2. Social media platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook have yielded
highly qualified referred candidates for a handful of pioneering recruiters.
But “social recruitment” remains more of an art than a science, and
most staffers and managers at recruitment firms remain in the dark with
regard to what practices work and why. The social mediasphere can
be overwhelming to navigate, to say nothing of mining it for qualified
job candidates. With a centrally managed framework, agency
executives can realize social recruiting’s ROI potential.
2
3. How Does Social Recruiting
Differ from Social Media?
Put simply, social media is a channel educational, interesting and responsive to
for socializing, whereas social the people in their network.
recruiting is the practice of cultivating
that channel to achieve a specific More to the point, it requires an
goal: finding and placing qualified investment of time on the part of
candidates. More importantly, that recruiters — time to regularly check in,
goal should be to cultivate a network or to create, post, and share interesting
of professionals willing to actively refer content, or to personally respond to
open positions to job candidates on their developments in your contacts’ lives.
respective networks. The question becomes how to intelligently
manage that time investment so that
As any recruiter knows, referred “value in” equates with “value out.”
candidates tend to be far more qualified And therein lays the challenge, both for
for a position than candidates responding recruiters and those who manage them.
to a job ad. These referrals not only
distinguish social recruiting from social Social media is a
media, they are what make social channel for socializing.
recruiting such a powerful, competitive,
and profitable, tool for placing candidates. Social recruiting is the
practice of cultivating
Social media makes it easy to pass your recruiters’ social
along information to one’s followers. media networks
But social recruiting requires more than to find and place
simply posting jobs on LinkedIn or Twitter. qualified candidates.
Although that may land a few applicants,
it isn’t far removed from posting openings
on yet another job board. Social recruiting
requires recruiters to actively engage their
networks to build relationships and, more
importantly, trust. They must be helpful,
3
4. In many respects, recruiting activities implementing that strategy in an
online are not so different than for intelligent framework.
traditional recruiting:
• network with the industry A well-run social recruiting
• maintain a pipeline of candidates program has three
• post jobs elements — centralization,
• match candidates to fill orders measurement and
But, unlike conventional practices, optimization.
online recruitment is largely invisible to
managers. This can be disconcerting, even
for managers at firms that are reaping the
benefits of social recruiting. Managers Centralize
can’t always track the productivity of
In today’s social recruiting landscape,
individual recruiter networks, or measure
each recruiter has a network of contacts
which online practices yield better results
to which they reach out whenever they
than others. Are the agency’s collective
have an opening to fill. However, before
networks growing? Is staff building
managers can measure, compare and
targeted connections? Staying engaged?
manage performance of these networks,
Representing a unified agency brand?
they must first gain visibility into them all.
In addition, individual recruiters can neither
Today, managers are gaining a vague
see nor share each other’s networks,
understanding of the potential business
and therefore lack the opportunity to
value of social recruiting. But they’re
collaborate and pool their efforts.
crystal clear on the importance of
monitoring and measuring their firms’
Providing this insight to staff should
online recruitment activities. The best
be as important a goal for managers
way to manage an unfamiliar practice is
as gaining it themselves. One recruiter,
to implement it before your staff does.
working alone, can tap his or her own
The challenge is finding time to develop
connections. A team of recruiters, working
a coherent, actionable social recruiting
together, can reach a larger network.
strategy from the ground up, and
This becomes much easier if recruiters
4
5. have a single portal on which to network. track content and to proactively spot
Then they can learn from each other, passive job seekers. To consolidate these
experiment, and make adjustments based tools makes it easier for management to
on which channels and networks are most track and measure team’s individual and
responsive. Plus, this ensures that their collective effectiveness.
individual networks point to the same lists
of jobs.
Measure
More importantly, combining networks
increases the potential for generating You cannot manage what you cannot
referred candidates exponentially. measure. Today, managers see the end
Compared to job board applicants, results of individual social recruiting
referrals not only tend to be more qualified, efforts, but they lack any way to gauge
they are generally more likely to accept a what works, or why.
client’s job offer.
Once all recruiters are on a centralized
If colleagues cannot refer candidates, then social recruiting framework, management
often someone in their network can. And can begin to apply measurement and
even if they or their contacts have fewer tracking tools that are characteristic of
connections, or only a fraction share a traditional, offline recruiting programs.
posted article or job opening, individual Managers need to see what jobs have
recruiters can still reach more active job recently been broadcast to the enterprise’s
seekers, passive candidates and hiring collective network of contacts. Then
managers than by their network alone. managers can track, in aggregate or
Sharing job openings on an enterprise- job by job, the number of shares, visitors,
level social recruitment platform should and inquiries each job is receiving.
be a very simple, beneficial and hopefully
obvious goal. In addition to tracking how job postings
fare on the network, managers can gain
Uniting your firm’s individual social insights into the network itself. They need
recruiting efforts under one centralized to see which recruiters have connections
platform can make those collective efforts online, whether or not the firm’s network
more time efficient. Online tools already is growing, and how many visitors social
exist to post job openings to share and media efforts are attracting.
5
6. With the right tools, managers can dig Plus, everyone benefits when the firm
down and see how their firm’s networks benefits. Recruiting from a centralized
and social recruitment practices online platform allows management
compare — both between individuals, to capture interested applicants if and
and collectively over time. Managers when the recruiter decides to leave
can stop reacting to the end results of the firm.
individual social recruitment efforts —
however positive — and start proactively But most importantly, management
managing them. can get the jump on the competition
by turning social media into an entirely
new channel for finding highly qualified
candidates more quickly. In the end,
Optimize
social recruiting’s value must be
measured by the same metrics that
Once all social recruitment activities
talent agencies already use to measure
share a unified platform, managers move
their business. This gets back to the
from measuring to optimizing. In other
“value in” versus “value out” issue.
words, managers can exercise some
Can social media improve your firm’s
leadership over their agency’s social
bottom line?
recruiting efforts.
A firm’s administration should convert
best practices into institutional
knowledge to train less connected
or new recruiters. Managers can also
ensure their teams stay engaged with
their networks and continue to add
contacts, so the firm can maintain
sustainable value from social recruiting.
Even veteran social recruiters can take
advantage of management support,
such as interesting content generated to
share with their networks.
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7. 33 views for 10 jobs
15 applicants
4-5 qualified
candidates
1 placement
One out of every ten jobs you fill
will be sourced from social media.
Social Recruiting’s Return on Investment
Social recruiting has an impact on your time between opening a new job order
bottom line. More connections in a and placing a candidate. It also reduces
recruiter’s network lead to more views sourcing costs by minimizing your reliance
for new job posts — and subsequently, on using job boards to find people, and
more applicants, qualified applicants and cutting the phone time necessary to
placements. More placements translate into screen out unqualified candidates. The
more revenue. more qualified candidates you add to your
pipeline, the more your firm will quickly fill
Adding more qualified, relevant candidates orders and make money.
to your pipeline will accelerate the cycle
7
8. The question is, how does social media A recruiter trying to fill
compare to conventional channels 10 job openings would
for filling the pipeline with qualified attract about 330 views
candidates? Does it help produce better
and convert an average
candidates? Or fill orders more quickly?
of 15 applicants from
Some real-life numbers, derived from
these views.
observing more than 100,000 recruiters
But how many of those applicants will
who have used the Bullhorn Reach online
be qualified candidates? That number
platform, can help.
could be anywhere from about one to
two percent, which is the return that
The data shows that the average job
many recruiters expect from job board
posted by an active Bullhorn Reach user
applicants, or as high as 40%, which
gets just over 33 views. That number
studies have cited as the rate of qualified
represents people who clicked on a
candidates from referrals. Depending on
short link that directs them to a Bullhorn
how motivated a recruiter’s network is
Reach job portal with a job description.
in recommending the post to their
Just under half of these postings on
network, those 15 applicants should
the Bullhorn Reach portal elicit an
generate between 4 and 5 qualified
application — in fact, they average three
referrals candidates.
applications each. These are visitors who
send an inquiry to the recruiter about the
That leads to another question: How
opportunity, submit a resume, or apply via
many of those well-qualified candidates
their Facebook or LinkedIn profiles.
need to be submitted to the client to
win a placement? Like all numbers here,
Crunching these numbers, it turns out
this may vary by industry and vertical.
that about 4.4% of all Bullhorn Reach
However, the industry average is about
job views result in an application. This
four, which finally translates to one
is where the comparative value of social
placement secured through social media.
recruiting begins to appear.
8
9. To recap: One recruiter actively using social The biggest variable is how much your
media can expect to fill one out of every 10 company earns for each permanent
job orders completely through their social placement. But in terms of “value in” versus
recruiting efforts. This ratio was recently “value out,” the time and money required to
corroborated by one recruitment firm, which implement a social recruiting platform can
cited similar numbers one month after begin to provide returns after only
implementing Bullhorn Reach. one placement.
It could be argued that a recruiter might have
placed that candidate using conventional
means. But this misses two key points. First,
only social media allows a recruiter to reach
beyond his own network and tap into his
team’s network. Second, highly qualified
referred candidates are more likely to find
recruiters on social media, which is the exact
opposite of how things work when an opening
is posted to a job board.
Conventional recruitment practices do not
allow a team of recruiters to easily combine
their networks. Social recruiting means more
connections scanning each job posting and
sharing postings with their own networks.
It means more referrals, either to active or
passive job seekers, and more qualified
candidates applying for an open position.
Faster placements means more revenue within
a given time.
9
10. CONCLUSION
Social recruiting delivers more qualified candidates more quickly
through the power of referrals. But, to date, adoption of the practice
has been scattered and non-strategic. This creates an opportunity
for firms that get on board early by first implementing a centralized
platform for their recruiters to build and pool their social media
networks. Once firms take this first step, they can begin to intelligently
advance along social recruiting’s learning curve to measure and
optimize the impact of social recruiting on their bottom line. Staying
competitive amidst these trends isn’t impossible, or even difficult. But
it requires firms to take quick and intelligent action, as the history of
social media demonstrates how rapidly an effective business practice
can go viral.
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11. ABOUT BULLHORN REACH
Bullhorn Reach is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) social recruiting
solution, designed to help recruiters leverage social media to source
candidates and identify potential movers more efficiently. Launched
in February 2011, the Bullhorn Reach social sourcing suite offers
robust recruiting solutions that empower recruiters to engage as
thought leaders, enhance their personal brands, and increase their
visibility online.
With more than 100,000 registered users worldwide, Bullhorn Reach
delivers advanced technology that brings recruiters and job seekers
together more efficiently than ever before. Bullhorn Reach is a division of
Bullhorn, Inc., the global leader in software-as-a-service for recruitment.
Headquartered in Boston, with offices in London and Sydney, Bullhorn’s
recruiting ATS/CRM and social recruiting products serve more than
130,000 users across 126 countries.
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