Recruiters not taking advantage of web 2.0

The research, conducted by Cranfield School of Management, indicted that just 10% of the 582 HR and recruitment managers used social networking sites.

In addition, only a small minority used blogs, videos or other technology for their digital recruitment.

The study found that private sector organisations being more likely to use social networking sites than those in the public sector.

Web 2.0 technologies allow organisations to add more interactivity onto their sites, as well as using social networking sites such as LinkedIn or Facebook to communicate with jobseekers.

Emma Parry, research fellow at Cranfield School of Management, said: "One of the reasons why social networks have been slow to take off as a recruitment tool might be because recruiters do not consider them as a credible way to communicate, despite the fact that large numbers of their target labour market use them regularly.

“Recruiters may be missing a trick at the moment by not adopting Web 2.0 technology. Organisations need to engage with jobseekers to encourage them to apply for roles."

Of the one in 10 organisations that used social networking sites for recruitment, they were most likely to use LinkedIn (63%), followed by Facebook (39%) and MySpace (21%).

Less than half of the organisations that used social networking sites approached potential employees directly through these sites, while one-third had a company page on a social networking site.

By Amel Rebika