By Abby Lombardi on August 28, 2012 in Human Resources, Recruiters.

It's been a while since we covered hiring demand for recruiting professionals with social media experience and a few people have requested updated data. Over the past 90 days, more than 2,700 job ads were available that called for Recruiters to have social media skills and experience across the US – representing about 7% of all hiring demand for Recruiters in the past 90 days. Companies are more commonly integrating social media across more business processes – and HR and recruiting is no different. The number of job ads that require social media skills for Recruiters also reached a new all-time high, now up 40% year-over-year compared to the same time period in 2011 and more than 191% from 2 years ago. Connecting with potential candidates through social media platforms is a great way to attract talent and build relationships with applicants.

Hiring Demand for Recruiters with Social Media Skills – 4 Year Hiring Trend

Source: WANTED Analytics

Below are the 10 most commonly required skills in Recruiter job ads that include social media as a skill set:

1. Microsoft Office
2. Applicant tracking software (ATS)
3. Time management
4. Microsoft PowerPoint
5. Project Management
6. Negotiation skills
7. Microsoft Word
8. Oracle HRIS
9. Business development
10. Software development

Many of these were expected, like knowing how to use ATS systems, Microsoft, and negotiation skills. However, we found it interesting that software development made the list. Upon further investigation and looking at the job ads, we saw that these positions will be sourcing a lot of technical jobs and these jobs require Recruiters understand software development to be able to source potential candidates. The same is true for business development – many of these recruiting positions will be sourcing for sales and business development positions. When you look at some of the most common job titles for Recruiters, this may be confirmed. In addition to "Recruiter" and "Sourcer" some common titles include: Sales Recruiter, Information Technology Recruiter

Recruiters with social media skills are most frequently recruited for jobs located in New York City, Chicago, Washington (DC), Boston, and Los Angeles. While employers in New York placed the highest number of job ads for this talent pool, one of the highest year-over-year growth areas was actually seen in Los Angeles where demand grew more than 73% in the past 90 days compared to the same time period in 2011. The second highest growth was seen in Boston, up 62% versus last year.

Heat Map of Hiring Demand for Recruiters with Social Media Skills

Source: WANTED Analytics

As hiring demand continues, a limited talent supply of potential candidates with proven social media experience will create challenges for employers. The Hiring Scale™ shows that employers across the US spend about 5 weeks advertising jobs and sourcing candidates for recruiting positions that require social media skills. However, each location experiences a varying degree of difficulty. Companies in San Francisco, CA and Minneapolis, MN are currently seeing some of the most challenging overall recruiting conditions. Fierce competition has emerged as more employers are looking to fill jobs in these areas than the local talent supply can support. In these 2 areas, the average posting period is 6 weeks, meaning it is likely to take 1 week longer to fill social media recruiting positions than on average across the United States.

Our Hiring Scale also shows that the best markets for recruiting these skills are Rochester, NY and Milwaukee, WI. Lower hiring demand in these areas, a larger talent supply, and better overall conditions means that Recruiters are likely to fill open recruiting jobs that require social media skills faster than average.

Hiring Scale for Social Media Recruiters in Rochester, NY

Source: WANTED Analytics

Are you sourcing for a Recruiter with proven social media expertise? Sign up for a free trial of WANTED Analytics and see where you can find potential candidates.

Already an Analytics user and want to to look at this hiring? Log in and enter "social media" as a keyword and select "Employment, Recruitment, and Placement Specialists" in the occupation filter. Add your location or industry filters to see customized results for your specific openings.