Social media is no longer just a personal matter. It’s a professional one, too.
Nearly 3.5 billion people worldwide
“When social media first started, it was a way for people to connect, then it evolved to become a source of information and news,” says Anna Bersudsky, chief product officer at social recruiting software company CareerArc. “Now, it's becoming a way to tell stories and share more about what's going on and who we are as people and as companies.”
Sharing those stories on LinkedIn has been the norm for employers and employees alike since 2003, and the platform has gained prominence in recent years as the de facto job-search destination. But now, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok have infiltrated the working world with increasing speed, and are contributing to the so-called "Great Realization" more than employers may have anticipated.
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“Folks — especially Gen Z and millennials — looking for work are looking for authenticity in whatever they're seeking,” says Debora Roland, vice president of human resources at CareerArc. “And social media is a good way to storytell and share that authenticity.”
According to Glassdoor, 65% of job seekers claim they would be open to hearing about a new job opportunity if they were informed about it by a personal connection
“The ability to have these variables for your next career or your next job search and being able to find a company that fits them has made [recruiting] much more effective,” says Bersudsky. “Much more effective than it was even a decade ago.”
Employers are
“What we're seeing employers start to do now is understand the data,” says Casey Welch, CEO of job search company Tallo. “Let's understand how employees want to behave, let's understand how they want to communicate. It's a great way to get data and insights, like what are their biggest concerns? How are we perceived as a brand?”
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And it’s not just their own brand that businesses are concerned about. Seventy percent of employers believe that every company should screen potential candidates’ social media profiles when considering them for a job opportunity, according to a 2020 Harris poll. The same survey also found that 21% of hiring decision-makers said they are not likely to consider a candidate without a social media presence.
With the
“Now that we're in a hybrid remote world,” says Taylor Roa, director of talent at video marketing software company Wistia, “your online presence may be more important than your physical presence.”
But employees’ online presence is no longer confined to traditional networking platforms, and for employers who are stuck in their ways, they may soon
“For companies that aren't already using Twitter to source candidates, it's a great place to start to do that because there are people that use Twitter for everything that they need,” Bersudsky says. “Then we start seeing video content becoming more and more important for sharing information and for storytelling, so TikTok, in its virality, is the next exciting thing to look into for social media [in the workplace.]”
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Quantity doesn’t necessarily mean quantity, she says. It’s not just about posting job listings and opportunities on multiple platforms; it's about posting quality content in places there will be an audience to engage with it. Considering the audience and objective of each post can help maximize reach and even help companies boost their DEI efforts.
“We've seen a lot of use of Twitter, particularly for underrepresented groups, to network and share job posts,” Roa says. “We've seen a lot of success from folks putting job posts out in ‘Black Twitter,’ and we even work with a job board called Black Tech Pipeline which was born from a Twitter post.”
As employers get comfortable with new o
“It's that balance to understand your people and how they want [to engage with social media],” he says. “Understand which platforms they’re on, why they’re on it, and what they want to see from you.”
