According to social media thought leader, Jobvite, in their 2012 Social Job Seeker Survey, 75% of US workers are constantly looking for work—a number that is up six percentage points over the comparable count in 2011. While 1/3 of these job seekers feel less optimistic about finding a job today than they did a year ago, 41% of employed job seekers believe they are overqualified for the jobs they currently hold.  Jobvite's Social Job Seeker Survey 2012 polled over 2,100 adults, 1300 of that number were either currently employed or unemployed and considered themselves actively looking for work. According to the Jobvite survey, Facebook is the leading social network in the American workforce with 83% participating at some level in Facebook activity. Both Twitter and LinkedIn enjoyed major increases in 2012 compared to 2011 with Twitter now being used by 46% of the workforce; LinkedIn used by 41%. Not surprising, those people considered job seekers were shown to be more social than the overall workforce—88% had at least one social networking profile; 64% had accounts with at least two networks and 44% using three or more. With 1 in 4 job seekers (24%) indicating that they were asked for their social media profiles as part of an application process, more workers reported they had updated their profile content with professional information in 2012 than they had in the year prior. In previous studies, Jobvite has found that 86% of recruiters occasionally look at social profiles for candidates they interview, with 48% reporting they always do so.  According to press releases by Jobvite, Dan Finnigan, President and CEO said that “maintaining an online presence and keeping employment top-of-mind at all times are vital to professional success.” Facebook Stats

• 52% of job seekers use Facebook to help find work, up from 48% in 2011
• 14% searched for jobs on Facebook
• 17% provided their Facebook profile on a job application or during an interview
• 70% of Facebook-using job seekers are male, 63% are under the age of 40, 40% earn more than $75,000 and 36% are college graduates

LinkedIn Stats

• 38% of job seekers use LinkedIn to help find work; up from 30% in 2011
• 19% had a contact share a job on LinkedIn (vs. 8% in 2011)
• 11% searched for jobs on LinkedIn
• 9% provided their LinkedIn profile on a job application or during an interview
• 60% of LinkedIn-using job seekers are male, 62% are under the age of 40, 51% earn more than $75,000 and 50% are college graduates

Twitter Stats

• 34% of job seekers use Twitter to help find work; up from 26% in 2011
• 11% had a contact share a job on Twitter (vs. 7% in 2011)
• 10% searched for jobs on Twitter
• 10% provided their Twitter profile on a job application or during an interview
• 67% of Twitter-using job seekers are male, 69% are under the age of 40, 46% earn more than $75,000 and 44% are college graduates

Jobvite is a leading recruiting platform for the social web, providing companies with applicant tracking, recruiter CRM and social recruiting software.  Information on their press release was provided by the American Staffing Association. For more information on Jobvite and their 2012 Social Media Survey, visit www.jobvite.com.