Social Media Platforms have been one of the biggest gifts of the Information Age. It is literally shrinking the world as we know, covering distances and enabling real time communication between people living in different Time Zones.

Engagement and Accessibility of social media platforms have also opened the gates of commercialization. Businesses and brands have found a virtual ground to interact and promote themselves with their target audience.

Suffice to say, that the recruitment process has also shifted its trends of hiring and talent scouting. Job portals, although still a strong database, has a tougher and better competition in the form of social media platforms.
 

Facebook
A recent survey conducted over Facebook concluded that, over 50% employers are active on Facebook and believe in having more success in terms of talent quality and diversity when head-hunting on Facebook.

LinkedIn
Another professionally used Social Media Platform is LinkedIn, that has reported a sharp rise in its recruitment trends. in their annual Global Trend Report of 2015 they noted that LinkedIn has become the top platform which recruiters are using to profile and recruit their talents.

However one of the loopholes that was noticed in the trend is in terms of Talent Branding. LinkedIn reports state that, although companies have been keenly focusing on improving their talent brands on the platform, yet not many companies are resourcing or even monitoring their progress.

Twitter
Twitter is a blend of both personal and professional networking. Therefore, it receives the best of both ends speaking in terms of profiling and headhunting. Recruiters can run a background check on their talents and scout out the top potentials that they wish to recruit.

The same can be said for the candidates as well who are looking for quality jobs and placements. The users usually follow their favourite companies or brands that they like to be associated with. In this way there is a clear, streamlined communication and interaction space established between the recruiters and candidates.

With more and more recruiters taking the Social Media way for profiling and hiring candidates, it is simply impossible not to acknowledge the benefits that it brings to the table:

Is it the end for Traditional Recruitment methodologies?
Ever since recruitment process went social, the standard strategies and practices also changed in order to adapt to the new-age platforms. Various means of promotion and social sharing is involved these days, that help reach out to a wide audience base. For example, now a days when you’re surfing on your favourite social medium, you often receive Ads, or #hashtag filters regarding brand openings and job opportunities. Now even if you’re not in the market for job hunting, you are still made aware of a certain opening that you can choose to share or refer ahead to anyone inside your network who could apply for the same.

This form of sharing is beneficial as well as efficient as it doesn’t take a lot of time and yet reaches out to a wide variety of audiences. However, it is also important that the company who is hiring have a strong Social brand value. without brand value, many good yet obscure companies might not be able to make the best use of mediums in terms of candidate profiling and engagement. Ideally, a social media expert should handle the company recruitment and career branding in order to maintain and manage a strong social presence.

RPO experts and market trend analysts are of the belief that Social media should rather be considered as supplement to the traditional hiring processes and not merely as a replacement for the same. Even with the growth of digital hiring strategies, the traditional recruitment process is still integral to each company and agency, therefore they should not be done without.