How Your Social Media Recruitment Strategy Could Be Hurting Business
It has been hailed as one of the most significant advances in Talent Acquisition, but is a Social Media Recruitment Strategy really as effective for HR as it seems? Could an over-reliance on such a method be hurting your business without you noticing? There is some evidence to suggest it might be.
The statistics show just how prominent social media recruitment strategies have become. According to a 2017 CareerBuilder survey, 70% of employers use social media to screen potential new recruits, while a BetterTeam survey revealed that a staggering 95% of recruiters use social media to post and promote vacancies.
Of course, the trend is not exclusively for the hirers, with the BetterTeam results also showing that 59% of employees admitting their current employer’s social presence played a part in their choosing the company to work for.
Of course, there are definite advantages to turning to social media as a part of an overall recruitment campaign, allowing HR departments and recruitment agencies to reach out to talent via their Facebook, LinkedIn and even Instagram profiles.
One of the biggest wells of talent that recruiters dive into through social media is the ‘passive’ candidate. According to some surveys, up to 75% of the workforce is considered passive and are reachable through targeted content posted on social media platforms.
And with Generation Z now maturing into the workforce and displacing those influential game-changers, the Millennials, social media has become the primary route to engaging with talent that actually expects to be communicated with via social media platforms before an email.
The Problem With ‘Passive’
Social Media does make it simple to find candidates for a particular job by simply sweeping through profiles using a clever algorithm to identify individuals who may fit the profiles. This may seem like a great idea, but there are negatives.
Passive candidates are, by definition, not even considering moving their job, so contact is designed to turn their heads. But internally, there may be suitable and highly talented candidates already working in the company, who have a keen eye on advancement. Here are 3 consequences worth considering.
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- Damages Employee Retention
While the influx of talent does usually means the arrival of fresh ideas, new perspectives and experience-backed thinking, hiring from without can seriously damage Employee Retention. After all, internal candidates can hardly feel anything but overlooked.
Four years ago, Willis Towers Watson carried out research into recruitment trends and discovered that more than 70% of “high retention-risk” employees preferred to leave their current job in favour of another because they could see no future advancement opportunities.
In another survey, some 76% of Millennials have stated they would leave their current job is they didn’t feel appreciated, while across all demographics, 66% said they would, up from 51% in 2012.
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- Increases Recruitment Costs
The cost of recruitment is already known to be quite high – over $4,000 per job in US according to some estimates. However, when it comes to passive candidates, the costs increase even further. That’s because, logically, only a generous remuneration package is going to pry such a candidate away from a job they are generally happy with anyway. In fact, according to research by Indeed, 28% of employed active candidates expect a salary increase of at least 15%, but that jumps to 32% for employed passive candidates.
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- Damages Your Image
Employer reputation is hugely significant in recruitment, and (ironically given the thrust of this article) is a major attraction to prospective talent seeking a new start in a new job. According to Monster, 65% of people would consider a new job opportunity if they were told of it by a personal connection – friend, colleague or family member. Nielsen studies, meanwhile, have reveal 92% of people will trust recommendations from friends and family over any other recommendation sources.
Internal recruitment alone is hardly a good idea, but if a company is known to overlook their existing employees it’s a major turn-off to external candidates. Knowing they have a career path to take is a highly attractive aspect when candidates weigh up their options.
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