FollowAs more people sign up for Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, there’s a huge increase in the information available about a potential employee and employers have taken notice.
New stats from Jobvite suggest that social media use – and Twitter use in particular – by employers looking for potential employees has risen in the past year.
As reported by MediaPost, Jobvite surveyed 800 HR and recruiting professionals from a variety of industries. And the consistent string across those in health care, technology, government, education and construction is social media.
In 2010, 83 percent of employers were actively using social media to scope out potential candidates. In 2011, this number rose to 89 percent. 64 percent of those employers also said that they’ve successfully found a candidate using social media, up from 58 percent in 2010.
Twitter is one of the major networks that employers are using to scout for new talent, but it’s not the major one – that crown goes to LinkedIn, with 87 percent of employers saying they’ve used it in the past to look for new employees. Facebook was the second-most-used social network by employers at 55 percent, and Twitter was third with 47 percent of respondents indicating that they’ve used it to recruit.
Still, that’s pretty much one out of two respondents who say they look at a potential employee’s Twitter account. And that’s huge. That means there’s a 50/50 chance that the person looking at your resume will also log on to Twitter and read your 140-character pearls of wisdom the next time you apply for a job. If you’re worried about what they might see, you can check out our post about why you should clean up your Twitter account if you’re applying for a job. Otherwise, I hope your tweets are hire-worthy!
Source: mediabistro
