By Sharon Hill

Facebook recruitment networking app BranchOut now has 300 million users and, according to a Wall Street Journal conversation with BranchOut CEO Rick Marini, reaches twice the number of users as competitor LinkedIN. The way Marini explained it: BranchOut trails LinkedIN in number of registered users, but it’s on Facebook and connects users with their Facebook friends and friends of friends, and that number exceeds LinkedIN numbers.  Only 10 million people have actually placed their profiles on BranchOut, however, with only 4 million actively returning to the site each month. Recruitment giant CareerBuilder has additionally teamed up with BranchOut, to offer social connectivity to its users.

Combine these statistics with the stats for LinkedIN candidate search – 87 % of recruiters surveyed by Jobvite used LinkedIN to find candidates in 2011 – and it’s clear that social media has taken a front and center place in the world of online recruitment.  Publishers who fail to integrate social media tools and features may end up eating the dust of sites such as Indeed, SimplyHired, Monster’s BeKnown, CareerBuilder, JobFox, JobVite, TweetMyJobs, TwitJob Search and its The SocialCV, and others who connect candidates with their social friends at hiring firms, and recruiters with candidates, through social networking.  For more on this growing social recruitment phenomenon read AIM Group’s Recruitment Advertising 2012: “Social 2.0″ (CIR 12.23, Dec. 15, 2011)

WSJ’s Digits blog has the latest BranchOut story.