Communications of the ACM
Nearly 10% of Lateral Hires Occur Via Social Networking Sites
Credit: The Economic Times (India)
Within India, social networking sites are emerging as an important source of new hiring talent for technology companies. HR managers are increasingly investigating networking sites like Facebook, Orkut and LinkedIn to weigh the merits of profiles as they search for the right candidates for their organizations. Workers who diligently record every achievement at work find that their social networking profiles can attract employer attention. Recruitment managers, for example, may send a message in reference to new job opportunities that have opened up. Social networking is the latest evolution of recruiting, where word-of-mouth is making way for peer group recommendation. In fact, over the past 12 months, almost 10% of all lateral hires of experienced professionals happened via these sites.
In some cases, Indian recruiters trust these social networking Web sites enough even to look for CIO-level candidates, country directors, product managers and marketing directors. In India, LinkedIn has seen a three-fold increase in membership in the last 12 months, and is setting up a local office. In short, business-oriented social networking sites provide instant credibility to a professional's profile, with the referrals and recommendations of the person. TCS, India's largest tech company, has almost 3% of all hires coming from such media, specifically LinkedIn and Facebook. Industry players reckon that almost 15-20% of lateral hires could come from social networking sites in the next couple of years. Companies are also tapping Twitter to look for talent and encourage passive job seeker candidates to apply. Recruiters describe social networking sites as a more realistic, as well as less intrusive, environment to locate top candidates.
From The Economic Times (India)
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