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Despite the recent hype about the possibilities of Web 2.0, only 10 per cent of recruiters use social networking sites and only a small minority use blogs, videos or other web 2.0 technology for recruitment.

Private sector organisations were significantly more likely to use social networking sites for recruitment than public sector organisations.

Web 2.0 provides the opportunity for organisations to differentiate their recruitment site from more traditional sites with interactivity, allowing control and input from the candidate and providing information in a variety of formats such as video, audio, graphics and text, as well as using social networking sites such as Linked-In or Facebook to communicate with job seekers.

It offers recruiters the ability to engage with job seekers in a way that could prove valuable within the current “war for talent”.

So why are recruiters not embracing this new technology?

Dr Emma Parry, Research Fellow at Cranfield School of Management, says that one of the reasons why social networks have been slow to take off as a recruitment tool might be because recruiters do not consider them as a credible way to communicate, despite the fact that large numbers of their target labour market use them regularly.

She warns that recruiters may be missing a trick at the moment by not adopting Web 2.0 technology.

“Organisations need to engage with job seekers in order to encourage them to apply for their jobs. Text-heavy recruitment pages with no interactivity will not win the hearts and minds of the Web 2.0 generation,” Parry adds.

She says that customising the recruitment process and using innovative channels to reach out to job seekers may be the way to find the talent that organisations needs.

Of the 10 per cent of organisations that used social networking sites for recruitment, they were most likely to use Linkedin (63 per cent), Facebook (39 per cent) or Myspace (21 per cent).

Just under half of the organisations that use social networking sites contact potential employees directly via these sites while just under a third have a company page on a social networking site.

Organisations that use social networking for recruitment most commonly do so in order to expand the reach of their recruitment followed by the need to attract employees that fit with the values and culture of the organisation or to build a relationship with employees that are already interested in the company.

Just under a third (of this 10 per cent) use social networking sites to check up on potential employees.

More commonly used for recruitment are search engines with over a quarter of organisations using sites such as Google (75 per cent), Yahoo (33 per cent) and MSN (just under a quarter).

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Related links 

• Cranfield School of Management