The traditional recruitment process is gradually switching to modern approach. Emerging technologies have changed the way how people do their jobs: candidates are now in control of the job hunt while recruiters are now more capable in identifying the best candidates for a certain position. Although technological advancement creates new opportunities, it also opens new risks and challenges.
Web job portals and virtual social networks are among the drivers of change in the recruitment industry. Aside from placing advertisements in the newspaper and their Web sites, employers can now reach potential candidates through posting their vacancies on job portals and sending out emails to the database of qualified talents.
Having realized that it is important for recruiters to evolve with job seekers, many employers utilize the reach and popularity of social media to tap bigger talent pool. According to the Recruiter Nation Survey in 2015 done by recruiting software company Jobvite, 92% of recruiters use social media in their outreach. Approximately 87% use LinkedIn, 55% use Facebook, and 47% use Twitter in evaluating candidates. Only 4% of recruiters don’t use social media in their recruitment process.
“We still recognize that social is a huge part of recruiting, so there are still lots of great social data points in the new survey. With its vast popularity, social is no longer a niche branch of recruiting — it’s an integral part of recruiting,” Jobvite says.
As a result, job seekers are now aware and are becoming more careful about what their profiles reveal. They have modified their privacy settings and deleted specific contents on their Facebook and LinkedIn accounts.
On the other hand, social media serves as a window into company culture. As revealed in Jobvite’s Job Seeker Nation Study in 2016, 68% of job seekers use social media in searching for their most recent job vacancies, and 59% use the platform to assess the company culture of a potential employer. In particular, they use Facebook for browsing photos and content to get a sense of company culture and to understand brand reputation; LinkedIn for finding mutual connections for networking and getting a sense of company leadership; and Twitter for looking up for current employees to understand experience or skills.
Mobile technology is another major recruiting trend in the industry. People are now searching for jobs anywhere and anytime through their mobile devices, Jobvite finding said. A total of 52% of mobile job seekers look for new opportunities while in bed and 37% search while at the office of their current job.
Sifting through a pool of applicants to identify the qualified candidates is probably the toughest part in the entire recruitment process. In response to this, some employers have started experimenting with new age artificial intelligence platforms or computer systems that are able to perform tasks of humans. The system could be used to look at the personality profile of potential candidates and check if it matches the personality of the organization, following an initial screening by chatbots.
With such advances at the background, recruitment companies should tighten data security and privacy. As they store sensitive data such as personal information, salary history and work history of candidates, intentional or accidental leak of this data could be devastating for both recruiters and talents. — Mark Louis F. Ferrolino
