Will HR/Recruiters Find You Online?

Check out this graph (was sent to me by someone who did a presentation on LinkedIn):

linkedin_hr_recruiters

I get a few messages out of this:

  • LinkedIn is used by pretty much everyone (I have to wonder what’s up with the 22% of HR or recruiters who are not using LinkedIn.
  • I’d love to know what the 50+% are doing, or looking for, or finding, on Facebook.
  • No one is going to find you because of blogs… less than 20%?  That is very, very low.

I’d like to know what the breakdown is between HR and recruiters… recruiters are likely more focused on looking for new talent while the scope of HR is much bigger (maybe looking for information on existing employees?).

Anyway, I have a new dimension to bring to this… check out what I inserted into the graph (the new bar :p):

linkedin_hr_recruiters_2

In my informal survey I assume that 100% of HR and recruiters will use Google (or any other search engine) to learn about _____ (stuff…. maybe YOU).

Guess what – from Google, they might find information from your LinkedIn account (Profile, and perhaps your contribution to LinkedIn Groups (NEW), Answers, etc.), your Facebook activity/profile, your Twitter account, and yes, even your blogs.

Let me restate that: if you have a blog (or comment on other blogs), the first graph shows you are likely to not be found.

The second graph shows you are likely to be found.

My point is this: just because some reports show that some technologies (like blogs) are really not useful in a job search, or in career management, doesn’t mean HR and recruiters aren’t finding your information (messaging, brand, passion, experience, etc.) from other sources, like GOOGLE!

4 thoughts on “Will HR/Recruiters Find You Online?”

  1. Hi Jason,

    Interesting read. My analyst background always makes me question the quality of the data before accepting the story being told by it. Do you have any idea where the data came from? Is it just anecdotal?

    Devil’s advocating aside, you bring up a great point about The Google and other search engines. They love LinkedIn, but they also are checking out public updates on Twitter and in blogs. Like you said, recruiters and HR who are using search engines will find content posted in these places, too, if you put it there.

  2. Recruiters use linkedin because it works just like a resume database. It’s easy and fits the paradigm we’re used to.

    Google is my source when something is fishy with your resume or profile and I want to find out the back-story.

  3. @Daniel – I have no idea where it came from … but I see stuff like that all the time. Regardless of the actual figures (all data is biased, right?), my point is on the google stuff… I *know* that data is “accurate” :p

    @Ed – thank you 🙂

    @Robert – thanks for the input – always good to get thoughts from a veteran recruiter… 🙂

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