2012 Social Recruiting Activity Report

THE 2012SOCIAL RECRUITINGACTIVITY REPORTTHE DEFINITIVE LOOK AT SOCIAL MEDIA USAGE IN RECRUITINGG TM WWW.BULLHORNREACH.COM @BULLHORNREACH FEBRUARY 2012 COPYRIGHT © 2012 BULLHORN, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

This report takes a look at the current social media activity of recruiters and job seekers across the “big three” social networks — LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. The report presents key findings and benchmark data pulled from the Bullhorn Reach user network of over 35,000 recruiters. We will explore which social networks are utilized most often and how effective each network is for sourcing candidates. The following data does not represent a subjective projection, but an objective summary of the actual activity pulled from the Bullhorn Reach user database during calendar year 2011. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Since social recruiting has proven found that LinkedIn is driving the most to be a rapidly growing category, we views and applications per job posted expect increased social engagement on the “big three” social networks, our from recruiters. This report evaluates analysis shows that Twitter followers are the current social network activity much more likely to apply for a job than among recruiters and suggests several connections on LinkedIn or friends on interesting insights. First, our findings Facebook. Overall, Twitter and Facebook suggest that recruiters are connected to appear to be highly under-utilized all three social networks, but are using networks for recruiting, but we expect LinkedIn and Twitter much more than that behavior to change during 2012. Facebook to recruit talent. While weTHE 2012 SOCIAL ACTIVITY REPORT • FEBRUARY 2012 2

LIST OF FIGURES 1.0 HOW CONNECTED ARE SOCIAL RECRUITERS? 5 1.1 MEDIAN NUMBER OF NETWORK CONNECTIONS PER RECRUITER 6 1.2 MEDIAN NUMBER OF NETWORK CONNECTIONS: AGENCY VS. CORPORATE RECRUITERS 7 1.3 NETWORK SIZE DISTRIBUTION AMONG RECRUITERS 8 1.4 AVERAGE NUMBER OF CONNECTIONS ADDED PER WEEK BY NETWORK 9 1.5 AVERAGE NUMBER OF CONNECTIONS ADDED PER WEEK: AGENCY VS. CORPORATE RECRUITERS 10 1.6 HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE RECRUITERS TO DOUBLE THEIR NETWORK SIZE? 11 1.7 HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE RECRUITERS TO DOUBLE THEIR NETWORK SIZE? AGENCY VS. CORPORATE RECRUITERS BY NETWORK 12 1.8 RELATIVE COMPARISON OF VIEWS PER JOB POSTING BY NETWORK 13 1.9 RELATIVE COMPARISON OF APPLICATIONS PER JOB POSTING BY NETWORK 14 2.0 RELATIVE COMPARISON OF APPLICATIONS PER CONTACT BY NETWORK 15 2.1 RELATIVE COMPARISON OF APPLICATIONS PER CONTACT: AGENCY VS. CORPORATE RECRUITERS BY NETWORK 16THE 2012 SOCIAL ACTIVITY REPORT • FEBRUARY 2012 3

TWITTER EXCEEDS FACEBOOK FOR SOCIAL RECRUITING • Recruiters use Twitter more often than Facebook for social recruiting. Despite the fact that recruiters have fewer connections on Twitter, 19% of recruiters are connected to both LinkedIn and Twitter while 10% are connected to both LinkedIn and Facebook. • Recruiters add more Twitter followers to their network per week than Facebook and will grow their Twitter networks much faster than their networks on Facebook. • Twitter drives almost twice as many job views per job as Facebook and three times more applications per job. LINKEDIN DRIVES THE MOST JOB VIEWS & APPLICATIONS • LinkedIn drives more job views per job than Twitter and Facebook, sending 3 times the amount of views of Twitter and 6 times the amount of Facebook. • Recruiters that post jobs on social networks are likely to receive more applications from LinkedIn than the other two networks. LinkedIn drives almost 9 times more applications than Facebook and 3 times more applications than Twitter. TWITTER FOLLOWERS MOST LIKELY TO APPLY VIA SOCIAL NETWORKS • A Twitter follower is almost 3 times more likely to apply to a job posting than a LinkedIn connection and 8 times more likely to apply than a Facebook friend. • Recruiters receive almost 3 times more applications per contact from Twitter than from LinkedIn and 8 times more than Facebook. • Agency recruiters receive 11 times more Twitter applications and 3 times more LinkedIn applications than corporate recruiters using the same channels.THE 2012 SOCIAL ACTIVITY REPORT • FEBRUARY 2012 4

KEY FINDINGS HOW CONNECTED ARE SOCIAL RECRUITERS? 48% 10% 19% 21% 1% 1% 1% Note: The chart above represents recruiters who have connected figure 1.0 their Bullhorn Reach accounts to at least 1 social network While 21% of recruiters are connected to all three social networks, the data shows that 48% of recruiters are using LinkedIn exclusively and are not leveraging the other two networks for social recruiting. Known as the “professional network,” LinkedIn has over 135 million active members who use the site to search for jobs and manage their professional identities. Not surprisingly, we found that LinkedIn is the most widely used network for social recruiting, followed by Twitter and then Facebook. Our data reveals that Twitter usage exceeds that of Facebook for social recruiting and that recruiters are rapidly ramping up their use of the network. With more than 100 million active users, Twitter has become the second most adopted network among recruiters with 19% using it in combination with LinkedIn for recruiting. Known as the world’s largest social network, Facebook is the network least connected to by recruiters, with only 10% using it in combination with LinkedIn for recruiting. Our data supports the fact that recruiters are using LinkedIn and Twitter more often than Facebook for social recruiting.THE 2012 SOCIAL ACTIVITY REPORT • FEBRUARY 2012 5

MEDIAN NUMBER OF NETWORK CONNECTIONS PER RECRUITER 700 616 600 500 400 300 245 200 100 37 0 figure 1.1 The dataset above reveals that recruiters have the highest number of network connections on LinkedIn versus Facebook or Twitter — the typical recruiter having 616 LinkedIn connections, 245 Facebook friends and 37 Twitter followers. LinkedIn, known as the “professional” network, was adopted much earlier for recruiting, which is why recruiters have smaller networks on Facebook and Twitter. Data that you’ll see further in the report reveals that recruiters are adding fewer followers per week to their Facebook and Twitter networks, which reflects a slower adoption rate for recruiting on these two networks (see Figure 1.4). Facebook is the second most connected network for recruiters, but has the lowest adoption for recruiting. Although recruiters have a lower number of network connections on Twitter, we still found that the social network drives almost 3 times more applications per job than Facebook (see Figure 1.9).THE 2012 SOCIAL ACTIVITY REPORT • FEBRUARY 2012 6

MEDIAN NUMBER OF NETWORK CONNECTIONS: AGENCY VS. CORPORATE RECRUITERS 700 610 600 568 500 400 Agency Corporate 300 209 228 200 100 36 37 0 figure 1.2 Looking at the median number of network connections among agency recruiters versus corporate recruiters, we found the numbers to be fairly consistent. Agency recruiters tend to have slightly more LinkedIn connections, while corporate recruiters tend to have more Twitter and Facebook connections. In this case, agency recruiters may rely on LinkedIn more than corporate recruiters, who may rely more on other sources such as employee referrals to recruit talent. Despite the numbers being similar, we found their network activity to be different. For example, we found that agency recruiters generate more applications from their networks than corporate recruiters do (see figure 2.1).THE 2012 SOCIAL ACTIVITY REPORT • FEBRUARY 2012 7

NETWORK SIZE DISTRIBUTION AMONG RECRUITERS 40% 35% 35% OF RECRUITERS 30% HAVE BETWEEN 1-10 TWITTER FOLLOWERS Facebook 25% LinkedIn 20% Twitter 15% 10% 5% 0% 0 -10 50 100 200 300 400 500 500 600 700 700 800 900 000 000 000 000 000 01+ 1 11- 51- 1- 1- 1- 1- 1- 1- 1- 1- 1- 1- 1-1 -2 -2 -3 -4 40 10 20 30 40 50 50 60 60 70 80 90 1001 1001 001 001 2 3 figure 1.3 For a deeper understanding of network size among recruiters, we looked at the follower size distribution of each social network and found that: • 75% of recruiters have 100 or less Twitter followers • 28% of recruiters have over 1,000 LinkedIn connections • 21% of recruiters have 50 or less Facebook friends The distribution of size by network is extreme. As expected, recruiters are hyper-active on LinkedIn. This data reveals that many recruiters have very small networks and very few have large ones. This reflects the early stages of adoption of these networks as a whole. Looking at each network individually, Facebook is more evenly distributed, closer to a bell curve, which shows a more consistent adoption rate. Twitter has a drastic downtick in distribution for recruiters that have more than 11-50 followers, which again reflects early adoption. Lastly, a significant number of recruiters have very large (1000+) networks on LinkedIn due to the fact the network was adopted earlier and is used most heavily by recruiters.THE 2012 SOCIAL ACTIVITY REPORT • FEBRUARY 2012 8

AVERAGE NUMBER OF CONNECTIONS ADDED PER WEEK BY NETWORK 20 18.5 18 16 14 Connections (average) 12 10 8 6 4 3.1 2 1.5 0 figure 1.4 Despite earlier adoption among recruiters, LinkedIn continues to grow at the fastest pace. Recruiters are adding significantly more connections to their LinkedIn networks than Facebook or Twitter due to the fact they are using this network most often. Recruiters tend to add twice the amount of Twitter followers in a week than Facebook, adding an average of 1.5 Facebook friends, 3.1 Twitter followers and 18.5 LinkedIn connections per week. This data is consistent with the fact that LinkedIn and Twitter are the two networks used most often for social recruiting and that Facebook is still being used primarily as a personal network.THE 2012 SOCIAL ACTIVITY REPORT • FEBRUARY 2012 9

AVERAGE NUMBER OF CONNECTIONS ADDED PER WEEK: AGENCY VS. CORPORATE RECRUITERS BY NETWORK 20 19.0 18.1 18 16 14 Connections (average) 12 Agency 10 Corporate 8 6 4 2.9 3.3 2 1.2 1.9 0 figure 1.5 For a deeper understanding of the average number of social connections added per week, we broke the dataset down by the number of connections being added by corporate recruiters versus agency recruiters. One might think that the average number of connections added per week would differ substantially between agency and corporate recruiters, but once again, they are behaving similarly in terms of ongoing network growth. We found that corporate recruiters were adding slightly more Twitter followers to their networks each week, while agency recruiters were adding slightly more connections to LinkedIn. However, the numbers were very similar. This data is consistent with Figure 1.2, which reveals that agency recruiters are using LinkedIn slightly more than corporate recruiters, most likely because corporate recruiters rely on other sources for candidates such as employee referrals.THE 2012 SOCIAL ACTIVITY REPORT • FEBRUARY 2012 10

HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE FOR RECRUITERS TO DOUBLE THEIR NETWORK SIZE? 40 35 33.9 30 Months (Median) 25 20 15 10 7.6 5 2.7 0 figure 1.6 The dataset above shows that recruiters will double their Twitter following and LinkedIn connections in a much shorter time than they would their number of Facebook friends. These values are a factor of a) the current size of someone’s network, and b) how fast connections are being added. Recruiters will double their LinkedIn network size in 7.6 months and their Twitter network size in just 2.7 months. It will take 33.9 months for recruiters to double their Facebook network size. This data supports the fact that Facebook has the least amount of usage activity among recruiters. Typical Facebook networks are moderately sized, but friends are added slowly, whereas typical LinkedIn networks are larger and grow faster. Twitter networks are growing the fastest of the “big three,” but are small to begin with due to the fact it is still on the early side of adoption.THE 2012 SOCIAL ACTIVITY REPORT • FEBRUARY 2012 11

HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE RECRUITERS TO DOUBLE THEIR NETWORK SIZE? AGENCY VS. CORPORATE RECRUITERS BY NETWORK 40 38.0 35 30 27.7 Months (Median) 25 Agency 20 Corporate 15 10 7.6 7.4 5 3.0 2.8 0 figure 1.7 While analyzing the time it would take for recruiters to double their network size, we broke the dataset down by the length of time it would take agency versus corporate recruiters to do so and found that the Facebook growth rates varied the most. We found that it would take 38.0 months for agency recruiters to double their Facebook network size, where it would take corporate recruiters only 27.7 months. This analysis suggests that corporate recruiters are more active on Facebook than agency recruiters, but still supports the fact that LinkedIn and Twitter are used most often for social recruiting. Corporate recruiters may be more active on Facebook leveraging their friends, alumni, etc. for employee referral programs. Corporate recruiters are growing their Facebook networks more rapidly than agency recruiters, but not necessarily for professional reasons.THE 2012 SOCIAL ACTIVITY REPORT • FEBRUARY 2012 12

RELATIVE COMPARISON OF VIEWS PER JOB POSTING BY NETWORK 5.7x 1.9x figure 1.8 In terms of overall effectiveness, LinkedIn is the most productive network overall for driving job views*. Looking at relative views per job, the dataset above reveals that jobs posted on LinkedIn receive more views than jobs posted on Twitter and Facebook combined. For any given job posted on the social networks, LinkedIn drives 3 times more views than Twitter and 6 times more views than Facebook. Twitter drives almost twice the amount of job views than Facebook. This suggests, not surprisingly, there are more job seekers looking for jobs on LinkedIn than there are on the other channels. This data is consistent with the fact that recruiters have larger networks on LinkedIn, which therefore drive more views per jobs posted. *A job view is defined as a job seeker’s view of a recruiter’s job on Bullhorn Reach, which requires a click-through on the associated job posting on the social network. A view, however, does not suggest an application.THE 2012 SOCIAL ACTIVITY REPORT • FEBRUARY 2012 13

RELATIVE COMPARISON OF APPLICATIONS PER JOB POSTING BY NETWORK 8.8x 2.9x figure 1.9 Looking at relative applications* per job, we found that for each job posted on the “big three” social networks, LinkedIn drives almost 9 times more applications than Facebook and 3 times more applications than Twitter. In terms of overall effectiveness, LinkedIn is the most productive for driving job applications. Due to the fact that recruiters have smaller Twitter networks than LinkedIn, the relative number of applications per job is smaller. Based on the dataset above, LinkedIn remains the most effective network overall for recruiting, but Twitter presents an opportunity to break through the clutter more efficiently and reach potentially high quality candidates using its search functionality. Facebook appears to be the least effective network given the nature of this channel and lack of ability to search for jobs already buried in the newsfeed. *A job application is defined as an event on Bullhorn Reach where the job seeker makes a connection with a recruiter about a particular job.THE 2012 SOCIAL ACTIVITY REPORT • FEBRUARY 2012 14

RELATIVE COMPARISON OF APPLICATIONS PER CONTACT BY NETWORK 8.4x 3.0x figure 2.0 Taking network size into account, Twitter is the most efficient at driving applications. Looking at the relative number of applications per contact, we found that a Twitter follower is almost 3 times more likely to apply than a LinkedIn connection. This may be a result of people re-posting jobs to Twitter more often than to LinkedIn or it could also be the nature of the channel — candidates can search for older job postings on Twitter more so than on LinkedIn or Facebook. This suggests that a recruiter does not need a huge following on Twitter for it to be effective. Therefore, increasing the network size could be a valuable way for recruiters to focus their time spent on social media. The data in this chart is consistent with the fact that Facebook is the least effective channel for sourcing candidates.THE 2012 SOCIAL ACTIVITY REPORT • FEBRUARY 2012 15

RELATIVE COMPARISON OF APPLICATIONS PER CONTACT: AGENCY VS. CORPORATE RECRUITERS BY NETWORK 16.5x 5.2x 5.3x Agency Corporate 2.2x figure 2.1 Agency recruiters are more effective at leveraging their networks on LinkedIn and Twitter than corporate recruiters. When comparing the relative number of applications per contact for agency recruiters versus corporate recruiters, we found that agency recruiters receive 11 times more Twitter applications and 3 times more LinkedIn applications than corporate recruiters. This could be a result of agency recruiters having a lot of connections that are active job seekers (e.g. contractors/temps), whereas corporate recruiters may have more connections with colleagues and others who are full-time employees, not actively engaged in a job search. The discrepancy may also be a function of the volume of jobs managed and posted by an agency recruiter versus a corporate recruiter.THE 2012 SOCIAL ACTIVITY REPORT • FEBRUARY 2012 16

LOOKING AHEAD As social networks evolve in 2012 might expect Facebook to and the world becomes even grow as a recruiting network. more connected through the “big Companies may begin to harness three” social networks, agency and Facebook more to recruit potential corporate recruiters will develop candidates (e.g. friends, alumni, new strategies for recruiting etc.) through their demographic candidates through social network and geographic relationships connections. Based on current data with current employees. Expect trends, recruiters could quadruple to see an increase in activity on the size of their Twitter networks by Twitter among recruiters, especially the end of 2012 and potentially add given the recent launch of the approximately 1,000 connections to new Twitter business pages, and their LinkedIn networks. Currently, plan on a greater adoption of Facebook has the least amount social recruiting tools to manage of network activity among agency the forever growing networks and corporate recruiters. One of potential candidates. Finally, would anticipate them to alter their we expect more networks like strategies going forward to leverage Google Plus to increase their the power of the largest social efforts for share of the recruiting network (e.g. employee referral space or to develop strategies that programs). Also, as more job attract certain segments of the seekers look to leverage Facebook professional population. as a professional network, oneTHE 2012 SOCIAL ACTIVITY REPORT • FEBRUARY 2012 17

ABOUT BULLHORN REACH Bullhorn Reach is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) social recruiting solution, designed to help agency and corporate recruiters leverage social media to source candidates, identify potential movers and boost referral programs 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 over 35,000 registered users worldwide, Bullhorn Reach delivers advanced technology that brings recruiters, hiring managers 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, Massachusetts with offices in London, United Kingdom and Australia, Bullhorn’s recruiting ATS/CRM and social recruiting products handle over 150,000 monthly job orders and placements for more than 5,000 clients and 45,000 users across 35 countries. TM 33-41 FARNSWORTH STREET 5TH FLOOR BOSTON, MA 02210 TM WWW.BULLHORNREACH.COM INFO@BULLHORN.COM @BULLHORNREACH TMTHE 2012 SOCIAL ACTIVITY REPORT • FEBRUARY 2012 18 X

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2012 Social Recruiting Activity Report

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2012 Social Recruiting Activity Report — Document Transcript