The last few months have seen a continued increase in discussions around Social Recruiting. Almost weekly, we are seeing surveys and reports that go from extremely pro-social recruiting to very anti-social recruiting. The former tend to come from companies offering social media hiring tools or services to employers and corporate recruiters. Like you'd imagine, the later seems to originate from traditional recruiting methods, job boards and "not-ready-for-change" recruiters.

Both of these set of surveys or whitepapers are pushed into the media, with multiple retweets by their respective faithfuls, in order to prove some points or reassure themselves that the industry is (or is not) warming to social recruiting. You may find similar instances from the US and UK.

Don't be surprised if you read this week, that 85% of employers are ready to fully use social media to recruit and a week later, hear from somewhere else that ONLY 23% of companies consider social media as a relevant sourcing tool.

These surveys usually conducted by the actual companies or in some instances outsourced to independent polling companies tend to get their results from a set of respondents likely connected with the companies that commissioned the surveys. Respondents in these cases are most probably their existing and potential clients. Hence the results gathered and reports presented highlights who they have been polling, potentially on different ends of the pro/anti extremes.

Don't let these confuse you. We will continue to see these sort of surveys in the years to come. Are they 100% accurate? Probably not! Are they intended to mislead? I don't think so. But social recruiting is now a HR and recruiting subject (talked about in all HR events) that some companies are hoping to cash in on, while some other set of businesses are ready to kill off.

Has this happened before? Yes. Print Advertising and Online Recruitment. Print Advertising and Online advertising. Will this continue to happen? Yes. Today, it is social media, mobile and social graph. It may be something else in the next 10-20 years.

In conclusion, new technologies and tools will continue to emerge. And they tend to take some time before they eventually become 'traditional'. While many recruiters right now are filling roles via job boards, third party suppliers etc; several companies are also engaging with candidates, having real life conversations within community platforms and hiring people. Social recruiting case studies like this and that cannot be ignored. These evidences are more valuable than surveys or reports.

We will continue to advice companies on social recruiting without the hype. It is also a great pleasure to be organising a social recruiting conference, with case studies from leading brands. You are welcomed to be a part of the it, learn from others and share experiences. Register here.