Social recruiting is generally described as the use of social platforms by recruiters to source candidates for hire. With over one and a half billion users combined, social platforms such as LinkedIn and Facebook are currently amongst the most influential tools available to today’s social recruiters. Other popular social networking sites include XING, Twitter, and Google+.

The use of social platforms has sky rocketed over the last decade and social recruiting has been catapulted alongside this trend. The main reasons employers are using social platforms to recruit are as follows:

1. Wider Reach

With over 1.11 billion users on Facebook alone and an average of 665 million people logging on every day, more and more recruiters are tapping into social networking sites to source new talent. The use of mobile devices such as smartphone, tablet and laptops etc mean that people are increasingly looking online and via social networks for work.

2. Employer Branding

By having an social online presence, employers send out a positive ‘friendly’ message to their candidates. Social networks allow companies to reach their target audiences on a more ‘personal’ level and therefore become a more attractive option, especially to younger demographics.

3. Target Audience

Bearing in mind that the average Millennial holds 3 social media accounts and 92% of Generation Y worldwide have a Facebook account, social recruiting is the ultimate option for employers targeting younger demographics such as recent graduates, who are considered innovative, career driven and cost effective.

4. Reduced Costs

With professional job boards such as Monster and CareerBuilder charging anything from $225 to $419 per job ad for 30 days, free sites such as Twitter and Facebook are offering a cost-free alternative to sourcing talent online. This makes social recruiting the preferred option for many employers, and especially those who are starting out on a limited budget.

5. High Quality Candidates

Bearing in mind that it is principally job seekers who use job boards to search for work, social recruiting provides an effective way for employers to attract passive employees who may not be considering a new/different career. Users of social networking sites also tend to be more tech savvy than their counterparts, a skill that many of today’s employers are looking for (85% of technology professionals are on Facebook).

Social recruiting – The Competitive Edge

Essentially social recruiting allows employers to reach a wider audience and attract better quality candidates at a fraction of the cost of hiring recruiters or advertising on job boards. That’s not to say that social recruiting has replaced these methods completely, but it is certainly giving employers the competitive edge when it comes to finding top talent in today’s market.

Social Recruiting with softgarden

softgarden offer companies a number of social recruiting options. Asides from being able to post ads simultaneously to numerous job boards, employers can switch all of their existing job ads into their new careers page and social media profiles. Companies can also create their own job market on Facebook; The softgarden Social Recruiting tool ‘jobs-for-friends’ is an additional program available, which enables employers to recruit new employees through their existing staff networks. See the softgarden website for more details.