With the rapid growth in the construction industry, there is constant need of highly qualified and skilled personnel with decision making capabilities. This increases the pressure on construction executive recruiters to find appropriate candidates who respond positively to such changing demands and have to ability to work in teams to increase the bottom-line of the construction companies.

Whether construction staffing services admit it or not, screening candidates using social media has become a recent trend in the recruitment industry. Employers and recruiters screen Facebook and Twitter profiles to dig deep information about applicants. Social networks are used by corporate to find active and passive candidates. Many companies are building company brands in social networking sites to interact with potential candidates and portray themselves as the best people to work with.

So how do social media networks help recruiters to decide whom to hire? What do recruiters look for in a candidates’ profile? We’ll discuss the factors that influence recruiters to either hire or reject a candidate:

Reasons to hire a candidate:

• Creativity in profile
• Positive personality impression and traits show the candidate is fit for a specific organization
• Excellent communicative skills
• Profile supported professional qualifications
• Candidate shared good references posted by others

Reasons to reject a candidate:

• Profile has a bad impression; posted inappropriate pictures, irrelevant comments etc
• Bad-mouthed previous employer
• Poor communication skills
• Made discriminatory comments
• Lied about qualifications and experience
• Not having social presence

How do recruiters use the top three social networks to screen candidates?

LinkedIn: Most of all recruiters (almost 93%) use LinkedIn to discover new talents and more than 80% of them have hired from LinkedIn. Moreover, the LinkedIn Recruiter also helps employers and recruiters to reach passive clients that are otherwise hard to find. SO it is advised for the job seekers to maintain a clean and flawless profile so that employers take you seriously. Fill in all the necessary fields and use specialty key throughout your profile.

Facebook: Facebook has seen the steepest increase in the way recruiters use this platform to hire skilled candidates. Recruiters promote their company pages and post job advertisements through Facebook Ads platform. For job seekers, they should carefully turn on the privacy settings, and should be very careful while posting. Any bad impression or offensive post might drive away potential employers. “Like” the company page you are considering to keep yourself updated with their happenings.

Twitter: Twitter is a part of every employer’s job search process. Employers use Twitter to post job openings and some companies are also hiring 3rd parties, like construction executive recruiters to promote job listings. Job seekers should follow desired companies to watch for job openings. Job seekers can also interact with employees working there. Also maintain a clean and strong profile and post relevant comments.