Is it high time for organizations to think on the real worth of social networking or do they still have to wait? Nowadays people are using social networking as an effective tool in recruitment. Does this mean that we should give more importance to social networking than other recruiting tools?

Social networking these days is considered to be one of the most sought out solution for sourcing and recruiting employees in an organization by recruiters. However, the potential that lies in social networking still needs to be tapped to a greater extent.

Many recruiters have benefited a lot by using social media and networking to hire people for an organization. However, will it be successful for everyone, needs to be debated and discussed. Organizations still wants to gain confidence before moving from old conventional tools to consider social media approach as one of the best available remedies in the market today.

There are various thoughts and feelings which sets the mood and platform for people to interact online. Let us see how does it affects the online networking circuit.

Mind set of the hiring consultant

Recruiter assumes that connecting to an online or social media group will give him an easy access to a wide pool of talent. Further assumption is that communities or groups having similar background are more receptive to link to one another. To get a further understanding on this let us also consider the thought process that goes in the minds of people who are joining these networking sites.

Thought that goes in people’s mind when they join social networking websites:

The whole sole purpose of people making online connections is to interact and socialize with friends with whom they rarely meet offline. They also look towards sharing and building their knowledge pool by involving in discussions and talks with others who have similar interests. However, there are only very few individuals who would choose social media to build or discuss great career prospects for future. I am keeping the professional networking sites like Linkedin etc out of these discussions as they are pure sites dedicated to working professionals. What we can conclude from here is that people take advantage of social networking to discuss their life events rather than building a strong professional network.

What can be figured out from this kind of behaviour of usage is:

The size of an individual’s network is very small if we compare it to the total connections strength.

Women are more receptive to any post in comparison to men. A man will hardly talk to 4 people at a time while women might be hovering above 6. It would be alarming to see that individuals are apprehensive in talking to people sharing same profession or interests. The information which is exchanged online is more related to people’s own lives rather than any other fruitful knowledge. Individuals restrain from sharing information regarding their job or work online which does not help in analyzing their correct professional details. Further no comments can be made on a person’s performance or skill sets.

Whether the social media tool will be successful in adhering to the corporate guidelines is still a question which is open for discussions. In order to extract benefits out of this system, we need to eradicate the obstacles at the ground level.

Shady sides of Social Networking Arena:

Discussions around career development or honing one’s skills are seldom found in the various chatrooms or scraps. As a recruiter one would be able to extract very limited information on an individual’s candidature which most of the times leads to incorrect decision making. The profile of many individuals seems to hide the useful information and often carries plane garbage. This leads to a lot of confusions and many times resulting in delays and unjustifiable decisions.

Information on checking the Candidate’s whereabouts:

Assuming that a recruiter has finally shortlisted few candidates based on his assumptions and information provided on a networking site. The challenge lies here is on the verification of information collected to assess an individual’s background. There are very few resources like LinkedIn to rely upon to confirm the details shared by an individual in his profile. It is advisable to be more cautious on relying on social media at this point.

Recruiters need to really work hard on totally relying on social media to be the best solution for sourcing and recruitment for organizations. There has to be a certain change in the information shared at these sites which can be utilized by potential organizations or recruters for their benefit.

Learn more about social networking for recruiters. Stop by Amit Bhagria’s site where you can find out all about social networking tools and what it can do for you.

Tweet This Post

Tags: career, Career & Employment, careers, employment, HR, Human Resource, Human Resource Development, Human Resource Management, human resources, jobs, Recruitment Strategy, Recruitment tools, Social Networking Recruitment

Posted by Amit Bhagria Blogging, Career & Employment, Global Economy, oBabyBoomer!  Subscribe to RSS feed