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.

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