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Social Recruiting Report · Free 24-page download

Better hires, not just more applicants. Now there’s the data to prove it.

Beyond the Pipeline is a 24-page research report, from a collaborative study with LMU Munich, on how social recruiting cuts time-to-attract, lowers cost per application, and lifts quality of hire. Written for in-house talent acquisition leaders.

Recruiting platform demographics Role-specific channel mix Quality-of-hire data
Beyond the Pipeline, Social Recruiting Report
Social Recruiting Report
Beyond the Pipeline: Supercharging Social Media for More Qualified Candidates
A collaborative study with LMU Munich · 24 pages

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Adway social recruiting: jobs running as targeted in-feed campaigns across social platforms
Fosway 9-Grid™ Core Leader · 2022 to 2026
A collaborative study with LMU Munich
33+ ATS integrations
UK · Nordics · Europe · North America
Cleared, named results

What happened when teams stopped chasing volume

The report is full of research. These are real outcomes from named Adway customers.

+33%
more quality hires per vacancy, filled 65% faster, after switching off the volume chase.
Ocab Sanitation & remediation
22 → 5
clicks to apply. PwC removed the friction that was wasting its recruitment budget.
PwC Professional services
16%
apply rate against a 5 to 6% industry benchmark, on a reduced budget.
Circle K Convenience retail

Results are specific to each named customer and their roles. One enterprise customer saw its qualified-applicant share nearly triple while time-to-attract fell by as much as 85%. They are shown as what happened for these teams, not a promise of the same outcome for yours.

Inside the 24 pages

The numbers behind social recruiting, in one place

Research you can take into a budget review, not another vendor pitch.

1

Recruiting platform demographics

Who is actually on each platform, by age and role. The end of “serious candidates aren’t on social”.

2

Role-specific channel mix

Which channels fill which roles, from frontline and volume hiring to hard-to-fill specialists.

3

Time-to-Attract

How moving to social cuts time-to-attract by 6 to 7 days in the study’s data.

4

Social Apply

What in-feed applying does to cost per application: down 54% in the report’s findings.

5

Smart Scorecards

The screening that happens before the ATS, so more applicants does not mean more to read.

6

Applicant-quality data

The share of applicants meeting Minimum Basic Requirements rises from 42.8% to 55.8% on social. One customer’s own ATS told the same story even more sharply: qualified share up from 12% to 36%. Better, not just more.

Social recruiting candidate scorecard and channel data, visualised
Source attribution
100% · in your own ATS
Before you ask

The questions TA leaders raise first

Won’t easier applying just flood my team with unqualified applicants?
The flood comes from open inbound channels, where anyone searching can mass-apply to everything. Social recruiting flips the sequence: targeting selects a matched, qualified audience before the apply button exists, then Smart Scorecards scan, score and shortlist during the apply. There is no open marketplace, so there is no marketplace flood. Only the best enter your ATS. In one engineering team, this produced 23% more hires from 2% fewer applications: fewer to read, more who fit. The report shows the data behind it.
My specialists aren’t on TikTok and Snapchat.
That belief is exactly what the platform-demographics chapter corrects. The report breaks down who is really on each platform by age and role, and the channel mix that fills specialist roles, from pharmacists to tech consultants. Budget follows performance automatically, so if your candidates genuinely are not on a platform, spend does not go there.
We already have LinkedIn and the job boards.
Keep them. Social recruiting is additive: LinkedIn reaches the active minority who search; this reaches the majority who scroll. The timing matters too. Indeed ended free organic visibility for feed-based jobs on 31 March 2026, so the volume channel many teams relied on changed overnight. The report sizes the gap with numbers.
Another AI tool that never shows real ROI?
Fair scepticism. That is why Social Apply carries 100% source attribution: the numbers land in your own ATS where you can audit them, not in a vendor slide. Adway has been a Fosway 9-Grid Core Leader for five consecutive years, and the usual next step is a pilot judged on your own data. Start with the report; decide nothing yet.
Is this only relevant for high-volume frontline hiring?
No. The research and the case work span regulated roles, professional services and hard-to-fill specialists as well as frontline and volume hiring. Whatever you hire for, the role-specific channel mix section is built to map onto it.
Is the report actually free?
Yes. 24 pages, no cost, no sales call required. We will email it to you and send the occasional insight. If you would rather see how it maps onto your roles, a demo is one click away, but it is entirely optional.
Why trust the numbers

Research first, marketing second

Academic rigour

A collaborative study with LMU Munich

Beyond the Pipeline draws on a collaborative study with LMU (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich), so the findings on time-to-attract, cost per application and quality of hire rest on research, not vendor anecdote. Citations you can put in an internal deck.

Analyst standing

Fosway 9-Grid™ Core Leader, 2022 to 2026

Fosway, Europe’s HR industry analyst, has rated Adway a Talent Acquisition Core Leader for five consecutive years. With 33+ ATS integrations, the technology connects to the systems enterprise TA teams already run.

Straight from the study

Better candidates, found faster, for less

55.8%
of applicants meet Minimum Basic Requirements on social, up from 42.8% on non-advertised roles.
Applicant quality LMU study
6–7 days
faster time-to-attract on social, across diverse job categories and geographies.
Time to attract LMU study
+22%
more candidate interest per euro spent, year on year: higher return on the same budget.
Cost efficiency LMU study

Aggregate findings from the collaborative study with LMU Munich (Kavak, 2024). Shown as research outcomes, not a guarantee of the same result for your roles.

Walk into your next budget review with facts, not feelings.

Download Beyond the Pipeline: 24 pages of social recruiting research, free, built to help you take action this quarter.

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