Social Media Small but Growing Source of Hires says CareerXRoads
Recruitment industry consultants and observers CareerXRoads released its perennial Source of Hires report this week. To no one’s surprise, the 2009 recruitment year was a rocky one. The report states that more than half of all full time hires were from internal transfers, up from 39% in 2008. Also, the number one external source of hires was employee referrals.
For the first time in the report’s nine year history, social media gets more than a passing glance. Last year respondents were asked if their company had a Facebook page. This year, the survey actually asked for the number of hires attributed to social media tools. The number that CareerXRoads reports is small, just 500 hires. The survey speaks with a statistically small sample size that is not representative of the entire social media recruitment movement, but relative the other numbers in the report social media represents something shy of 1% of total hires. When put in perspective this is a number to remember. This one percent number is the first data point in a growing trend we will certainly see in the coming years. CareerXRoads states that in 1997, internet hires made up 2.1% of hires and that newspaper ads were king. Well we all know the end of that story. Newspaper recruitment is almost extinct and internet recruiting is now a $10 billion a year business.
As we’ve said before, social media recruiting is here to stay. It will continue to grow and become a more powerful force in shaping how organizations hire. These tools are true and viable sources of hires. In the coming years, recruiters must develop better ways to track hires made from social media to really understand its ROI.
Selected quotes from the report:
- Social Media, while rapidly expanding as a strategy, is still in its early stages vis-à-vis attributed hires. Only about 500 hires can be attributed to Social Media. Direct Sourcing activities are increasingly adopting social media tools and tactics but 2009 also saw a decrease in “sourcers” (who are the most specialized at using social media to track prospects). This suggests that socialmedia has not been leveraged as much as was intended. Corporate staffing is poised to expand social media initiatives rapidly in 2010 as the recession ends.
- Nearly all respondents described their 2010 plans in detail. Most mentions were to build or emphasize social media; build or rebuild sourcing teams; employ more SEO (search engine optimization)/SEM (search engine marketing) campaigns and initiatives; expand referrals; use more niche boards where necessary; and reduce overall use of job boards in general – major boards particularly. There were also frequent mentions of training (cold calling), branding and improvement of career sites.
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