Using social media sites to source candidates

 

Using Social Media platforms for recruitment purpose become a trend in nowadays and over the past few years companies are using social media platform for make their recruitment and selection process more efficiency.

The aim is select the perfect fit for the job role through, gathering more data about the applicants' competences and and personality traits. As the cost of hiring wrong employees are high and companies need to make sure they are hiring the correct fit and because of that they have move to using the social media platform as strategic tool to recruit candidates to achieve competitive advantage. As per the many authors, they see social media as a best practice. 

As companies are dealing with employee turn over very badly, companies are trying to reduce the cost of recruiting by better selecting methods. Companies need to ensure the information related to the candidates previous experience, skills, and personality traits, in order to predict future outcomes.

 Therefore, recruiters, using social media to collect details such as, Skills, contacts, address, professional background, and interests. Social media may reveal data regarding creative abilities, teamwork, communication skills, as well as confirming interview data.

As per the current situation, most of the recruiters are using LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter etc. for find the better candidates for the relevant vacancies. As per the 2024 statistics, LinkedIn has the 1 Billion active users globally. And also, 3 new members sign up for LinkedIn every second. LinkedIn registered an annual revenue of over $15 billion in the 1st quarter of fiscal year 2024.LinkedIn has 36 offices globally and is available in 200 countries and territories (J. Degenhard,2024).

As per the statistics, Facebook is the most popular network worldwide as of Jan, 2024 with monthly 1 million active users. While LinkedIn is more used to evaluate professional skills, Facebook analyses are more focused on the candidates’ soft skills and how they would fit into the organization (Stacy Jo Dixon,2024).

As per the researchers, the Facebook profile is the first interview between the organization and the candidates  and there is a chance that, “if you don’t like a person there, you probably won’t like working with them”. And also, nowadays, most headhunters are using the LinkedIn platform to find the best fit for the organization and they can get more professional information related to the candidate through their LinkedIn profile. On the other hand, the information found on the profile can also be used by the recruiter “to guide the interview and lead conversations” as well as, “to build connection” And also, in some cases, through social media can evaluate the candidates who are geographically distant.

 Legal and Ethical Considerations

Using social media in selection process, can see many legal and ethical question. Firstly, the “potential for discrimination” has been a concern, since “in the western world, discrimination on the grounds of such things as gender, age, marital status, race, disability and so on are illegal in employment” Recruiter can see these data can be checked through the social media profile and these data influence their decision.

Legally it is difficult to define the “boundaries of privacy”. Some courts defend candidates' right of privacy, and others defend that “individuals accept the risk that personal information will go public when they communicate with other people” 

As per the the General Data Protection Regulation, they have predicted heavy fines for the inappropriate use of personals data, “fines could reach €10 million or 2% of the company’s

annual turnover globally”.

As another issue of recruiting through social media is , when accessing the candidates data whether employers should ask the candidates permission or inform them when accessing their social media profile.

On the other hand, it is difficult to access the validity of data which collected through social media, it may be inaccurate or distorted. “in an effort to be humorous or more accepted at a particular point in time” or this use by the applicant to manipulate perceptions of others.

Things to avoid on Social Media

As per the many recruiters, they claim that type of contact they found on social media influences their decisions and leads to the rejection of some applicant. Therefore, due to a inappropriate information published in their profiles applicants, to be aware that they may loose a job. Applicants need to be considered on below,

• Provocative or inappropriate photographs
• Information about drinking or using drugs
• Discriminatory remarks related to race, gender, religion
• Criminal behavior
• Lying about qualifications
• Badmouthing a previous company or fellow employees
• Poor communication skills

Best practices which selected for candidates

Many companies are currently feel necessity for the job applicants to own a social media account. Therefor, first step of the candidate is creating a social media profile to appearing active on the internet.

Candidates can displaying some interest on music, books, among other activities as a strategy to show “show openness to experience".

In order seem that they are knowledgeable to the employer, the applicant might share contents related to the professional, as remarkable facts or “inspirational quotes from business leaders” in their profiles.

Applicant need to be cautious of what to share in the profile. Applicant should avoid publishing inappropriate content.

Candidates it is better to limit the the audience who can see what they post and share by using the privacy settings of their social media profile.

Selected Best Practices for Companies

As social media information does not give the full picture of the the candidate, Employers should be careful about how they perceive the information found on social networks.

companies should balance if the potential benefits and risks involved are worth the legal problems they might face, before using the social media screening.

As new technology laws are being adapted and impact to the several number of domains, HR department need to be aware when hiring candidates through social media about federal and international legislation regarding the use of social media.

The responsible for collecting the social media data should not be doing by the same person that makes the hiring decision, to ensure that information such as age, sex, religion, among others, that might lead to discrimination, cannot influence the final decision.

As a screening tool, by asking the permission or give warning applicants regarding the use of social media, companies should be transparent during the recruitment process. Companies should create a formal policy, in which all procedures are “carefully documented, to create a paper trail that evidences the organization’s decision-making process in relation to social media” (Hoek, J., O’Kane, P., McCracken,2016).

Advantages and Disadvantages of recruiting candidates through social media,

Advantages

As per the research of Zippia, 84% of organizations recruit via social media. Below some of the advantages we can see,

• Can be posted the Job listing quickly.

• There is no initial cost for the recruitments.

• When someone within our network shares pur listing, social media can act as a Refferel Service.

• Once opening published on Social Media, opening may reach passive jobseekers who are not actively searching for vacancies.

Disadvantages

As every coin has flip side, recruiting through social media alaos has its drabacks such as,

• Online Profiles can be unrelaible.Always recruitmnet team will not get the full picture from someone’s profile and may miss the pertinent information if someone hasn’t updated their profile in a while.

• May limited by character constraints. Some channels in teh social media limit how much content can say or share in a post.

• Message doesn't always reach the right audience.

• There are lot of fraudulent job listings. Social media job listings also include unscrupulous schemes which will steal  money and personal information from unsuspecting job seekers.

• Social media can feed into the biases. If there is an interesting candidate, check out her/his Tiktok and discover that she holds a certain opinion. If not look at his/her Instagram account and discover he or she  spends his free time doing something we think is boring.

• To find the correct candidate may take a lot of work. Once open the job vacancy in social media, inbox need to be opened to everyone. It takes time to select the relevant candidates and weed out those who aren’t qualified to the company’s personality and priorities.

Conclusion:

Using social media for recruitment purpose is effective recruitment strategy for hiring managers and this approach expands recruitment teams reach to larger pool of potential candidates. This need to be used carefully and consideration with the advantages and also the disadvantages which brings to the company. Anyhow, it is cost effective and help to save the time.

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