How TikTok influencers are helping companies recruit new workers
Loic Venance | AFP | Getty Images
On TikTok, Emily Durham is a content creator with over 200,000 followers. She also works as a senior recruiter for Intuit. Durham’s following on the social platform and her success show how influencers and content creators on TikTok can strengthen a company’s recruiting efforts.
“Having a social presence has been a game changer for me from a professional perspective,” Durham said. “Probably half of the candidates that I reach out to have responded with, ‘Oh my god, I follow you on TikTok,’ especially with early career talent or when I’m recruiting for other HR roles at Intuit.”
Durham said while she doesn’t post Intuit-specific content, the company’s trust and open-mindedness about her TikTok presence allows her content to be mutually beneficial for her and Intuit. Her TikTok presence gives potential candidates familiarity and recognition that often leads them to apply and be interested in roles at Intuit.
TikTok influencers help recruit desired candidates
When you think about how people previously searched for jobs, it’s most likely they turned first to their local newspaper for open roles. When the internet came onto the scene, people began searching on sites like Indeed, Monster, ZipRecruiter, and eventually LinkedIn.
Now, especially with younger audiences, companies can use TikTok to advertise open roles and reach candidates, like Gen Z and millennials, said Erin Lazarus, director of solution architects at SHL, a data and insights platform for talent acquisition and management. An influencer promoting open roles can help increase the impact of a company’s recruiting effort.
“Gen Z and millennial audiences, from a value perspective, appreciate authenticity. What we used to think of social content, which was previously over-edited, commercial-like content, doesn’t resonate with those audiences,” Durham said. “In fact, you have about two to four seconds before a millennial or Gen Z social media consumer will scroll past your video.”
Durham said companies can hire influencers, who are real and authentic, to post content about what it’s like to work at a company and why someone should work there.
“Influencers have trust and credibility with their audiences, and they’ve become what I think of as the signal through the noise,” Lazarus said. “In the digital world, opportunities are nearly endless, and that level of choice creates so much noise around us.”
Lazarus said influencers help employers increase the signal of their opportunities and cut through the noise to reach a more targeted audience, and TikTok is one of the mediums to reach audiences the fastest.
Finding the right type of TikTok influencer
Lazarus said companies interested in using TikTok influencers to promote jobs, must first distinguish between the different types of influencers and which ones have the right following to reach ideal candidates.
“The first category is celebrities, and there are fewer celebrities promoting jobs than other types of influencers. Another type of influencer is content creators or bloggers, like who we follow on TikTok and Instagram,” Lazarus said. “A third category, where most influencers are likely living for recruitment efforts, is industry leaders and thought leaders.”
These categories are not siloed, and influencers can exist across these distinctions. Influencers can have large or small followings, they can be community leaders, and they can specialize in a specific topic or niche area. With Durham’s specialty in career coaching and job searching advice, she can be described as a thought leader in that area on TikTok.
“Thought and industry leaders could be local from a geographical perspective or from an industry perspective,” Lazarus said. “These are also influencers that can operate both online and in person in a professional setting to help with recruitment efforts.”
It’s also important to ensure that your company’s TikTok influencers have a following relatively located to the locations you’re hiring for, said Daniel Blaser, a senior content manager at Workstream, a recruiting and hiring platform for local businesses and restaurants to fill hourly and deskless roles.
Blaser said companies, especially local businesses, don’t necessarily need to tap into influencers with millions of followers to recruit for open jobs. Companies can engage with influencers, of any scale, that can reach their targeted group of potential employees.
“Anyone can be an influencer if they have an engaged following, and there are people that have an engaged following for whoever you want to connect to, as a business, and in your hiring efforts,” Blaser said.
Blaser added that companies can even have their existing employees post videos or content on TikTok and become an influencer for their business. The focus should be on how well the content resonates with audiences.
How to start leveraging TikTok influencers
Influencers can be hired, if a company is looking to reach an existing following from a content creator like Durham, or influencers can be created, like Blaser suggested, from existing employees who may find a new following.
Lazarus said influencers on TikTok, and all social platforms, can advertise your company’s recruiting efforts in their short videos, in sound bites on podcasts, or in advertisements in newsletters, wherever the influencer’s following reaches.
“A company should ask: Who is my target audience? What kind of candidates am I looking for? How do I reach them? What media are they consuming?” Lazarus said. That helps you figure out: Who are the trendsetters in the areas I’m recruiting for? How do I get in touch with them?
Lazarus said this is a growing and exciting trend in recruitment and talent acquisition. Social media recruiters play a strategic role in the talent strategy of an organization, she added, and it can help ensure they’re bringing in the best talent and lead them to get creative in approaching talent.
“There are so many different ways you can get creative, as long as you’re highlighting the voices of the authentic people at your organization,” Durham said. “That’s where you’re going to see impact and benefit. You’re going to see absolutely nothing if you’re an organization first and a people-company second.”
Lazarus said TikTok influencers can also help companies increase diversity and reach underrepresented populations, because this type of recruitment reaches candidates through their trusted sources that they’re already consuming.
“We have an opportunity as organizations to really compete for the best talent out there to increase diversity, create more inclusion, and bring ourselves to where those pipelines are,” Lazarus said. “These platforms help us create a diverse, enriched pipeline of candidates from every walk of life.”
Tik Tok creators gather before a press conference to voice their opposition to the “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act,” pending crackdown legislation on TikTok in the House of Representatives, on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., March 12, 2024.
Craig Hudson | Reuters
The Supreme Court on Friday will hear oral arguments in the case involving the future of TikTok in the U.S., which could ban the popular app as soon as next week.
The justices will consider whether the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, the law that targets TikTok’s ban and imposes harsh civil penalties for app “entities” that continue to carry the service after Jan.19, violates the U.S. Constitution’s free speech protections.
It’s unclear when the court will hand down a decision, and if China’s ByteDance continues to refuse to divest TikTok to an American company, it faces a complete ban nationwide.
What will change about the user experience?
The roughly 115 million U.S. TikTok monthly active users could face a range of scenarios depending on when the Supreme Court hands down a decision.
If no word comes before the law takes effect on Jan. 19 and the ban goes through, it’s possible that users would still be able to post or engage with the app if they already have it downloaded. However, those users would likely be unable to update or redownload the app after that date, multiple legal experts said.
Thousands of short-form video creators who generate income from TikTok through ad revenue, paid partnerships, merchandise and more will likely need to transition their businesses to other platforms, like YouTube or Instagram.
“Shutting down TikTok, even for a single day, would be a big deal, not just for people who create content on TikTok, but everyone who shares or views content,” said George Wang, a staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute who helped write the institute’s amicus briefs on the case.
“It sets a really dangerous precedent for how we regulate speech online,” Wang said.
Who supports and opposes the ban?
Dozens of high-profile amicus briefs from organizations, members of Congress and President-elect Donald Trump were filed supporting both the government and ByteDance.
The government, led by Attorney General Merrick Garland, alleges that until ByteDance divests TikTok, the app remains a “powerful tool for espionage” and a “potent weapon for covert influence operations.”
Trump’s brief did not voice support for either side, but it did ask the court to oppose banning the platform and allow him to find a political resolution that allows the service to continue while addressing national security concerns.
The short-form video app played a notable role in both Trump and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris’ presidential campaigns in 2024, and it’s one of the most common news sources for younger voters.
In a September Truth Social post, Trump wrote in all caps Americans who want to save TikTok should vote for him. The post was quoted in his amicus brief.
What comes next?
It’s unclear when the Supreme Court will issue its ruling, but the case’s expedited hearing has some predicting that the court could issue a quick ruling.
The case will have “enormous implications” since TikTok’s user base in the U.S. is so large, said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of Berkeley Law.
“It’s unprecedented for the government to prohibit platforms for speech, especially one so many people use,” Chemerinsky said. “Ultimately, this is a tension between free speech issues on the one hand and claims of national security on the other.”
WATCH: It appears TikTok could really get shut down, says Jim Cramer
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang speaks about Project Digits personal AI supercomputer for researchers and students during a keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada on January 6, 2025. Gadgets, robots and vehicles imbued with artificial intelligence will once again vie for attention at the Consumer Electronics Show, as vendors behind the scenes will seek ways to deal with tariffs threatened by US President-elect Donald Trump. The annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) opens formally in Las Vegas on January 7, 2025, but preceding days are packed with product announcements. (Photo by Patrick T. Fallon / AFP) (Photo by PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images)
Patrick T. Fallon | Afp | Getty Images
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was greeted as a rock star this week CES in Las Vegas, following an artificial intelligence boom that’s made the chipmaker the second most-valuable company in the world.
At his nearly two-hour keynote on Monday kicking off the annual conference, Huang packed a 12,000-seat arena, drawing comparisons to the way Steve Jobs would reveal products at Apple events.
Huang concluded with an Apple-like trick: a surprise product reveal. He presented one of Nvidia’s server racks and, using some stage magic, held up a much smaller version, which looked like a tiny cube of a computer.
“This is an AI supercomputer,” Huang said, while donning an alligator skin leather jacket. “It runs the entire Nvidia AI stack. All of Nvidia’s software runs on this.”
Huang said the computer is called Project Digits and runs off a relative of the Grace Blackwell graphics processing units (GPUs) that are currently powering the most advanced AI server clusters. The GPU is paired with an ARM-based Grace central processing unit (CPU). Nvidia worked with Chinese semiconductor company MediaTek to create the system-on-a chip called GB10.
Formerly known as the Consumer Electronics Show, CES is typically the spot to launch flashy and futuristic consumer gadgets. At this year’s show, which started on Tuesday and wraps up on Friday, several companies announced AI integrations with appliances, laptops and even grills. Other major announcements included a laptop from Lenovo which has a rollable screen that can expand vertically. There were also new robots, including a Roomba competitor with a robotic arm.
Unlike Nvidia’s traditional GPUs for gaming, Project Digits isn’t targeting consumers. instead, it’s aimed at machine learning researchers, smaller companies, and universities that want to developed advanced AI but don’t have the billions of dollars to build massive data centers or buy enough cloud credits.
“There’s a gaping hole for data scientists and ML researchers and who are actively working, who are actively building something,” Huang said. “Maybe you don’t need a giant cluster. You’re just developing the early versions of the model, and you’re iterating constantly. You could do it in the cloud, but it just costs a lot more money.”
The supercomputer will cost about $3,000 when it becomes available in May, Nvidia said, and will be available from the company itself as well as some of its manufacturing partners. Huang said Project Digits is a placeholder name, indicating it may change by the time the computer goes on sale.
“If you have a good name for it, reach out to us,” Huang said.
Diversifying its business
It’s a dramatically different kind of product from the GPUs that have driven Nvidia’s historic boom in the past two years. OpenAI, which launched ChatGPT in late 2022, and other AI model creators like Anthropic have joined with large cloud providers in snapping up Nvidia’s data center GPUs because of their ability to power the most intensive models and computing workloads.
Data center sales accounted for 88% of Nvidia’s $35 billion in revenue in the most recent quarter.
Wall Street is focused on Nvidia’s ability to diversify its business so that it’s less reliant on a handful of customers buying massive AI systems.
The Nvidia Project Digits supercomputer during the 2025 CES event in Las Vegas, Nevada, US, on Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025.
Bridget Bennett | Bloomberg | Getty Images
“It was a little scary to see Nvidia come out with something so good for so little in price,” Melius Research analyst Ben Reitzes wrote in a note this week. He said Nvidia may have “stolen the show,” due to Project Digits as well other announcements including graphics cards for gaming, new robot chips and a deal with Toyota.
Project Digits, which runs Linux and the same Nvidia software used on the company’s GPU server clusters, represents a huge increase in capabilities for researchers and universities, said David Bader, director of the Institute for Data Science at New Jersey Institute of Technology.
Bader, who has worked on research projects with Nvidia in the past, said the computer appears to be able to handle enough data and information to train the biggest and most cutting-edge models. He told CNBC Anthropic, Google, Amazon and others “would pay $100 million to build a super computer for training” to get a system with these sorts of capabilities.
For $3,000, users can soon get a product they can plug into a standard electrical outlet in their home or office, Bader said. It’s particularly exciting for academics, who have often left for private industry in order to access bigger and more powerful computers, he said.
“Any student who is able to have one of these systems that cost roughly the same as a high-end laptop or gaming laptop, they’ll be able to do the same research and build the same models,” Bader said.
Reitzes said the computer may be Nvidia’s first move into the $50 billion market for PC and laptop chips.
“It’s not too hard to imagine it would be easy to just do it all themselves and allow the system to run Windows someday,” Reitzes wrote. “But I guess they don’t want to step on too many toes.”
Huang didn’t rule out that possibility when asked about it by Wall Street analysts on Tuesday.
He said that MediaTek may be able to sell the GB10 chip to other computer makers in the market. He made sure to leave some mystery in the air.
“Obviously, we have plans,” Huang said.
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