I’m a sponsored blog partner with Spherion (a staffing and recruiting organization) and am participating in the release of findings from Spherion’s Emerging Workforce® Study (“EWS.”) All opinions are mine.
What does the rise of social recruiting mean for the future of HR? The way that companies attract qualified job applicants continues to evolve at lightning speed. Just a decade ago, all a company had to do was keep the “careers” section of their corporate web site up to date with job postings. A few years ago, along came sophisticated career sites and job boards. Now, “social recruiting”—with job openings listed on social sites like Pinterest, Facebook and LinkedIn—have been added to the mix. Research indicates that most companies (especially the big ones) aren’t keeping up with this trend.
The Emerging Workforce Study highlights a few insights into how technology affects the job search. 41% of employers say they use social media initiatives to help recruit new talent, an increase of 11% over last year’s survey. It also appears that using social media “just because” is waning. This year, the number of companies indicating that they have implemented social media initiatives to “simply have a presence on the web” has declined from last year. These two statistics signal that employers are getting more strategic about when and how to use social media for recruitment purposes.
For most companies though, there is still room to grow these strategies. According to career site Glassdoor’s 2015 Statistical Reference Guide for Talent Acquisition Professionals, a whopping 90% of Fortune 500 companies’ career sites don’t have mobile-friendly designs. These companies are missing a huge opportunity to recruit the most tech-savvy employees because nearly half of job seekers use a mobile device to conduct their search. According to Spherion’s Emerging Workforce Study, 27% use their smart phones and 23% use their tablets. That’s nearly 50% of the population receiving a less-than-optimal job search experience when they look at job prospects within large organizations.
Where do employees look for jobs? According to the EWS, 30% use career sites like Glassdoor and CareerBuilder. The survey reports that 14% of employees use social sites like Facebook or LinkedIn. This number seems low to me. I’ve seen stats that say that over 70% of job-seekers use at least one social media platform.
Regardless of the stats, one thing is clear: employers need to embrace social networking technology as part of their recruitment plan. I’ve been involved in social media for a decade, so I sometimes forget that not all companies are on board yet. I still see the occasional reference to “printing out paper copies of emails” from my HR colleagues. Until human resources managers can convince their company leadership that social recruiting is an important tool in attracting the best employees, their companies will lag behind in attracting the best talent.
About the Emerging Workforce Study: For more than 18 years, Spherion has examined the issues and trends impacting employment and the workforce. This year, Spherion’s “Emerging Workforce Study” was conducted between March and April of 2015 by Harris Poll, a Nielsen company. The study polled over 2,000 workers and 225 human resource managers on their opinions and attitudes regarding important workplace topics such as employee engagement, job satisfaction, generational differences and work/life balance. One of the study’s goals was to look for indicators for what the workplace will become. As the perspectives and attitudes of the workforce evolve, employers must better understand employees for greater business success.
You can also follow Spherion on Twitter (hashtag #EWS2014) or join them on Facebook.
Disclosure: Spherion partnered with bloggers (like yours truly) for their Emerging Workforce Study program. As part of this program, I received compensation for my time. I was free to form my own opinions about the data supplied by Spherion and all opinions are my own. Spherion’s policies align with WOMMA Ethics Code, FTC guidelines and social media engagement recommendations.
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