Is Twitter a Recruiting Tool?

Once depicted as a trendy social media experiment, Twitter has officially arrived.  From cell phone integration to CNN broadcasts, we can no longer escape the fact that Twitter is not a passing fad.  The site once criticized for a complete lack of utility has evolved into one of the most flexible tools available in the social media space.  HR departments, Corporate Recruiters and Job Seekers have taken notice.  Twitter has become an important tool in corporate recruiting.

In the current job market companies are clamoring to hang on to their talent.  Blasting out new positions in real-time is an exciting strategy to target quality candidates.  The fact of the matter is that there are more job seekers than jobs.  This situation results in the limited number of prime candidates being scooped up with greater urgency.  Despite the fact that there are less job openings, publicizing your new positions is critical to landing top talent.

Another interesting facet of Twitter’s contribution to the recruiting field is an enhanced ability to find passionate candidates.  Companies that actively rely on twitter to publicize new job openings create a channel for passionate supporters and potential future employees to track.  For example, A software engineer who thoroughly enjoys the online music service Pandora.com will be more likely to respond to a new job opening if the candidate can track the available positions for Pandora in real-time.

Perhaps Twitter’s most impressive function in the recruiting process is to establish a company’s reputation for hiring quality, renowned talent.  Spacex, the growing rocket company founded by Elon Musk, uses Twitter to announce talent acquisition.  When Spacex hired former astronaut Ken Bowersox they tweeted out the news.  This PR strategy serves to build a reputation around the human capital at a company.  The more talented super stars that a candidate perceives to work for your company, the more likely that candidate will want to join your ranks.  Ultimately companies want top candidates beating down the doors to get a chance to join the team.  Twitter can help make this desire a reality.

A few smart software companies are working to seamlessly integrate Twitter and other social media sites into the recruiting process.  These applicant tracking providers allow corporate recruiters to automatically post new positions to Twitter.  Whenever a new job goes live the system will tweet out the new position.  As more recruiting software packages leverage the Twitter API, Twitter will become more integral to the hiring process.

The recent Twitter revolution in the recruiting field is only a subset of how the social media site is affecting business across the board.  With adoption rates soaring and users hunting out innovative applications for the service, Twitter’s inherent flexibility may become its killer feature.