HR Research : “Social media is now a powerful recruitment tool for getting the right person in position faster and cheaper than traditional forms of advertising”

A survey of more than 7000 recruitment companies, HR managers and recruiters in the UK has found that 71% of them have successfully hired an employee or contractor using social media.

The survey, undertaken by Oilandgaspeople.com, the world’s leading Oil and Gas jobs board, also found that 82% of employers have looked up potential candidates on social media sites, while some 64% have rejected a job application after looking at a candidate’s social media profile.

The survey found that 88% of recruiters used LinkedIn for candidate recruitment, 25% used Facebook, 8%, twitter, and 33% used industry-based job boards.  Oilandgaspeople.com.

77% said the reason for recruiting via social media is that it gives them better access to more candidates, 33% said it is the most cost effective way to find candidates, while 41% said it gave them better insight into whether candidates were suitable. The survey highlighted Job boards and LinkedIn as the two most important tools to recruiters, with Facebook also playing a role.

The survey found that 63% of recruiters said that they considered social media as more effective than traditional print ads when advertising jobs.

“Social media is now a powerful recruitment tool for getting the right person in position faster and cheaper than traditional forms of advertising,” said Kevin Forbes, CEO of Oilandgaspeople.com.

“As a leading Job Portal we have always integrated with social media. Our LinkedIn groups are among the largest on LinkedIn and between LinkedIn and Facebook we are able to market jobs posted on Oil and Gas People to over 1.5 million candidates in the oil and gas industry over double the reach of our competitors that don’t utilise Social Media.

Kevin went on to say: “The Oil and Gas Industry is currently enjoying a small boom and it is becoming increasingly hard to source the right candidates. Being such an innovative industry it comes as no surprise that recruiters are turning to social media to find top talent.”