Pros and Cons of Using Social Media for Employee Recruitment

Social media for employee recruitment? Get real! This is unprofessional. People use Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram for personal interests, not job hunting.

Well, truth be told, it is real. According to 2015 Jobvite Recruiter Nation Survey, as much of 92 percent recruiters are using social media to cast wider net. Previously seen as ‘just for fun’ media to pass time, social media is finding its way to the workplace. People today, no longer merely use social media platforms to scroll down posts aimlessly but also to seek for job opportunities. Employers need to see this trend to widen their business scope and talents.

Popular social media such as Facebook and LinkedIn have been increasingly popular for employers to recruit new hires. Not only to advertise jobs, HR leaders have started using social platform to screen and recruit potential candidates from the talent pool.

There are several reasons why leaders start recognising the advantages of social media to recruit new people, such as cost savings, reaching wider scope of talents, gaining more knowledge about the candidates, as well as targeting specific talent pool. Social media has offered a more sophisticated approach to increase candidate’s quality by allowing hiring managers to screen their accounts directly.

However, there are two sides to every coin. Besides all these advantages, social media owns potential dangers that could possibly backfire, if not handled wisely. Here are the pros and cons:

Pros

Reach wider audience with various background. In terms of numbers, no job portal is able to beat social media (yet). The biggest job search engine, Indeed.com has only 7.15 million monthly active users. On the other hand, biggest social media, Facebook records more than 1.49 billion monthly active users across the world. The statistics show how social media possess great potential of targeting passive talents, those whose candidature you do not find easily on the mainstream job portal.

It is modern, easy, inexpensive, and targeted. The world has changed in a way where people no longer rely on written or printed media such as newspapers and magazines to get a job. They prefer logging in to computer and seek plentiful of varied job opportunities available online. You can also save on advertising costs by posting jobs on company’s social media account. Moreover, the people who follow the page must have interests in the company, so the advertisement will reach the right target audience.

Gain more information about candidates. People post everything on their social media accounts. The latest celebrity gossips, their latest relationship status, even embarrassing moments. While a resume is a single paper sheet containing limited information about a candidate’s personality, you can get more information about an individual on social media screening, to decide whether a person will fit into company’s culture or not.

Cons

Unspecified skills and talents. Unfortunately, most people use social media for personal and entertainment purposes rather than professional interests. People do not commonly upload their resumes and cover letters on a Facebook profile. If they do, sometimes they set it in a private setting so not everyone gains access to it. Hence, employer cannot ensure if they are the right candidates for the job or not.

It takes more time. Gaining greater audience means that you have to spend more time in reviewing hundreds or even thousands of CVs coming to your emails. Screening these resumes will consume much of your time. If you are lucky, perhaps you might get the talent you are looking for. However, if you are not, you might end up wasting your time for nothing.

You might know something you should not know. Using social media for employee recruitment exposes legal risk and protected information such as age, gender, religion, and even political view. Although such information could be obtained accidentally, it does affect manager’s perspective in selecting certain candidates which then leads to discrimination.

Considering the increasing trend of using social media for recruitment purposes, HR leaders are urged to find a strategy on how to maximise the benefits and minimise the risks associated with using social media for employee recruitment.

Learn more: Rookie Mistakes You Make on Your LinkedIn Profile