Role of Social Media in Recruitment

The global phenomenon of social media is playing a important role on job markets. Social media is no longer a trend to simply ‘keep an eye on’. Instead it helps to form new strategies and policies which is useful for marketing, Human resource, Sales etc areas of organization -the list is endless. In the past, to recruit employees, originations use traditional tools like advertisement on newspaper; hire a recruitment consultant, job fair to find good talent for the organization. The recruitment industry has always adopted changes rapidly whether it is the use of internet or job website or use of social media like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. In 2009, for example, it was reported that Monster.com saw a 31% drop in revenue. This was greater than the overall decline in the recruitment industry worldwide. Recent research (by Jobvite 2010) highlights that LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook are the most popular sites used by hiring professionals. Others include Xing. These sites can generally be used in three ways - to search for candidates, to post jobs and for employer branding. There was an 82% increase in the time spent on social media sites from December 2008 to December 2009. (The Nielson Company, 2010).

In this paper, we will analyze the impact social media has had on recruitment also evaluate what tools and strategies companies and recruiters are using.