ALC - CareerArc blog

By Katie Gechijian
Lead Consultant, Proactive Talent Strategies
World’s Greatest Sourcer 2016 Competition, #2 of 1235

Facebook, the largest social networking platform, has made its repository of over 2 trillion posts and real-time content searchable. How can this impact how job seekers find jobs on social media? And what could this mean for recruiters and sourcers who use Facebook as a social recruiting tool?

Last week Facebook announced Search FYI, its significant upgrade to Facebook’s search capabilities that effectively made all public posts in the Facebook index searchable.  Prior to the update, Facebook users were primarily limited to seeing and searching posts of friends, family, liked groups, friends of friends, and other affiliations. Now, public Facebook posts–be they from individual users or brands–can be found with the right combination of keywords entered in the Facebook search bar.
Here are three things recruiters and employers need to know about Facebook’s new Search FYI:

Celinda Appleby, Head of Global Recruitment Branding, Oracle

Guest Post | By Celinda Appleby, Head of Global Recruitment Branding, Oracle | @celindaappleby – Veiw Celinda’s #TalkHR Webinar “Employer Branding 101.”

Retailers and shippers are projecting to hire about a total of 800,000 in seasonal staff this winter for what is expected to be the strongest holiday shopping season in this millennium, thus far.  However, employers are finding it more difficult to fill these seasonal positions in 2014 than in recent years, and the dearth of applicants has prompted companies to explore new channels for hire. The Wall Street Journal caught the trend, reporting that companies are primarily flocking to one new destination to source more qualified candidates: social media.

With 1.28 billion monthly active users, Facebook has become the central hub for social exchange today. Second only to Google as the most visited site, Facebook has effectively weaved its platform into day-to-day life and culture one friend request at a time.
But with Facebook housing the largest database of online profiles and personal information on the planet, the network promises more possibilities than mere social exchange. For employers, recruiters, and talent acquisition professionals, Facebook presents potentially the most powerful online directory of talent on the planet.

Great news for military veterans: This past September, the veteran jobless rate dipped to 4.3 percent, now below the 5.1 percent national average. However, for the young, post-9/11 veterans, the stats tell a different story. 

As reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, unemployment for military veterans age 18-24 is at 16.2 percent, nearly 25 percent higher than national average for that demographic group.
With today’s teens clocking in about 9 hours of social media use per day, it’s no surprise that the social web youth is dominated. However, reaching young vets isn’t the only reason why social recruiting is a particularly effective tool in reaching today’s military veterans of various ages and occupations.