Comment by pam claughton on February 15, 2010 at 12:14pm

I think it's because Twitter is more of a branding tool than a pure recruitment tool. I post my openings on Twitter and have a decent following, about 1700 ppl. But, I haven't made a placement yet that I can directly attribute to Twitter. So far, I think it's a decent tool to get my name out there, but as to why more recruiters don't do it? Well, they're probably not seeing the need for it, frankly.

For me, it's far more effective to use the phone to direct source candidates for a hot opening than it is to tweet and hope someone will respond.

The only social media that has really directly impacted my recruiting business is LinkedIn. Doesn't mean I'm not open to new technologies, but have to consider the ROI with each. So far, the majority of social media seems better for branding purposes than for immediate payoff in generating candidates.

Comment by Jeremiah Bach on February 23, 2010 at 4:20pm

Recruiting is something that HR professionals seem to do in a habitual way. "The last time I needed an Accounting Supervisor, I put the position on Careerbuilder & got 300 resumes....I'll do the same this time." It's sometimes difficult, from an agency perspective, to get Recruiters to "believe" in Twitter. Why? Because it's nearly impossible to track ROI....and to a big company, with checks and balances, ROI is the most important aspect to most of their business decisions.

Another reason posting jobs on Twitter is "difficult" is because people can't be "engaged" by a list of open positions....that's not what twitter is about....SO, to answer your question, if an HR professional were to have their own Twitter account, and they regularly kept it up-to-date with information about the company....random stuff, whatever. Then, and only then, would a job opening actually get some attention.

Recruiters aren't only looking for active job seekers....and some of the most difficult positions to fill are best targeted towards passive job seekers....and I could go on and on. : )

Comment by Mike on February 26, 2010 at 11:49am

I am the VP of a recruitment advertising agency and we DO use Twiiter. Not only do we use twitter for our own company, we've developed our own in-house social networking site as well. As someone above mentioned, we must practice what we preach, or sell, in order to be best informed at doing so.

We not only use these tools, including FaceBook & YouTube as an ad agency, we also help our clients to understand how to use these tools for recruiting top-talent, expanding their market share, enhancing their brand and ultimately developing sales of their products. These new social networking "tools", and they are just that "tools", are more ways for us to reach our target audience for our clients. If they are looking to hiring an Accountant, a VP or a CEO all of these venues can be useful, if a planned strategy is used and a expectations are managed well.
Mike

Comment by David Foster on February 26, 2010 at 12:47pm

Our agency has been using Social Media for our clients for several years now, including Facebook, Youtube, LinkedIn and Twitter. The majority of our clients are large global employers and we are very careful to first research which of the social media platforms are appropriate for reaching who our clients are trying to recruit.

With our global energy, oil, gas and engineering clients, for example, we used Facebook extensively to support our college recruitment advertising and branding programs for our clients. Individual recruiters could then use Twitter to communicate with students they met during the on-campus recruitment events.

Naturally social media are not stand alone, but work in support and adjunct to, other media used to both recruit and brand an employer. Additionally the other media, direct potential candidates to our clients social media sites, rather than hoping they find them via a search engine. This gives our clients a leg up over their competitors, because the mass media campaigns drive candidates to their social media outlets. The social media outlets support the brand, and funnel the recruits to:
Direct Contact (email, telephone)
On-Line ATS
Events such as Job Fairs

Social Media is and will be an important piece of a successful recruitment strategy.

Comment by Ginger Dodds on March 16, 2010 at 9:53am

I have to agree with both Mike and David on this one. Our agency also uses Social Media, both for our own company as well as for our clients. As David points out, not all SM are equal. As an agency, it is our job to research and advise our client base as to what will best fit their needs and goals. Our company also has our own SM site, a twitter account for jobs, and have developed numerous pages on a variety of SM sites for our clients. I personally use a variety of SM for professional development. I found this blog post via a Tweet.

Comment by Kent Sims on March 16, 2010 at 12:32pm

I don't find that Twitter is a useful tool for actually "recruiting". There are ways to use Twitter to enhance your marketing and further get your company noticed, but I don't think that my efforts to find that "perfect candidate" (haha...like that exists) will be fruitful on Twitter.

I love to use Facebook, LinkedIn, and a wide range of personal interest forums online to recruit and I have had good success with these tools. In fact I have a job seeker coming in to meet me tomorrow that found my info on a completely un-related forum (fishing forum) and he called me to talk about a passive job search. I've actually placed 2 other candidates from this same forum, but it is because I'm an active memeber...not just a "sales guy" using the tool to my advantage.

I guess my point is - Twitter doesn't interest me, so I don't use it. If I'm not going to use it as an active member then it is not likely to be fruitful for me to randomly (and rarely) post job-related/recruiting info on there because I won't have the followers to have the needed exposure.

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