Employee recommendations beat career networks as recruiting channel

Active Sourcing Channels: LinkedIn and Xing lag behind Facebook and TikTok

04-May-2022 - Germany

The labor shortage is turning the application process around: Today, companies have to apply to candidates. However, a Randstad-ifo study shows that it is not LinkedIn and Xing that are most important for recruiting, but the company's own employees.

Posting a job and waiting for applications is no longer enough. Companies are required to search for and approach candidates in a targeted manner. This active sourcing strategy is considered important by 38% of companies. The most important channel of this recruiting strategy: the company's own workforce. This is the result of the current Randstad-ifo HR manager survey (Q1 2022).

Active sourcing channels: LinkedIn and Xing lag behind Facebook and TikTok.

For 77% of companies, employee referrals are important. Career networks such as LinkedIn and Xing, on the other hand, fall well behind: only 34% assign them high importance as channels in active sourcing. Social media channels such as Facebook and TikTok even trail them with 36%. Cooperations with (university) schools (31%) and career fairs are mentioned less frequently as important (16%). "The internal colleague network is an important recruiting channel because it enables a stronger personal connection to the candidates. This creates more commitment and promotes the chances of success," explains Carolin Herbst, Director Group Human Resources at Randstad Germany. "If your own employees recommend the company to others, enjoy working there and have a close relationship with the employer, you've done everything right in terms of employer branding."

Recruiting strategies: staffing agencies offer companies a lot of potential

However, the ranking of the most popular recruiting strategies is still led by external job postings. For 84% of the companies surveyed, this is important. Behind it is the employment agency (44%) followed by internal job postings (40%). Recruitment agencies are seen as important by a total of 29%, more frequently by larger companies. 48% of companies with more than 250 employees rate it as crucial. "There is a lot of potential for companies in recruitment. How do I get hold of candidates? And how do I build a resilient relationship with them? Active sourcing takes time. This is especially difficult in small and medium-sized companies, where employees have to concentrate on their core work. Personnel consultants offer the know-how, the network and the experience to make the targeted approach to candidates a success," explains Eva-Maria Sieland, Director Finance & Permanent Placement at Randstad Germany.

Note: This article has been translated using a computer system without human intervention. LUMITOS offers these automatic translations to present a wider range of current news. Since this article has been translated with automatic translation, it is possible that it contains errors in vocabulary, syntax or grammar. The original article in German can be found here.

https://www.yumda.com/en/news/1175849/employee-recommendations-beat-career-networks-as-recruiting-channel.html