Answered Questions

For this search, I suggest that you begin with Google (bet you didn't see that coming!). Google "social media" recruitment survey. My thought process is this: the best place to start gathering data is surveys conducted by HR people, recruiters, and job sites (although watch out for bias). You'll find these on the web. After you get some data, you can move into the trade publications and journals for analysis. Among the results is this SHRM Survey: Social Media Remains a Popular Recruitment Tool. SHRM is extremely reliable, and the article contains a link to the survey, which is formatted as a PowerPoint. There are other possibilities in the results as well.

Next move to the Business LibGuide. Click on the articles tab. Choose the ABI/Inform Complete database. You'll be asked to log in with your Brenau username and password.

Searching "social media" AND recruitment AND candidates yields a rich pool of results. Be sure to copy the search exactly as I have it here, complete with the quotation marks and ANDs. This will eliminate some of the clutter in your results. Use the left side toolbar to limit the results to the last 5 years, and limit to full text if you want. If you don't find what you need, X out of the full text limiter, enabling you to see the linked full text, which might be useful. Using the left side toolbar, limit the Source Type to trade journals and scholarly journals.

I'm not seeing articles specifically analyzing what kinds of firms are using social media, but this information can be found in the background of some of the articles. For example, the article Recruitment Goes Virtual states that online recruiting is "important for small to moderate sized firms not among the 'big name' companies in their field". It goes on to name a few major companies "already at the forefront of social media recruitment".

Another effective search is recruiting AND "social media". There is some overlap with the results of the first search, but some unique content also. Here you will find articles such as The Great Divide: Social Media's Role in Bridging Healthcare's Generational Shift. This article makes me wonder if there is another question to ask. "Who is being recruited with social media?" This information could prove interesting too.

On the other hand, I'm not finding search terms that will effectively narrow the search to find only the information you need. You'll have to do some reading. Expedite that by using the Preview pop-up to the right of each title to view the abstract. Also check the first paragraph or two and the last paragraph or two of the text before reading the whole article.

Good luck with this great topic!