Recruiters: Technology broadens candidate pool, broadens outreach

The days of posting a job and praying that the right candidate applies have passed, recruiters say. Now they have a far more powerful tool to bring in job seekers - social media.

'It has completely changed how you can reach out to potential candidates,” said Mark Hennessey, a senior recruiter at ACT in Iowa City. 'It used to be all networking and referrals, or the posting and praying mentality.”

Hennessey began working at ACT, the assessment and research company, in January but has worked in the recruiting field for 13 years. The recruitment team looks at hundreds of profiles during the week. 'It's a very successful tool.”

It's not a silver bullet, he said, but social media sites such as LinkedIn and Twitter allow recruiters and employers to reach a larger pool of candidates, including so-called passive job seekers. Passive job seekers are those who not actively looking for a job but are open to the possibility of a new position.

Stephen Schulz, director of global talent acquisition at Rockwell Collins, the Cedar Rapids-based avionics company, said technology certainly has changed the ways recruiters work. When he began his career 20 years ago, the best way to reach a candidate was to advertise in newspaper classified advertising sections.

That transitioned to posting the job opening on Internet job boards, such as Monster.com or Careerbuilder.com, he said, before shifting to social media. There, companies can reach thousands of candidates in a matter of minutes.

'The No. 1 way people look for a job is changing,” he said.

So much so, that CareerBuilder and Monster are starting to change their core services, he noted.

'They realize they have an old product that's becoming irrelevant,” Schulz said.

The main players

Social media plays two main roles in recruiting: It gives potential candidates information about the company, and it lets recruiters connect and build relationships with candidates.

Rockwell Collins uses a variety of platforms to increase its social media presence, including Twitter, Facebook and even YouTube. But LinkedIn 'is without a doubt the industry-recognized way to network,” he said.

LinkedIn certainly appears to be the power player in the social media recruitment field. The company offers products to job seekers and employers - which are growing rapidly.

Revenue from LinkedIn's recruiting products from its Talent Solutions division hit $275.9 million during 2014's first quarter. This was a 50 percent increase when compared with the first quarter of 2013.

Additionally, Talent Solutions revenue represented 58 percent of the company's total revenue in the first quarter of 2014, which equaled $473,193.

Twitter is useful when it comes to marketing events, the recruiters said. It also allows the company to build awareness of its brand.

'Rockwell Collins is a big name in Eastern Iowa,” Schulz said. 'But out in Virginia, not so much.” So Twitter can be useful if the company wants to connect with students from Virginia Tech before a job fair, he said.

Both Hennessey and Schulz said they don't use social media to vet candidates, such as looking at personal Facebook or Twitter accounts. Hennessey noted the company potentially could get in trouble for discrimination.

Even still, Jobvite, a company that provides recruiting software and information, found that 93 percent of recruiters are likely to look at a candidate's social profile, with 42 percent admitting they have reconsidered a candidate based on content they found on a social profile such as Twitter or Facebook.

The company surveyed 2,135 adults, of whom 1,303 were active in the U.S. labor force.

The Jobvite survey also found that more recruiters react negatively to profanity (65 percent) and grammar mistakes (61 percent) than to references of alcohol use (47 percent).

In response to this, 40 percent of job seekers have modified their social media presence, according to Jobvite.

Companies' Online Presence

A company's presence on social media is just as important as candidates, recruiters said.

Hennessey said companies need to have fresh content that is relevant to job seekers on company profiles to bring potential candidates to the site.

'You as a company need to be able to attract people to your profile,” he said.

Schulz agreed. If a candidate performs a Google search of a company and can't find a significant online presence, a red flag may go up, he said. 'They have an expectation that there should be lots of content and information,” he said.

Rockwell Collins focuses on offering candidates information of what it's like to work at the company, what kind of company it is and what kind of products and services it produces.

It's put up videos on YouTube and created a Facebook page, he said. What's more, Rockwell Collins is monitoring the changing social media landscape so it can keep up.

'We're watching as new social media channels pop up to see if they can be used,” Schulz said, pointing to sites such as photo sharing app Instagram and the looping video app Vine. 'When they sprout up, we look carefully.”

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