Unlocking the Potential of International Social Recruiting for Companies

Social networks are now undisputed players in our daily lives. Initially created to connect people and share personal content, today they influence every area of our lives, including the professional sphere.

Indeed, companies are preparing to become increasingly skilled in using these platforms as marketing tools and as preferred channels for improving employer branding. In addition to being an excellent “showcase” for advertising services and products, they facilitate professional networking and candidate search, enabling direct and immediate contact between companies and people.

Thus, social recruiting emerges as a strategic tool in implementing and improving recruitment strategies to identify and attract candidates with advanced digital skills. It proves particularly effective in the context of international recruiting because of its ability to break down geographic barriers at little or no cost.

We examine the goals that companies today set for themselves in the recruitment process, highlighting the opportunities offered by international social recruiting.

Social recruiting: a global scenario

Today, the company can no longer be conceived of as an isolated entity, but as an actor in continuous interaction with the external environment and assuming an increasingly socially relevant role, including at the global level.

The digital and sustainable transition is driving organizations to look externally for skills that are missing internally. Social networks are the tools that provide access to an international talent pipeline, and international social recruiting is the means to attract and internalize the key skills needed to meet new social expectations.

This approach positively impacts the business organization itself, improving its market attractiveness and productivity.

The benefits of international social recruiting

Growing in a global marketplace requires specific skills to meet challenges and develop recruiting strategies that cross national boundaries. Reaping the benefits of access to diverse talent allows you to benefit from the richness of cultural diversity, which enriches your company’s assets, as well as ensuring a reduction in cost and time in the hiring process.

Reduced time and cost

With the use of social networks, companies can build direct connections with talent anywhere, significantly reducing the cost and time allocated to search and selection.

Some statistics illustrate how social facilitates the matching of supply and demand in the labor ^market1:

• ^Linkedin2 currently has nearly 1 billion members in over 200 countries, and 60 million are companies with a business page. Every week, 52 million people search for jobs on this platform with about 101 applications posted every second.
• Facebook has about two billion members; it is the most popular social network in the world and the second most used social network by recruiters for searches.

Looking at the statistics, it is easy to see how companies’ use of these platforms provides immediate access to more talent, often for free or at a very low cost, while also significantly impacting the reduction in cost per hire (so-called Cost per Hire).

Social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, and X are completely free, but do not offer premium tools specifically for recruitment; Linkedin, on the other hand, can be used in both free and enterprise versions, with monthly subscriptions ranging from 140 to 700 euros.

An interesting example of the use of social networks can be found in a world-leading British company in the distribution of industrial products, RS COMPONENTS: thanks to social recruiting, it has reduced its recruiting costs by more than 50 percent, lowering the average cost per hire from £7,500 to ^£714.3

Enhancement of diversity and multiculturalism

The topic of Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) is increasingly central to corporate discussions. According to studies conducted by McKinsey, companies that maintain or increase their active commitment to inclusion and diversity tend to be more attractive in the marketplace, both to potential candidates and ^external stakeholders4. The impact is significant, noting that they are 25 percent more likely to report above-average profitability than companies that do not follow D&I policies.

This result is also due to effective international social recruiting strategies, which help access candidates with multicultural backgrounds and diverse skills, thus enriching the company’s human capital and fostering its success.

A strategy for bridging the skill gap

It is estimated that by 2030 the global talent shortage may exceed 85 million ^people5.

The skills ^gap6, the gap between the skills required by the market and those actually possessed by candidates, is an issue of no small concern to companies, especially in those sectors such as Information Technology, where skills shortages and the difficulty of finding people travel hand in hand with the speed of innovations and are bound to increase ^{dramatically7}.

International social recruiting can become one of the most effective strategies to bridge this discrepancy, thanks to the possibility of reaching candidates in countries or regions where there are more professionals in programming and development (e.g., India, Pakistan and China, but also the USA, Germany and the Netherlands^)8. This is also an opportunity for Italy, which is ranked fourth to last in Europe for basic digital ^skills9.

To remain competitive in a global market, Italian companies should invest in social recruiting andcontinuous learning not only to find the best talent, but also to promote an international corporate culture and project themselves into the future.

However, we must not navigate by sight; an international social recruiting strategymust be implemented to meet the challenges of acquiring qualified talentin an increasingly connected world.