It’s about time that job seekers, and economists alike, heard some good news about hiring particularly in light of this month’s unemployment figures with an unemployment rate of 9.2% and a mere 18K new jobs, 92K less than expected.
According to Jobvite, the leading recruiting platform for the social web, 67% of companies will increase hiring in the next 12 months, a 12% increase from 2010. This figure, along with the basis of those in this blog, was just released today as part of Jobvite’s annual survey result and the timing couldn’t be better.
Where the hiring happens: Social Networks
“55% of survey respondents plan to increase their investment in social recruiting in the next year, up from 46% last year,” said Anne Murguia, Vice President of Marketing for Jobvite. She went on to say that multiple social networks are where the action is at, “Linked In is the strongest and is used by 87% of the people. 64% use two or more utilities which I found fascinating.”
With 80% of today’s hiring done via networking, it makes sense that social networking has such a place in today’s hiring practices. Jobvite’s Survey showed that Linked In, Facebook and Twitter and leading the social recruiting pack with Linked at the front. 87% of respondents use it for recruiting (95% yielded hires from it) followed by Facebook used 55% for recruiting, yielding 24% of hires. If you’re job seeking and not on Linked In, it’s time to build a high quality profile.
Competition heats up
As these social recruiting practices emerge more, so does the competition from both the employer and job seeker perspective. The survey found that 78% expect hiring competition will increase in the next 12 months. I know that sounds scary; I spend 10 hours/day coaching candidates currently looking for new careers and it’s already competitive. This simply means your job search approach needs to be more strategic, focused and clear.
Who said tenure pays?
Many clients these days come to me after successful careers with the same company for over 10, 15, 20, and 25 years. This is the way ‘we’ were taught to approach a career. Today’s new generation looks at a ‘JOB’ as an opportunity to get the most and move on. Apparently so do employers now. Jobvite found that 31% expect employee’s tenure to be less than 2 years or less, and 14% expect a new employee will stay more than 5 years. As a career coach, that’s great news (read: recurring clients) but as a business owner that’s bothersome on a variety of levels.
Number one way to get hired
Referrals are the best source. 70% of respondents said referrals are a better fit with the company culture and values than candidates from any other channel and 67% said recruiter referrals are faster making referrals the highest rated source for candidate quality.
How do you ignite a referral through your social network? Employees (your friends, family, alumni) come with built-in social networks and they spread the word through those social networks about job openings. As Anne Murguiasaid, “It’s a powerful way for companies to get in front of potentially talented prospects.”
