New research conducted by recruitment software provider Zartis shows that the UK are falling behind compared to the US when it comes to using the web and social media for what is now known as social recruiting.
LinkedIn is still the most popular social network among recruiters and companies looking to hire new staff.
One quarter of US companies directly advertise job vacancies on the popular site (25%) while only 14% of UK companies place job ads on LinkedIn.
Twitter usage for recruiting purposes is lower compared to leading social media network, LinkedIn. Only 9% of UK companies use the microblogging site to promote vacancies, whereas 23% of US companies are actively tweeting about job openings.
According to Zartis, these findings could be associated to the fact that more US companies use applicant tracking systems (ATS) which often offer an automatic posting feature to Twitter. Most employee referral programs also result in an increase in the use of Twitter for recruitment purposes.ngs.
Despite its 750m users, Facebook is the least-used network. Only one UK company out of those surveyed lists jobs on Facebook. The US number is also low, with four companies posting job openings on Facebook.
An encouraging finding 61% of UK companies are advertising jobs on their own website. However, only 11% are using an applicant tracking system, or anything other than email, to receive and manage job applications.
Looking at the US, a slightly higher amount of companies (68%) advertise new roles on their websites. Notably, their use of applicant tracking systems is more than double than UK usage at 23%.
Social recruiting is a sector with massive potential for growth, and the survey results suggests it’s only the beginning.
How was the research conducted?
Zartis used the Sunday Times FastTrack 100 list for UK companies, and the Red Herring top companies list for US companies. Zartis selected every second company on the list to get to 100, then visited every site and analysed the companies’ use of web and social media for recruitment.
I’d like to see social recruiting software like Zartis to be used more and more as they empower SMEs worldwide with much needed tools to save on recruitment fees while helping with finding great quality candidates. Zartis has also put together other resources such as an interesting ebook about “Five great online recruitment strategies” and a free Social media policy download on their site.
To know more:
Social recruiting software (Zartis.com)
Download the Social recruiting report for more information
WordPress jobs listing plugin to supercharge your recruitment (playfolio.com)
