Recruiters should adopt basic marketing principles when choosing which social media tools to use, according to David Mason, international talent acquisition director at engineering firm CH2M Hill.

Mason told the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) Recruitment, Resourcing and Talent Management Conference that, as with marketing, identifying your target audience was key.

For example, he said that while Facebook worked well for recruiters in the media industry, it wasn’t effective for the “slightly stuffy” engineering sector. “The younger generation are there but they are not the bulk of our audience,” said Mason.

On the other hand, he said LinkedIn worked for CHM2 Hill because it was a better way of engaging with engineers. He added that 39, the average age of LinkedIn users, fitted the profile of the company exactly. Matt Alder, director of MetaShift, an HR and recruitment consultancy, added: “It’s about finding out where your audience hangs around.”

However, Alder warned that this could quickly change. He said that 12 months ago the legal profession and LinkedIn “acted as if they hadn’t met one another”. However, since then a lot of lawyers had joined LinkedIn. “It’s a very dynamic and moving space,” said Alder.