I recently presented at a conference in Holland about social networks in Europe and a key takeaway was that these type of networks will continue to grow in number.

The Jobvite survey (5/20/09) presents some interesting data that highlights current trends in the U.S recruitment market and gives a glimpse of the it’s future.

Although this is U.S centric give what I hear and see in Europe we would see similar stats on the usage of social networks. Here are the major findings worth noting:

• 76% plan to invest more in employee referrals (68% in 2008)
• 72% plan to invest more in recruiting through social networks
• 75%+ plan to invest less in more costly sources (job boards, third-party recruitment and campus recruitment)
• 80% of companies use or are planning to use social networking to find candidates this year;

­        95% will use LinkedIn (80% in 2008)

­        59% will use Facebook (36% in 2008)

­        42% will use Twitter

• 77% of respondents said they use social networks to reach passive candidates
• 66% of respondents hired a candidate through a social network
• 15% of respondents tapped employees social networks for hiring
• HR people use social networks to research candidates:

­        76% use LinkedIn

­        67% use search engines (e.g. Google)

­        44% use Facebook

­        21% use Twitter

• 24% of candidates disclose their social networking profile when applying for jobs

The surveys key takeaways:

• During this recession, companies can’t or don’t want to pay job boards hundreds/thousands of pounds to post jobs. So less jobs on job boards.
• This is also driven by another issue, many companies aren’t even recruiting therefore why use a job boards.
• Therefore taking these two issues and it’s unsurprising that recruiters are using social networks more. It’s easy and cheap to assess top talent through social networks.
• Few companies understand that their best recruiters are their employees that have professional networks already accounted for and visible on social networks like LinkedIn  (only 15% tap employees social networks for hiring).

Companies are increasingly understanding the need and value of integrating social technologies in their business;

• So they realise that you need/want to recruit individuals that already have these new skills.
• A majority of companies have successfully recruited candidates using social networks and therefore using social networks becomes “habit forming”.

BUT where are the job seeker social profiles or blogs when applying for jobs? Where is the proactive use of the social networking tools?, 

Job seekers are being found, recruiters are using search engines and these networks to recruit.  BUT the jobseeker is still being “passive” find me not “I’ll promote brand me”.