The following is a guest post by Arthur Clyne.
Nowadays, college counsellors
are warning students that their Facebooks, MySpaces, and Twitters might
deny them admission into top colleges. Students posting about drunken
brawls or crazy parties can find themselves losing out to the kid
twittering
about their latest charity event where they handfed hundreds of
invalids.
But adults are starting to ask: are companies doing the same thing?
Research says yes. Most people shouldn’t have to worry too much about
the negative ramifications of social media research - avoid drunk
posting
and censor Tweets as needed, and they should be covered. Besides,
companies
seem to be using social media platforms not only to delete candidates
from the pool, but primarily for talent management to recruit
potentials,
or “head farming,” as Jon Ingham phrases it. Organizations are reporting
that 66% of them have hired applicants through social media, LinkedIn
and Facebook being the most popular of the websites available.
One advantage of this system is that it ensures that people starting
their job hunts have a pre-existing network before they start work.
Undoubtedly, the social media networks are much more useful and more
common with recent college graduates, who might have little on their
resumes and are at a disadvantage in the competitive job market.
Unsurprisingly, entrepreneurs have spotted that niche in the market
and rushed to fill it. Jibe is one such company. It capitalizes on the
growing tendency among hiring managers use Facebook, allowing users
to combine LinkedIn and Facebook into an education and work experience
profile, free of charge. Then users can search for companies and see
who among their friends works there, letting them get in touch and ask
for advice or recommendations. It then draws job listings from various
sites and companies who are seeking qualified candidates for entry-level
positions.
One interesting note is that Jibe creates revenue primarily from
employers
who want access to the full list of applicants, citing that subscribing
to its services allows companies to save both time and money. Its belief
seems to be justified; in 2009, 66% of organizations admitted to hiring
applicants through social media. In 2008, 78% used social media to
support
recruitment; in 2009, that number was 80%. Perhaps a small rise all
things considered, but they still represent a huge amount of attention
being paid to the Internet.
Fewer and fewer dollars seem to be spent on recruiters; some analysts
predict that in the upcoming years, companies will spend less money
on recruitment while the social media budget rises every year. Other
websites, like H3.com and 2vouch.com,
take advantage of the networking
opportunities and offer referral rewards for helping recruit friends
and contacts to a job. Employees certainly seem to prize word of mouth;
HRNext reports that 55% of HR professionals rate word of mouth as the
“best source of candidates,” while Taleo says that they will be
“stunned if 50% of candidate referrals aren’t coming through online
communities in the next five years.”
Even Twitter is useful for the job hunter. It is the 5th largest job
board in the world and has a direct job search channel. In a world where
micro blogging is not just for celebrities, companies such as Adidas
and Google have taken advantage of the large network they can reach.
Organizations are also taking advantage of the changing status of social
media platforms by using them to further employee communication. Social
media makes it easy for companies to develop relationships with their
employees, though it has to be noted that some companies have been doing
this before and without Facebook or Twitter for years.
Studies have long shown that social learning helps people to learn more
effectively. Social media is proving to be useful in facilitating that
kind of internal communication, enabling the learning of a whole team
or community together.
Interestingly enough, this type of learning is conducive to instiuting
wide changes. Social media connects people not just within a company
or area, but to friends of friends, creating a vast spiderweb of
acquaintances
and co-workers and, as Ingham notes, allowing for cultural changes to
sweep through a network.
About The Author
Arthur Clyne is a
Montreal-based
web and technology consultant for several local area businesses. He
currently consults for Halogen, an HR software company that specializes
in talent
management programs.