Insights from Dice's Social Recruiting in Tech: 2015 Survey

Yesterday, I enjoyed being a guest on TalentCulture's TChat Show, and our conversation centered around social recruiting and the brand new report from Dice: The Social Recruiting in Tech: 2015 Survey. This report is full of interesting stats and items to discuss. One of the first stats surprised me:

I'm surprised it is not more than 9 out of 10. I'd like to ask that one recruiter how they can not use any type of social media at all in their work. Not even GitHub or Stack Overflow? Not LinkedIn, ever? Really? I picture this one recruiter mining job boards and/or their internal ATS/CRM, lining email addresses up on clipboard, and spraying out the same template message to hundreds of candidates, per week. 

Yep, like that. "Spray and pray" is an unfortunate phrase in our industry for a reason. 

But wait, you might say. Maybe the recruiter found a resume on a job board, and it looks like that tech professional "fits the bill." Now it's time to contact the candidate. Why bother with any extra steps? Who cares about social media, since you already have the resume and contact info? 

Here's my two cents. The ever-expanding world of social media offers us recruiters something that resumes do not: the ability to get a sense of who candidates are before contacting them. 

By cross-referencing information we can find online, we can weave in details into our message. We can customize our approach to each candidate, and not simply spam them - raising our response rate and making the whole process more efficient and successful.

From Dice's survey:

Tech professionals get hammered by recruiters, and I'd wager most of the messages they get are spammy, poor quality, inappropriate, and/or irrelevant. They get messaged for positions that are completely off base, they are sprayed with job descriptions by people they don't know, and are cold called by a recruiter, reading from a script, in the middle of their work day. 

Our recruiter spam epidemic is growing. With all the technology and information at our fingertips, we are losing sight on how to treat other human beings - with respect.

Social media, when used effectively, can help recruiters raise the bar when finding and contacting candidates because it can shed light on who the candidate - that human being on the other end of the message - is all about. What are his passions? What is she really doing now, beyond what she may have listed on a resume (which may be several years old and irrelevant anyway)? What is he talking about online? Find out. Listen first before you talk. Then weave in what you've found in your initial approach to a candidate. They will appreciate that you took these extra steps. Wouldn't you? Don't you get spam that makes you want to toss your laptop across your front lawn?

Let's keep the conversation going! Get your hands on Dice's Social Recruiting report, and check out the conversation by listening to the show or searching#TChat on Twitter. I was inspired yesterday by all of my peers in the Twitterverse who are as passionate about this subject as I am, and are working to raise our industry's standards every day. Thank you to all who were a part of it!

What do you think?