As many of you  know, my day job involves running a recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) company called Tidemark.  We specialize in high-volume candidate sourcing for companies who have difficult-to-fill positions. 

So, when research, such as that compiled by CareerXroads in their Tenth Annual Source of Hire study, is released, it peaks my interest.  I know many of you will not share my passion (and rightfully so) for this information, but I thought a quick summary of the findings might prove interesting. 

Here are some observations that John Zappe, a technology reporter for Electronic Recruiting Exchange, put together:

“[The study] reports the results of a survey of 36 large, “well-branded” but anonymous U.S. companies who cumulatively employ 1.32 million workers and hired not quite 133,000 employees in 2010.   

As has been the case from the beginning in 2001, referrals from employees, vendors, alumni, customers, and other sources was the leading source of external hires. Last year, the surveyed companies reported 27.5 percent of their external hires came from referrals. The percentage has fluctuated only modestly over the years.  What is somewhat surprising about the referrals is that 51.7 percent of the responding companies said that up to 20 percent of their referral hires come from sources other than employees.

In past years, corporate career sites occupied second place, as a source of external hires.  However, candidates come to corporate sites often by clicking on job postings on job boards or search engines.  The current report makes the same point.  ‘Career sites are critical but they are more likely to be the end point, not the beginning or middle,’ states the report.”

What about social media?  One of the questions we often hear…What impact is social media having on candidate sourcing?  Fortunately, the study compiled some data on this topic as well:

“[The study reports] 57.1 percent of the respondents reported that social media played an important part in their direct sourcing program (only 5% of total sourcing).  That was the percentage reporting they researched candidates on social networks.  Asked to rank the impact of social media on various parts of their recruiting program, respondents said its influence was greatest on direct sourcing, college hiring, and on hiring from job boards.”

What does all this mean for hiring in the real estate industry?  Here are some of my observations:

1.  Job Boards Are Not Dead.  There are many people who believe that jobs boards are declining and are no longer relevant.  This is not true.  Most career site hires were originally referred to a given company's website from job boards, which play a role in nearly 45% of all new hires.  If you do not have an effective job board presence, you’re missing out on a large portion of the hiring action.

2.  Referrals Are Still Critical.  For an industry that depends upon client referrals for a large portion of their marketing success, this should feel natural.  Do you regularly ask those in your network for hiring referrals?  If not, you’re missing out.  This is how people most commonly change careers and switch employers.

3.  Don’t Ignore Your Own Career Site / Employment Brand.  A couple months ago, we wrote a WorkPuzzle series on employment branding.  The conclusion…candidates will look you up on the internet and form opinions on what they find.  The CareerXroads study supports this conclusion.

4.  Social Media is Way Over-Hyped as a Sourcing Tool.  The data shows that referrals, job boards, and career sites account for over 70% of the new hire sourcing.  Where’s social media?  It’s buried in the 5% attributed to direct sourcing.  As the study indicates, social media outlets are often used to research candidates after they are sourced.  Maybe this will change in the future, but at this point, social media is a small player in candidate sourcing.

5.  Does This Apply to Real Estate?  I know many of our readers may discount this type of study because it was not conducted inside the real estate industry.  Granted, a real estate specific study may give us better insight on this topic, but consider the data from the candidate’s perspective… How does a human being in our society seek out and react to career-related information?  If you have this data as a baseline, I would argue you’re better equipped to interpret the idiosyncrasies of real estate hiring.

A Couple Questions to Consider:  Was any of this data surprising to you?  Does this cause you to want to change anything about your hiring process?

For confidential responses:  Email workpuzzle@hiringcenter.net

For public responses:  Use the comment link at the bottom of today's posting:  localhost/Mahesh/wordpress/

Editor's Note:  This article was written by Ben Hess.  Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.  Comments or questions are welcome.  If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email.  If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.