LinkedIn More Dominant Than Ever Among Job Seekers And Recruiters, But Facebook Poised To Gain

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A new survey by Bullhorn, a 14-year-old Boston company that makes technology products for employers and recruiters, shows how powerfully LinkedIn still dominates the world of job search and recruitment. Bullhorn just released the results of a poll of 1,848 staffing professionals who reported, among other things, on how they use social media when they are hunting for job candidates. Almost all of the respondents—98.2%— said they tapped some form of social media for recruiting in 2012. That’s up from 94% in 2011. Almost as many—97.3%—said they used LinkedIn as a recruiting tool in 2012.

Other social networks did gain a bit of ground among recruiters. Almost a fifth of respondents, 19.1%, said they plan to use Google Plus for recruiting this year and 3.6% will use Pinterest.

The survey includes some interesting findings about Facebook and Twitter. Slightly fewer recruiters used those sites last year—51.3% and 45.8% respectively— than used them in 2011, when 60.2% tapped Facebook and 51.5% used Twitter. One interesting, counterintuitive result: More recruiters, 38.3%, said they planned to use Twitter in 2013 than they have in the past, while a bit less, 37.4%, said they planned to up their use of Facebook. But in 2012, more recruiters, 17%, said they made hires using Facebook in 2012. By contrast, only 13% said they made hires from their Twitter prospects.