You’re Looking in the Wrong Place for Job Candidates

Job seekers don’t really flip through the classifieds much anymore. Instead they turn to the Internet and social networks. Unsurprisingly, 92 percent of businesses now use social media as a recruitment tool. 

Yet that doesn’t mean that you’re looking for candidates in the right places. New research from iCIMS, a Web-based employment software company, makes clear that recruiters could be getting more eyes on their job postings.

“It was very surprising was that job candidates were not engaging as much on Twitter as recruiters are,” Susan Vitale, CMO of iCIMS, said. 

Indeed, the study found that 51 percent of all jobs posted on social media are posted to Twitter–and yet, a mere one percent of candidates expect to find a job on Twitter. The top social site job seekers expected to find job postings was LinkedIn, but the site accounts for only 23 percent of all jobs posted on social.

“I view LinkedIn as more of a job board than strictly as a social media platform,” Vitale says. “But the fact that other social networks besides LinkedIn are considered by job seekers is really refreshing to see and surprising.” 

The study analyzed more than 60,000 jobs posted on social media. After LinkedIn, iCIMS found that job seekers are looking most frequently to Facebook and Google+. 

Based on the results, businesses looking to hire should consider taking greater advantage of Google+ for recruiting. The study found that less than one percent of companies are posting jobs on the platform, but jobs that are posted there get nearly four times more views per job than other platforms. 

In terms of actual conversion, however–how many people who applied for jobs they saw–Facebook came out on top. Nearly half of job seekers who looked at a listing on the site applied for it. LinkedIn and Twitter followed in this category.

Vitale stressed that each platform has a different strength. For instance, Google+ was good for brand awareness because job posts on the platform are seen by so many more people, but that image-driven platforms such as Pinterest and Instagram were more frequently used by job seekers to understand company cultures and whether a job would be a good fit for them. 

“Companies need to decide what is the big goal that they have,” Vitale says. “Is it number of conversions? Building their brand or following? Or is it engaging as many candidates as possible? Depending on what that is, the social media site that they engage should be reflective of this overall goal and where that aligns with the job seeker.”  

Vitale added that you also need to make sure that social is not the only channel you are using to find new employees.