Thank you for this powerful summary. It cleary shows the importancce of using social networks, and especially the new technologies that support social networking nowadays. Brilliant! 
 
 
 
Nelson.

We're glad you like it, Nelson. Thanks!

I'm curious as to how your title and findings relate. Your title asks Do Job Boards Matter? But if you didn't post the position on a job board how could you compare and contrast the findings?  
 
I do love the idea of asking visitors to signup for SMS or email alerts for future listings however. That's a great employer branding opportunity.  
 
Did you end up making a hire from your efforts or are you still looking? Also, I'm curious how much time was put into the Social aspect of it? You've got to put a value on your time spent so the cost is not truly $0.

This is a fascinating study and you clearly have the metrics to back up your claim that social media networks could surpass online job boards. In my recruitment efforts at OpenView, I certainly am seeing fewer and fewer hires made from online job board applicants. My question is this however - do you have the search capabilities to narrow down your job search based on years of experience, function, degree required, etc on social networks?

Jennifer: The title is meant to be provocative. We're simply making the case for social and mobile recruiting. People will have to do their own testing to see if they can justify cutting out job boards entirely. Obviously that'll depend on exactly what type of talent they're looking for. With respect to our Dev Ops Lead position: it's still open (we're looking to find someone amazing)—though most of our past hires have been through social channels, so our experience has certainly been positive. 
 
Vic: I would argue that the biggest strength of social recruiting is that people self-select, and only refer the position to people or groups of people that they know are qualified. That said, social services like LinkedIn and Facebook have a number of ways to narrow down the target audience, and ATS's like TribeHR can make refining the candidate pool easy, too. 
 
Great questions. Thanks so much for your insights!