Web Insights by Mundoune

According to this article, 89% of US companies use social media for recruiting. On this chart, you can also see the proportion of recruiters using online information to review applicants. It really shows how social media is becoming a major part of most companies’ recruiting process and it especially shows how people should really pay attention to what they post on the web and invest time in creating a good online profile.

The other day I received an email from Sam, SEO Manager at Unique Digital, about a survey he did for a recruiting agency called London Loves Jobs. He kindly shared some stats he collected on behalf of his client and which show how the recruitment world is increasingly using social media as a search tool at both recruiters’ and job seekers’ levels. I used to work in Human Resources for an Irish company and our recruitment process was mainly done online so I can definitely say that even though the survey only targeted Londoners, it does reflect a more global trend in the recruitment industry.

So let’s have a look at these numbers:

First of all, you can see that almost half of Londoners are now using social media to look for a job. However they still mainly use “traditional” methods such as recruitment websites and agencies or printed media. 30% of business leaders use Linkedin to look for a job and male job seekers are more likely to use social media than women. Why is that?

Social media mainly works if you have relevant connections, otherwise it’s not really useful. The idea is to build your network in order to know the right people; it takes time but it is worth the effort (apparently more than 14 million people found their last job using social media in 2011). Business leaders tend to have more and more relevant connections so this could explain the reason why they use social media more than anybody else. Finally why men more than women? It’s a fact: men use internet differently than women. Women are more emotional and personal even when surfing the Internet while men are more practical and business oriented which would technically help them be more “adaptable” and inclined to use social media in general.

Another interesting number is about recruiting agencies. We can see that, compared to other US and UK major recruiting companies, London recruiting agencies are still a bit reluctant to use social media as advertising tools. Plus not many of them do have accounts in Linkedin or use Twitter while stats show an obvious increase in online job-related searches. This point probably explains why Londoners are not using social media so much or maybe it’s the other way around (meaning companies don’t invest in social media because Londoners don’t use them as much as other traditional tools).  Why is that then? It could be a cultural conflict. Europe in general remains more traditional than the US in terms of technological integration into people’s daily life. For sure these numbers will increase in the next months. The old continent just needs a bit more time to get used to innovation

As a conclusion, I would say that (no matter what) social media is increasingly becoming part of our real life at both personal and professional levels and we have no other choice but to deal with it. The internet offers plenty of opportunities and if one of these will help you find the best job on Earth, why not give it a try?