Spotlight for Recruiting Professionals

The use of social media in the recruiting process has decreased, halting several recent years of growth, according to results of NACE’s 2016 Recruiting Benchmarks Survey.

Nearly 69 percent of employers responding to the survey reported using social media as a college recruiting tool. This puts an end to a climb in recent years that saw the percentage of employers using social media to recruit go from 70 percent in 2013 to 78 percent in 2015.

Among the 68.7 percent of employers that reported using social media in the recruiting process, nearly 44 percent indicated that they have increased their use of social media in the past year and another 18.9 percent of employers reported a significant increase. Only a small percentage (3.6 percent) reported a decrease in use.

The top three social media platforms used by employers for branding and recruiting were LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. LinkedIn was the most commonly used platform across several aspects of the recruiting process. While employers used Twitter and Facebook at a nearly similar rate as LinkedIn to provide information to potential recruits, they were much more likely to use LinkedIn to identify and contact potential candidates, and review a candidate’s public profile.

NACE’s 2016 Recruiting Benchmarks Survey was conducted from May 24, 2016, to August 31, 2016, among NACE employer members; 233, or 24.6 percent, responded. Highlights from the 2016 Recruiting Benchmarks Survey are available on NACEWeb. Participating members can access the full report through MyNACE.