Hiring dataRead at source, 30 September 2026
Social Media Recruiting Statistics (2026)
The headline social media recruiting statistics: 71% of U.S. adults use Facebook, 50% Instagram and 37% TikTok (Pew Research Center, 2025). 35% of social media users have used it to look for or research a job, and 21% have applied for a job they first heard about through social media contacts (Pew, 2015). In Boostpoint’s 2026 Social Job Advertising Benchmark, the median campaign cost $13.88 per applicant, and apply rate explained 70% of the difference in cost between campaigns.
Headline social media recruiting statistics
- 84% of U.S. adults use YouTube, 71% Facebook, 50% Instagram and 37% TikTok. Pew Research Center, Americans’ Social Media Use 2025 (survey of 5,022 adults, February to June 2025).
- 37% of U.S. adults visit Facebook several times a day. Pew Research Center, 2025 (American Trends Panel, February to March 2025).
- 35% of social media users have used social media to look for or research a job. Pew Research Center, Searching for Work in the Digital Era, 2015.
- 21% of social media users have applied for a job they first found out about through their social media contacts. Pew Research Center, 2015.
- $13.88: the median cost per applicant across 891 campaigns. In Boostpoint’s 2026 Social Job Advertising Benchmark, the volume-weighted average was $8.02 and the middle half of campaigns ran $6.48 to $29.74.
- 70% of the variation in cost per applicant comes from apply rate. Boostpoint’s 2026 Social Job Advertising Benchmark; what the ad auction charged explained 18%.
For the wider labor market (openings, hires, quits and projections) see hiring statistics for 2026. This page covers social recruiting only.
How job seekers use social media to find jobs
The named survey on job seekers and social media we could read at source is Pew Research Center’s Searching for Work in the Digital Era, fielded 10 June to 12 July 2015. It is old, and we say so rather than quote a newer figure we could not trace to a named survey. Among Americans who use social media, Pew found:
- 35% had used social media to look for or research a job.
- 34% had used it to tell friends about an open job at their own workplace.
- 21% had applied for a job they first found out about through social media contacts.
- 13% said their social media presence had helped them find a job.
Two details matter for frontline employers. Pew found that roughly a quarter of social media users aged 50 and older had used social media to look for work, so this is not only a young audience. And 34% passing on job openings to friends is the referral channel most employers already have without paying for it: an employee sharing your post reaches people who are not searching job boards.
What no one publishes is a current national share of hires that came from social media. Surveys ask about searching and applying, not about who was hired. If you need that number, it has to come from source-of-hire tracking in your own applicant tracking system.
Cost per applicant on social, by role family
In Boostpoint’s 2026 Social Job Advertising Benchmark, cost per applicant on Facebook and Instagram varied by role family from a $2.71 median for customer service and admin to $74.62 for therapy roles. The table counts campaigns: the 15 families hold 887 of the 891 campaigns.
| Role family | Median | Middle 50% | Apply rate | Campaigns |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Customer service / admin | $2.71 | $2.14 – $7.47 | 25% | 24 |
| Caregiver / home care | $3.76 | $2.99 – $5.83 | 31% | 34 |
| Warehouse / production | $9.83 | $3.15 – $18.72 | 20% | 82 |
| Management / professional | $16.87 | $4.62 – $60.11 | 16% | 50 |
| Sales | $11.61 | $5.99 – $21.17 | 21% | 100 |
| CNA / nursing assistant | $7.72 | $6.18 – $12.06 | 18% | 32 |
| Technician / mechanic | $13.41 | $7.40 – $23.58 | 16% | 145 |
| Skilled trades | $14.14 | $7.58 – $21.49 | 15% | 35 |
| LPN / LVN | $12.77 | $7.53 – $21.46 | 21% | 57 |
| Registered nurse | $19.08 | $12.76 – $34.84 | 11% | 173 |
| CDL truck driver | $26.86 | $17.00 – $42.31 | 8% | 59 |
| Teacher / instructor | $30.95 | $16.60 – $56.74 | 8% | 15 |
| Allied health / imaging | $54.37 | $10.27 – $106.51 | 10% | 23 |
| Behavioral health / DSP | $55.55 | $18.36 – $334.56 | 9% | 19 |
| Therapy (PT / OT / SLP) | $74.62 | $44.85 – $171.40 | 5% | 39 |
Rows follow the order of the benchmark page, which sorts by blended cost. By sector, the same benchmark counts campaign-months rather than campaigns:
| Sector | Median | Middle 50% | Apply rate | Campaign-months |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Retail / Corporate | $8.58 | $3.72 – $17.76 | 26% | 181 |
| Skilled Trades & Field Service | $11.89 | $6.50 – $24.89 | 18% | 335 |
| Transportation & Logistics | $13.34 | $5.26 – $25.17 | 13% | 184 |
| Healthcare & Senior Living | $15.42 | $7.89 – $39.61 | 16% | 553 |
| Behavioral & Education | $27.50 | $15.35 – $76.67 | 10% | 81 |
An applicant here is a completed lead form, not a click. Cost per applicant is not cost per hire. The full distribution and method are on the benchmarks page.
Apply and completion rates on mobile and social
Most social job traffic is on a phone, and the form is where it is won or lost. In Boostpoint’s 2026 Social Job Advertising Benchmark, campaigns grouped by apply rate (completed forms divided by link clicks) looked like this:
| Apply rate | Cost per applicant | Share of budget | Share of applicants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 5% | $53.77 | 18% | 3% |
| 5–10% | $23.13 | 24% | 8% |
| 10–20% | $11.11 | 32% | 23% |
| 20–35% | $4.41 | 21% | 38% |
| Over 35% | $1.61 | 6% | 28% |
In the same benchmark, 41% of all budget ran in campaigns where fewer than one in ten clickers finished the form, and those campaigns returned 11% of applicants. The benchmark found campaigns using a native instant form, where the candidate never leaves Facebook or Instagram, consistently in the upper bands.
Third-party figures point the same way. Pew’s 2015 survey found 28% of Americans had used a smartphone in a job search, and half of those had filled out a job application on the phone; 38% of smartphone job seekers had trouble entering a large amount of text and 37% had trouble submitting files or documents. CareerPlug’s 2025 Recruiting Metrics Report put the average click-to-apply rate at 6% across small-business job postings in 2024, a job-board-heavy sample and a different measure from a social lead form. More on what good looks like by band and role is on candidate conversion rate.
Platform statistics: Facebook, Instagram and TikTok
Pew’s 2025 survey is the most reliable public count of who uses each platform in the U.S. It measures the share of adults who ever use a platform, not ad audience sizes, which the platforms report differently.
| Group | TikTok | YouTube | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All U.S. adults | 71% | 50% | 37% | 84% |
| High school or less | 69% | 41% | 40% | 78% |
| Some college | 73% | 53% | 42% | 87% |
| College graduate | 71% | 58% | 29% | 89% |
| Urban | 71% | 55% | 42% | 85% |
| Suburban | 71% | 54% | 37% | 87% |
| Rural | 71% | 37% | 32% | 79% |
The same share of rural, suburban and urban adults use Facebook, and adults without a college degree use it as much as graduates. That is the frontline workforce in one row. Instagram use rises with education and is lower in rural areas. TikTok use is highest among adults with some college or less. Pew also found about half of U.S. adults visit Facebook daily, 37% several times a day, and 24% use TikTok daily. Reddit (26%), Snapchat (25%) and X (21%) reach fewer adults. How each platform is used for hiring is covered in social media job advertising, Instagram recruiting and TikTok recruiting.
Methodology and sources
- Pew Research Center, 2025. Platform use from the National Public Opinion Reference Survey, 5,022 U.S. adults, 5 February to 18 June 2025, by web, mail and phone. Daily use from the American Trends Panel, 5,123 adults, 24 February to 2 March 2025.
- Pew Research Center, 2015. Searching for Work in the Digital Era, survey fielded 10 June to 12 July 2015. Percentages about social media are of social media users, not of all adults.
- CareerPlug, 2025. 2025 Recruiting Metrics Report: 2024 hiring activity from more than 60,000 small businesses and more than 10 million job applications.
- Boostpoint, 2026. 891 Boostpoint-managed campaigns on Meta, 1,334 campaign-months, anonymized; costs include campaign management. The role table counts campaigns and the sector table counts campaign-months.
We did not use figures attributed to unnamed “studies” or to vendor pages that do not name the survey behind them.
Frequently asked questions
What percentage of job seekers use social media to find jobs?
In Pew Research Center’s 2015 survey Searching for Work in the Digital Era, 35% of social media users had used social media to look for or research a job, and 21% had applied for a job they first found out about through social media contacts. It is the named survey on the question we could read at source; treat it as dated.
How many hires come from social media?
No named, current survey measures the national share of hires from social media; surveys ask about searching and applying. Pew found in 2015 that 21% of social media users had applied for a job first seen through social contacts. For your own share, track source of hire in your applicant tracking system, by channel and role.
What is the average cost per applicant on Facebook?
In Boostpoint’s 2026 Social Job Advertising Benchmark of 891 campaigns on Meta, the median campaign cost $13.88 per applicant and the volume-weighted average was $8.02. Role medians ran from $2.71 for customer service to $74.62 for therapy roles. Costs include campaign management, and cost per applicant is not cost per hire.
Which social media platform is best for recruiting?
For frontline roles, Facebook, because of its reach across the frontline workforce: Pew’s 2025 survey found 71% of U.S. adults use it, 71% in rural, suburban and urban areas alike and 69% to 73% across education levels. Instagram (50%) adds reach but is lower among rural adults (37%). TikTok (37%) is used most by adults with some college or less.
Is social media recruiting effective for hourly jobs?
For several high-volume hourly role families the cost data is favorable. In Boostpoint’s 2026 Social Job Advertising Benchmark, caregiver campaigns had a median of $3.76 per applicant with a 31% apply rate, customer service $2.71 and warehouse $9.83. Results depend heavily on the application: short mobile forms kept campaigns in the cheapest bands.
See where your roles sit in these numbers
Boostpoint Attract turns your open jobs into Facebook and Instagram ads with a one-minute mobile application, and the software builds and optimizes the campaigns against the apply rates above. Check pricing and book a demo.
Book a DemoSources: Pew Research Center, Americans’ Social Media Use 2025 and Social Media Fact Sheet (20 November 2025); Pew Research Center, Searching for Work in the Digital Era (19 November 2015); CareerPlug, 2025 Recruiting Metrics Report (3 April 2025); Boostpoint 2026 Social Job Advertising Benchmark. Read at source 30 September 2026.