HK job seekers don’t care about social media

More than half of Hong Kong’s working population consider social media platforms “of no use to find a job”.

Despite a huge growth in smartphone adoption in the country, just 9% of job seekers reported they use social media in their job searches, the latest Ipsos research has found.

The majority of the working population (54%) said they did not use LinkedIn or Facebook during their job hunting process to find job postings or obtain more information about the position or company.

Additionally, 51% said they would not like to be contacted via Facebook by recruiters, and 57% of women do not regard Facebook as a legitimate channel for recruitment.

However, 25% of the working population surveyed – mostly respondents in Generation Y – said they’re likely to use social media in some capacity for any future job searches.

“Social recruiting has not reached its full potential here compared to other job markets,” JB Aloy, senior vice president, employee research, for Ipsos APAC, said.

“The competition for talent is fierce in Hong Kong and social networks will have an increasing importance.”

“In Hong Kong, a large number of people and organisations are still at the ‘why use social media?’ stage when it comes to recruitment.”