Social Media in recruitment? Has the job board bubble really burst?

Published on Friday, 29 June 2012 12:12

	By Mark Stephens Follow @MStephens21

Social Media continues to play a growing role in the digital recruitment space, but as far as I can see, it isn't actually that effective yet?

It strikes me that it’s another box that HR and the business needs to tick, rather than something that is based upon any sound business strategy.

I'm not saying that it doesn't have a role to play, but when you see Twitter and Facebook taking 10 times more job posts than the leading job board, but delivering over 10 times less tangible results, you have to ask yourself whether it’s actually worth it?

For anyone that didn't work that out, the leading job board was over 100 times more effective at filling a job than the leading social media site. This was an interesting fact that I picked up from a talk at a recent Talent acquisition seminar, by Ricky Wheeler at Broadbean, who I must say, delivered an excellent presentation on this subject.

Our own flat fee recruitment solution Smart Recruit Online, includes social media feeds to the big 3, but I don't see much evidence of the revolution I hear everyone bleating on about. In truth, I am quietly pleased about this, but not because I don’t want new channels and new solutions to appear within the recruitment landscape, but because after 2 – 3 years trying to establish an effective social media strategy that delivers real ROI, I am still struggling to harness it and understand it as well as I do the traditional methods.

Talking to the senior guys at Monster about their BeKnown venture on Facebook recently, it is evident that the company has severely miscalculated. Rumours are that they have pumped lots of zero’s into this and traction has been very very slow.

A new poll conducted by Reuters/Ipsos shows ads on Facebook are not effective and usually fail to sway the network’s users into making any acquisition or taking any commercial action. This backs up many industry rumours floating around that major corps who decided to invest in a social media recruitment strategy are now bailing out in numbers, after they fail to see any tangible ROI.

I read this today: “Four out of five Facebook users admit that they have never purchased a product or a service, following advertising or comments on the network. Evidence enough that Facebook needs to rethink its ad strategy, to translate its huge 900 million user strength into advertising dollars.” Taken from an article on the Advertisement Journal.

I repeat my earlier statement, that there is a place for Social Media in recruitment as a communication channel with our target audience, but it doesn’t look like its ready to take on the job boards and fill roles as effectively as they can just yet.

I would be interested to hear from anyone who has had more positive experiences and to see if my experience is replicated amongst my peers.

Oh, and if you work in Social Media and sell social media services and you are reading this, then I would not expect you to come back with anything other than I’m wrong and a counter argument.

LOL or Lots of Love as Mr Cameron would say.