Social networking or social recruiting? April 15, 2008
Posted by Luna in Uncategorized.Tags: conference, exploding myths, facebook, graduate recruitment, linkedin, social media, social networking, the careers group
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According to a recent survey by Personnel Today, 73% of HR Professionals do not search for candidates on social networking sites before employing them:
Personnel Today: Most employers don’t check Facebook when screening applicants
Too right too! I do not see what good can come from looking up someone’s private, social profile. What useful information do employers expect to find? Pictures of them looking continuously smart and organised? An events diary full of reading and volunteering? Wall posts with no spelling mistakes?
However, this is where LinkedIn becomes useful. This business networking site is much better suited for screening candidates where they have had the opportunity to write relevant information about their professional and academic experience. A LinkedIn profile can still provide an insight into the candidate but in the right context, and can therefore be much more useful in the selection process.
What other Web 2.0 technology would you like to see them use other than the ones mentioned? Twitter?
Thanks
Sara
http://socialnut.wordpress.com/
It depends on the purpose, Sara – if it’s about career development on their own recognizance, LinkedIn (now outpacing Facebook in terms of growth rate) is going to become significant for graduates focusing on entrepreneurial starts, management consultancy, media etc. Twitter is something a lot of libraries have used successfully and I think our own careers information teams could do a lot with it. Also, we’ve got a partnership with an interesting company called Olivedon (still in stealth mode, in a loose sense) which may well join a lot of the outstanding dots for people.
Most of all, though, I think we need to look beyond the technology to the core social shift it enables (I’m reading Clay Shirky’s latest at the moment and nodding a lot).