Twitter could outshine LinkedIn for recruitment, report reveals

Twitter is emerging as an increasingly useful platform for recruiters, according to new research into job advertisements on social media services.

US-based recruiting software company Bullhorn has released two reports – the Bullhorn Reach Country Report and the Social Activity Recruiting Report.

The first report compares how recruiters in the US, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and the rest of the world use LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter as part of their recruitment activity.

The second examines the social media activity of recruiters and jobseekers across these social networks.

The report – which presents key findings and benchmark data from the Bullhorn Reach user network of more than 35,000 recruiters – reveals the sites used vary between industries.

In Australia, the top three industries posting job advertisements to LinkedIn are tourism, medical, and defense.

On Facebook, the top three industries are education, advertising, and non-profit. On Twitter, it’s retail, energy and publishing.

Interestingly, the top four industries posting jobs on LinkedIn – known as the most career-oriented network – do not appear in the top 10 list of industries posting jobs on Facebook or Twitter.

Similarly, many recruiters that post jobs on Twitter don’t also do so on LinkedIn or Facebook.

Despite being the world’s largest social networking site, Facebook is generally the last place jobseekers are advised to go, with both LinkedIn and Twitter more effective recruitment tools.

“Our findings suggest that recruiters are connected to all three social networks, but are using LinkedIn and Twitter much more than Facebook to recruit talent,” the report said.

“We found LinkedIn is driving the most views and applications per job posted on the ‘big three’ social networks.”

“[However,] our analysis shows that Twitter followers are much more likely to apply for a job than connections on LinkedIn or friends on Facebook.”

The report found Twitter followers are three times more likely to apply for a job than those using a LinkedIn connection, suggesting employers should prioritise their Twitter activity.

“Overall, Twitter and Facebook appear to be highly under-utilised networks for recruiting, but we expect that behaviour to change during 2012,” the report said.

Ben Fuller, sales director for Bullhorn Australia-Pacific, says it’s important for recruiters to know which social networks are the most effective and will bring success.

“Twitter is still an emerging platform for recruiters,” Fuller says.

“However, it’s no time to abandon LinkedIn which, as the best established of the three platforms for recruiters, grows at an average of 18.5 new connections per week.”

But according to Martin Nally, founder of hranywhere, relying on social media alone is ill-advised.

“Like anything else, [social media] cannot be the only means – it’s got to be one of them,” Nally told StartupSmart.

“If you use social media as the only selection criteria, you will fail. If you use it as one of the tools and it assists you to build a picture, that’s a valid use.”