Thought your position as the president and senior analyst of the boutique consulting firm listed on your LinkedIn (NYSE:LNKD) profile would help you land a job with corporate recruiters? Think again. Turns out that the private sector is eschewing LinkedIn’s professional social network and looking towards more traditional (if the word can be applied here) social media communities to find new employees.
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Facebook, Google+ (NASDAQ:GOOG), and other popular web networks are increasingly replacing eRecruiting websites like Monster Worldwide (MMW) and others that charge pricey fixed rates for posting ads. Experts say that Facebook users also tend to spend much more time on the website, and are easier to contact, than users of professional networks like LinkedIn, making them more likely to respond to job inquiries. “Candidates have been 50% more likely to apply to positions they found through Facebook than through other means,” said Will Staney, a talent recruiter at VMware (NYSE:VMW). “[Job boards] just blast it out. This is much more efficient and targeted.”
Companies across America are now setting up Facebook profiles replete with job listings, corporate contact information, and recruitment videos. Facebook’s 750 million users worldwide also make for a much larger pool of candidates than other smaller networks. Matt Mund, a VP at Monster, even acknowledges Facebook’s rise in the recruiting world. “While I wish every company used Monster, social is a solution that many people are using,” shared the exec.
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Despite Facebook’s rising popularity among talent finders, the world’s leading social network still has a long way to go in catching up to leading eRecruiters. LinkedIn (NYSE:LNKD), for example, still remains the preferred social avenue for recruiting high level corporate players, and last quarter its “hiring solutions segment,” which helps recruiters target profiles on the site, saw revenues surge 170% from last year to $58.6 million. Monster too saw revenue growth of 25% YoY last quarter, driven partly by an increase in job postings on the site.
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