging, specialized and localized social networks including GitHub, Yammer, Stackoverflow, Pinterest and Instagram.

    • Recruiters use LinkedIn 93 percent of the time to search, contact, and keep tabs on candidates in the hiring process.
    • Facebook and Twitter are the main channels that recruiters use to showcase employer brand — 65 percent of recruiters surveyed use Facebook and 47 percent of recruiters use Twitter to post about company culture.
    • Recruiters continue to use social media even after sourcing and contacting candidates — a reported 18 percent use Twitter and 25 percent use Facebook to vet candidates after the interview process.

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    The best employees tend to attract the best candidates. Whether there is an overlap from college or at a previous job, every employee contact is also a potential candidate. Social media has opened candidate networks far larger than recruiters have ever used before.

    • One in three recruiters report that social media recruiting improved both the quantity and quality of candidates.
    • Referrals represent the highest quality source of candidates (64 percent); social networks and corporate career sites have also jumped in significance (59 percent).
    • Forty-three percent of employees from referrals and company career pages stay longer than three years, while only 14 percent of job board hires stay longer than three years.
    • Referrals are the highest-rated source of new hires, and it’s far easier for employees to share jobs through social networks. A reported 73 percent of recruiters report they will increase their investment in social networks in 2013, while 62 percent report they will increase their referral incentives.

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    Qualified job seekers should note the increasing importance of their total social presence beyond LinkedIn. Ninety-three percent of recruiters report reviewing candidates’ social profile in the hiring process. Forty-two percent have reconsidered a candidate based on content from social profiles.

    • Illegal drug usage meets with the most universal disapproval, with 83 percent of recruiters reporting a negative reaction to such posts.
    • Sexual posts (70 percent) and profanity (65 percent) are also frowned upon by recruiters — a five percent jump from the 2012 survey.
    • In a year of numerous high-profile gun-related incidents, gun references trigger negative reactions among 50 percent of recruiters. However, a majority of recruiters (65 percent) remain neutral toward overtly political posts.

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