If you are a recruiter in transition are you properly leveraging your personal and professional networks to land your next gig? If not, why not? Look at these stats I found;

• Referred candidates are twice as likely to land an interview (NY Times)
• Referred candidates are three to four times more likely to be hired (CareerXRoads)
• Only 7% of applicants come from referrals, but referrals account for about 40% of hires (JobVite)
• 46% of employee referrals stay for three years or more while only 14% of those hired from job boards stayed (JobVite)
• The hiring process is 55% faster for referred candidates than for those found on a career site (JobVite)
• 46% of all hires at top performing firms are referrals (Dr. John Sullivan and Associates)

I wonder how many contacts on Linkedin the average recruiter has? You would think its much higher than the average user so in theory they should be able to get a job quicker than anyone else. Do you agree or disagree? How many of you found your last job through someone you know?

Anyway I built a new tool for job seekers recently called Jobs With Friends that may prove to be useful. It makes tapping your personal network (facebook) and your professional (linkedin) in one simple interface. Its free so give it a try.