According to a new survey of job seekers, hiring managers, recruiters and HR executives, close to 100% of job seekers use LinkedIn as their number one social media site for job hunting. Hiring managers also prefer Linked in over other sites by two to one.
The survey by Right Management, the talent and career management arm of staffing giant Manpower, polled 300 job seekers and 100 people on the hiring side, including hiring managers, recruiters and human resource executives throughout North America. Among the job seekers, two thirds were Baby Boomers and one third were members of Generation X. Some 95% say they are looking for a permanent job, up from 84% in 2010. Just 23% want to be entrepreneurs though slightly more Gen X job seekers, 27%, want to work for themselves. Right Management does the survey once a year. It ran this survey in the second quarter of 2013.
As any job seeker or hiring manager knows, technology now dominates the job search process. Print media barely registers anymore among recruiters, according to the survey.
Some of the other findings are striking, if not surprising. One of the new trends: the rise of video interviewing, both live and pre-recorded. The number of job seekers who say they have had video interviews in the past year more than doubled from a year ago, to 18%. One quarter of Gen X candidates say they have done video interviews.
As for those doing the hiring, the majority use Skype. Pre-recorded interviews are still rare, with only 3% of candidates saying they have done them. Among hiring managers, 45% say they expect video resumes to become more common. For now, just 19% of hiring managers use video interviews, roughly the same as last year, though more than two thirds say they predict video interviews will spike in the next three years.
Here are some other findings from job candidates:
- Some 94% say they prefer LinkedIn as their chief job hunting tool.
- After LinkedIn, job seekers are more likely to use Google+ than Twitter. Gen X candidates rank Facebook, Google+ and Twitter evenly.
- Some 22% of job seekers use smartphone job search apps.
- Macs are on the rise: This year 86% say they own a PC, down from 91% a year ago, while 33% own a Mac, up from 23% last year.
- Landlines are also on the wane, with only 34% of all job candidates saying they have one, down from 40% a year ago. Even Baby Boomers are letting go of their landlines. Only 38% say they have one, down from 41% a year ago.
Here are some findings from the hiring side:
- Social media sites like LinkedIn are the top way to search for candidates. Hiring managers and recruiters also still use company websites and employee referrals.
- Job boards and recruiters themselves are on the decline
After LinkedIn, hiring managers use Facebook, then Google+ and Twitter in a distant fourth place.
- More than half use social media to post jobs and three quarters use it to find possible hires.
- Some 65% also use job boards. Company websites rank third.
Even with all this social media use, the most effective way to get a job remains the old-fashioned method: People find jobs through people they know. The Right Management survey comes with a telling quote from Senior Vice President Monika Morrow: “Success almost always comes down to the candidate making a personal connection with a person or persons on the hiring side. The technology, now so integral to the job search, is just a tool, not by itself a solution.”
Just today I got a comment from a frustrated job seeker on a story I wrote about young people and technology jobs: “I have personally applied to hundreds of such jobs, and haven’t even received so much as the courtesy of a response from the employers.” I fear this job hunter is making the mistake that so many people make: They use technology to the exclusion of human contact. It’s far more effective to apply to two or three jobs where you can find a personal connection than it is to apply to 100 jobs where you know no one and you can’t communicate with a real person beyond an automated application process.
As I’ve written many times, it’s essential to have an up-to-date LinkedIn profile so hiring managers and recruiters can find you. It can also be useful to hunt for openings using LinkedIn job listings or company sites. But it can also be more effective to figure out what you want to do and where you want to work and to find a way in before a job is listed.
If you find an online job listing that seems right, use your networks, both online and off, to make a human connection. Reach out through LinkedIn, Twitter, or better yet, by email or phone, and try to set up an in-person meeting. At the least, find out whether the job opening exists, or the listing is out of date. If it’s real, do your best to find a personal connection to the person who is doing the hiring. Technology is a great tool but it still doesn’t replace human contact.
