Fast Company magazine just ran a piece on how big companies are using social media for recruiting, especially to get the most capable candidates. Take a look at the infographic toward the bottom to see some fascinating statistics about which companies are really using LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook – and the results they get.
LinkedIn Use: comes as no surprise to learn that companies use LinkedIn to recruit candidates. Perhaps a surprise: 93% of them use it to find talent. And 89% actually hire people they’ve found on LinkedIn.
IMPLICATIONS: YES. You have to use LinkedIn if you are looking for work. See my other posts and LinkedIn itself for information on what constitutes a great profile. I optimize my clients’ profiles so they can be found by recruiters via key words relevant to the industry and profession they seek.
Facebook Use: While fewer companies (26%) made a hire from a Facebook search, 66% – two-thirds – are looking for talent on Facebook.
IMPLICATIONS: Include your employment history in your profile. As far as I can tell, there aren’t really any effective business networking sites there (Talent.me – Facebook’s business networking app – last posted on Facebook in September 2012, and BranchOut posted last in 2011…) So if you want to be found by recruiters on Facebook, you need to allow people other than your friends see your profile information. Go ahead and sign up for Talent.me (it will link to LinkedIn to get information to populate your profile) because you never know…
That means, of course: Clean up your Facebook page of profanity, nudity, drunken spree photos, and other things that might be offensive to a prospective employer. Learn your industry to see what will fly. For example, some extreme political beliefs may turn off prospective employers. In fairness, you may not want to work at a place that holds your beliefs against you but perhaps you can give yourself the chance to find out in an interview.
Twitter Use: Just over half of employers (54%) use Twitter to find talent, while only 15% make a hire. This is substantially higher than in 2011. Twitter stories abound now, about how this person or that tweeted their way to a job. You’ll read about it in the article.
IMPLICATIONS: Open a Twitter account, just to claim your digital real estate. If Twitter is used by anyone in your industry, find out who they are. Use the search function to find them. For me, I’d enter “#coach”, “career coach” or “#jobsearch” to find people in my industry. Then you can respond to someone’s tweet with an intelligent reply. You can retweet them. You can join a discussion group (my industry has #TChat, for example – short for Talent Chat) and get to know people there. Then if you are looking for a new gig, you can let people know who could help you. Get informational interviews from people in your industry.
Other Social Media Platforms: Some companies are looking for people on Google+ while others – more visually oriented – use Pinterest. Some people put up web pages with their resume, stocking it with key words in case someone does a search for people with those qualities.
IMPLICATIONS: Get a Gmail account so you too can be on Google+. Complete your Google+ profile – it will serve as an on-line resume.
SPECIAL NOTE to PROGRAMMERS: If you are in the software development field, especially if you are a programmer, you need to have a presence everywhere because recruiters are looking for you. There are several new start-ups that are marketing their ability to find great programmers via their on-line activity.
Hey Julie I have been reading your blogs for quite some time and every single one gives a lot of information as compared to others. Thank you so much for that.
I’ll just put it out there: I don’t like the concept of job search. I vote for the term being eliminated from our lexicon, and replace with “job find.” How would it feel if the right people and the right opportunities came to you? I’m not talking about magic. I’m talking about positioning yourself the right way so that you attract those right opportunities. Magnetizing your audience and magnetizing your opportunities is the next secret to successful LinkedIn job search.
Most candidates are currently doing the opposite of magnetizing. Think about this: going uphill is hard, right? Pushing a boulder while you’re going uphill would be even harder, no? All that pushing is what most people do in the job search. You’re pushing yourself out there, blasting your resume out to companies, and bothering recruiters you don’t really know, who are likely not in an industry relevant to you, and who don’t know of anything open for which you could be a match. Instead, magnetize. Attract. Position and optimize your LinkedIn profile so that when employers and recruiters search for someone with your particular brand of expertise, you appear high in the search results. We have a full presentation on how to magnetize in our free webinar http://goo.gl/KT9pV
Magnetizing, instead of pushing, is critically important for several reasons. First, the recruiter initially approaching you will likely spark a much more beneficial scenario than you approaching him. The person’s not approaching you just to chat. He’s selecting you because he thinks you may be a match for an open opportunity he has right now. Second, the entire act of magnetizing is simply empowering. Gone are the feelings of frustration, repeatedly being ignored, and continually getting rejected. Instead, the right recruiters seek you out.
So create your account http://goo.gl/KT9pV
Dear Mir,
thanks for your comment. I like the term “job find” so thanks for that! Interesting that your site still uses the term “job search,” though. It’s how people think about finding a job, and so that how people will seek advice. I also like the idea of attracting opportunities. Our work seems very similar! My whole approach to coaching is for people to identify the kind of work they love doing, do well and want to do again so that they can find the right fit job for them. And that means attracting opportunities. When people are SPECIFIC about what they want to do, they open themselves to opportunities that match it. My coaching system is a step-by-step process that gets people to the point where they know what they want, and then can market themselves to get that work. And it’s effective.
Thanks again, Julie
Thank you so much for the article Julia. This certainly says it all when it comes to where best to ‘expose’ yourself on the net when looking for employment. Thanks.
Thanks so much for the kind words, Hadiara!