Recruiters are not taking advantage of Web 2.0 technology, according to exclusive research conducted by Cranfield School of Management in association with Personnel Today.
Despite the recent hype about the possibilities of Web 2.0, just 10% of the 582 HR and recruitment managers used social networking sites and only a small minority used blogs, videos or other technology for recruitment.
Private sector organisations were significantly more likely to use social networking sites than public sector organisations.
Web 2.0 provides the opportunity for organisations to introduce more interactivity onto their sites, as well as using social networking sites such as LinkedIn or Facebook to communicate with jobseekers.
Emma Parry, research fellow at Cranfield School of Management, said: “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.
“Recruiters may be missing a trick at the moment by not adopting Web 2.0 technology. Organisations need to engage with jobseekers to encourage them to apply for roles.”
Of the one in 10 organisations that used social networking sites for recruitment, they were most likely to use LinkedIn (63%), followed by Facebook (39%) and MySpace (21%).
Fewer than half of the organisations that used social networking sites contacted potential employees directly via these sites, while one-third had a company page on a social networking site.
