Do you think that the organizations have to wait for sometime before judging the real worth of social media? Social networking is helping recruiters to find the best people from the market. So do you suggest on replacing social networking to other recruitment tools which are been used in the industry?
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.
Social networking have been successful to a handful of recruiters but that doesn’t mean it would be beneficial to all. Organizations need to figure out the answer to whether is it the right time to diverge from conventional tools to social networking approach as more and more recruiters preach and confirm social networking to be the best solution in the market these days.
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
When a recruiter goes online on any social networking site, he carries a presumption that he is interacting with a big resource of professionals. He further thinks that if there is a commonality amongst them, they tend to connect with each other more. To understand this to a greater extent let us study what people think when they come or interact with people on the internet.
Thought that goes in people’s mind when they join social networking websites:
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.
The usage behavior here suggests us that:
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.
The study above influences our decision and challenges us to revisit and analyze whether it is beneficial to judge people on the various so called social networking sites. Much deeper study is required before declaring this tool to be complete in all aspects.
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.
What are the steps to search for right information about the candidates?
Based on the information available online, we shortlist few people who might fit into our criteria. Now how do you check whether the details are true and real. May be you can look through LinkedIn etc where that person probably have uploaded his resume otherwise it is certainly very difficult to judge at this point in time.
In order to make social media strategy work for our benefit, correct and real information needs to be floated online. Till the time this gap is there our relying on this medium is highly under a question mark.
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.
