How Social Media is Changing Talent Recruiting

Social media has forced change in so many ways, it should come as no surprise that it has also changed how organizations recruit talent to fill job openings. According to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), the world’s largest HR professional society, 84% of organizations are now using social media for recruiting, up from 56% in 2011.

What social media sites are popular? In 2015, it was LinkedIn (96%), followed by Facebook (66%) and Twitter (53%). In fact, the push to use social media has prompted 66% of the organizations surveyed to optimize their recruiting tools for smartphones, such as career websites (39%), followed closely by job postings and applications (each at 36%).

HR professionals report that the top reasons for using social media are to reach out to passive candidates, increase employer brand recognition and target job applicants with specific skills. However, there are also reasons to not use social media, such as concerns about legal risks (46% of those surveyed), not enough HR staff time, and questions about the veracity of information.

These survey results (see below) add detail and paint a picture of what has become obvious: more and more, employers are posting job openings and information for job seekers on social media. When these posts are not accessible, it’s yet another barrier for people with disabilities. In addition, employers are not reaching the entire talent pool that could be available to them. This lack of accessibility in eRecruiting technologies could actually be hurting their bottom line. (See PEAT’s 2015 eRecruiting Research Findings report and the TalentWorks tool we built to help employers avoid inaccessibility problems)