November 4th, 2009 by Amit Bhagria

How much social media or networking helping organizations to hire talented people? We find many recruiters nowadays effectively using social networking for hiring the best people for an organization. Now the question which needs to be answered is on whether this social networking can replace other recruiting tools.

The recruiters of today find social networking very attractive and the best way to source and hire people for the organization. But we still need to find out the true potential which lies in using social media for recruitment.

Only very few recruiters have been successful using social media to hire the best talent for an organization. Hence its overall benefits and success rate needs to be judged and figured out by the organizations and recruiters as well. I have seen many recruiters praising the method of social networking as one of the most remarkable solutions in comparison to the older conventional tools available in the industry 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.

Psychology of the Recruiter or Head Hunter:

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.

Why do people want to get involved in talking to others via social media?

People look forward to stay in touch and connect with their friends. Most of the people interact through various social mediums to build strong and long term connections with their offline friends. They also look forward in gaining value by sharing information and their networks with others. Most of the individuals talk about their personal lives and very few indulge in career related activities or sharing their future aspirations with others. There are various dedicated sites on developing great career prospects however for our current discussion, I would like to keep them out of it.

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

The connection strength is quite huge in comparison to an individual’s network.

Men responses are less if we compare it to any women. Six or more will be an average number of people with whom a female will be interacting while a man would manage to handle four at any point in time. The mixing of people with common background or profession is seen less as major talk revolves around sharing personal details and achievements. You are also not able to judge where that individual is working or what are his qualifications as people tend to avoid mentioning such details on their social networking profile. You are also not sure whether he has been successful in his profession or what his current employment status is till date.

The observation above forces us to rethink on the benefits of social networking in the professional arena. However what can be concluded from here is that we are going to face lot of challenges in using it as a complete recruiting tool.

Aspects of Social Medium which needs to be disclosed:

Hardly have we come across people chatting on how they will like their career to be or what competencies they need to build upon for future growth. Location details can be found but beyond this you really have to work hard to take out information. The only way left is to scrutinize and shortlist people on the basis of the information which is available. The consultant at times rejects people as they are not smart or are more fun lovers as perceived from their personal photographs attached to their profiles. This may lead to rejecting worthy guys and which is not appropriately justified.

How Do You Verify Online Details Of Candidates?

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.

Efforts and work needs to be done at both ends in order to take decisions on the social media information. Whether this would be the next generation recruitment tool, I am doubtful.

Want to find out more about social networking for recruiters, then visit Amit Bhagria’s site on how to choose the best social networking tools for all your hiring needs.

career, Careers, employment, HR, Human Resource, Human Resource Development, Human Resource Management, human resources, jobs, Recruitment Strategy, Recruitment tools, Social Networking Recruitment