The role of social media networks in recruitement

Presented to:
Andrew Walker
Grenoble Ecole de Management
Submitted by:
Ahmed El.Sheikh
Grenoble Ecole de Management
The role of Social Networking Sites in
Recruitment - The Case of Egypt
(Source: http://alleecreative.com/blog/2013/05/05)

1
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1 Executive Summary......................................................................................................4
2 Introduction...................................................................................................................5
2.1 The concept of Social Networking Sites (SNSs).................................................5
2.2 Research objectives and research gap ...............................................................8
2.3 Research questions ..............................................................................................9
3 Methodology................................................................................................................10
3.1 Secondary Research - Literature Reviewing: ...................................................10
3.2 Primary Research Structure – Online Questionnaire:......................................13
4 Literature Review ........................................................................................................14
4.1 Web 2.0.................................................................................................................16
4.1.1 Web 2.0 – A business necessity .....................................................................19
4.1.2 HR@Web 2.0..................................................................................................20
4.1.3 What’s in it for recruiters? ...............................................................................22
4.1.4 What’s in it for job seekers?............................................................................24
4.1.5 Employer Branding @ Web 2.0 ......................................................................25
4.2 Social HR..............................................................................................................27
4.2.1 Gamification....................................................................................................27
4.2.2 Social Recruitment & Employer Branding.......................................................28

2
4.2.3 Employee Engagement...................................................................................29
4.2.4 Skill Development ...........................................................................................29
4.2.5 Performance Management .............................................................................29
4.3 Recruitment .................................................................... Erreur ! Signet non défini.
4.3.1 Is it obsolete?..................................................................................................30
4.3.2 Recruitment Practices & Channels .................................................................31
4.3.3 Latest Recruitment Trends & Challenges .......................................................33
4.4 Social media Recruitment...................................................................................34
4.4.1 Attraction.........................................................................................................34
4.4.2 Screening & Selection.....................................................................................35
4.4.3 Onboarding .....................................................................................................36
4.4.4 Best Practices.................................................................................................37
4.5 Social media Opportunities & Risks..................................................................39
4.5.1 Benefits...........................................................................................................39
4.5.2 Barriers to Implementation..............................................................................41
4.6 Global talent market............................................................................................45
4.6.1 Generational – what’s different about this generation?...................................45
4.6.2 Passive Candidates ........................................................................................47
4.7 Egypt ....................................................................................................................49
4.7.1 Overview.........................................................................................................49

3
4.7.2 Internet Infrastructure in Egypt........................................................................51
4.7.3 Social media ...........................................................Erreur ! Signet non défini.
4.7.4 Egypt’s Addiction to Facebook........................................................................53
4.7.5 Egyptian Talent Market ...................................................................................54
4.8 Summary..............................................................................................................55
5 Report of Findings ......................................................................................................56
6 Significance of Findings.............................................................................................77
7 Conclusion & Recommendations..............................................................................78
7.1 Implications to recruiters: ..................................................................................79
7.2 Implications to companies: ................................................................................79
7.3 Implications to job seekers: ...............................................................................81
7.4 Research Limitations ..........................................................................................81
7.5 Areas for Future Research: ................................................................................82
8 Bibliography................................................................................................................82
9 Appendices..................................................................................................................95

4
1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate the role of Social Networking Sites in the
Recruitment process, with special focus on the Egyptian market. In the past, social media
has been studied mostly in relation to its role in driving political changes or marketing
campaigns. This thesis however, will take a closer look at this relatively new practice of using
Social Networking Sites in “Recruitment”, in order to evaluate its diffusion and effectiveness
within recruiters’ community.
The study is guided with key research questions, the purpose of which is to obtain a
comprehensive evaluation of the various aspects related to integrating social media in
Recruitment. These include identifying the rationale behind its use, the way it’s deployed and
the impact it has on HR performance metrics. Moreover, the case of Egypt was analyzed in
greater depth. In order to evaluate all these issues and address the research questions, a
framework was built around three of the most relevant areas of theoretical literature: (1)
Social media, (2) Recruitment, and(3) Talent Management.
In addition to the previously mentioned areas, the study is further supported with additional
literature on generational expectations, market trends and the key characteristics of the
Egyptian market.
The findings of this study were collected using a comprehensive quantitative survey targeting
Egyptian human resources professionals and recruiters, from various industries and sectors.
The response rate achieved was approximately 10% with a total of 83 respondents
completing the survey. Hence, the sample size was relatively sufficient and quite
representative of a cross-industry population.
Amongst the survey key findings were that the great majority of surveyed recruiters are
already using Social Networking Sites in Recruitment. Moreover, it is chosen as the most
favored Recruitment channel, as there was quite a strong consensus that its application
significantly improves (reduces) cost and time associated with Recruitment.

5
Key Words: HR 2.0, Social Networking Sites, Recruitment, Recruitment 2.0, Social
Recruiting, HR in Egypt, Recruitment in Egypt, Social Recruiting in Egypt.
2 INTRODUCTION
Social media plays a key role in our lives. It is described as a “free participation that allows
(communities) to get engaged and build genuine relationship[s]” (Narvey, 2009). Companies
are investing billions of dollars not only to strengthen their presence on the internet but also
to increase their likelihood of turning up among the first search results produced from a
decent search engine like Google, and thanks to “Search Engine Optimization Techniques”
this has already become a running business, the ultimate objective is to ensure companies’
products and brands are presented where their customers expect them to be, whether offline
or online, HR is trying to catch up with that huge evolution in the way business in conducted,
by revisiting their current attraction and Recruitment strategies to make sure it suits this new
context.
2.1 The concept of Social Networking Sites (SNSs)
As a start it’s important to highlight the terminological challenge ‘social media’ and ‘Social
Networking Sites’ the two are being used almost interchangeably; traditionally the term
“social network” has been used more often than “social media” (See exhibit 1)
Exhibit 1: Social media Terminologies (Google.com, 2014)

6
Social networks initial objective was facilitating communications among individual users, but
as soon as it established its effectiveness as a communication tool, its role evolved to
publishing and disseminating information as well, challenging / disrupting the traditional
publishing industry (See exhibit 2), at this point social networks communicated not only about
“individuals” but also about “what’s happening in the world” which marked the shift from
literally being a ‘social network’ to an ‘information network’ (ReferralCandy, 2013).
Exhibit 2: Social media = Social Networks + Publishing (ReferralCandy, 2013).
Social Networking Sites (SNSs) are defined as any web-based application that allows
individuals to communicate, connect and collaborate with each another. This is done via user
profiles that enable users to share information and join networks based on their geographic
location or interests (White et al, 2009).
SNSs have become a remarkable social and cultural phenomenon in our world; the main
purpose of these websites is to connect people, based on common language, shared

7
interests, activities and political views. These sites generally help in developing relationships
that goes beyond cultural, social, racial, political, and geographical barriers.
SNSs greatly impacted social interactions between both individuals and communities, either
locally or internationally. In addition to traditional online activities like searching for
information and sending e-mails, SNSs have successfully established itself as one of the
most popular online activities. The solid proof of success for these websites is justified by
the ever-increasing number of people joining them everywhere around the world (Arora,
2008a, b). Globally, there are hundreds of Social Networking Sites, if not thousands,
supporting a wide range of interests, causes and activities. In this study I will focus primarily
on the most reputable Social Networking Sites include Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. While
there are design differences between these sites, the basic components are the same yet
investigating in further details the differences between these various tools is beyond the
scope of this study (Smith, 2010), below is a high level definition of the main Social
Networking Sites:
Facebook – a SNS where users create personal profiles, add their friends and exchange
posts and messages, users can also join groups of common interest, as well as sending
instant messages to friends through the website (Institute For Employment Studies, 2013).
LinkedIn – a professional SNS used for networking on business-related topics, where users
can build their own list of people with whom they have some level of relationship or
“connection”. This list / network enable users to follow different company offerings and apply
for jobs (Institute For Employment Studies, 2013).
Twitter – a microblogging site enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to
140 characters, called “tweets”, users may also subscribe to other users’ tweets (Institute
For Employment Studies, 2013).

8
2.2 Research objectives and research gap
The main objective of this study is to analyze and evaluate the role of Social Networking
Sites in the Recruitment process and its feasibility as a reliable Recruitment channel in the
Egyptian market, a country that has used social media in a very special way to ignite its
revolution in 2011 and continues to put a lot of emphasis on using SNSs for various social
and political matters, hence the fundamental areas to explore are the extent to which it is
being used in Recruitment, in which way/s recruiters are using it and what benefits it brings
to them.
Generally speaking, the high popularity and rapid development of SNSs made it a key topic
for scholars, researchers, corporate professionals and even ordinary people. It’s likely that
these social tools will continue to play an increasingly visible role in our lives while also
raising many questions about their future applications and potential.
While there is already some existing research on this topic, even with very similar focus and
objectives (see e.g. Institute For Employment Studies, 2013), the main focus of previous
research in general remained focused on the application of these powerful tools either on
politics or commercial fronts; on ProQuest database for example there are about 1,571,099
search results for the key word “Social media” and 130,025 search results for “Social
Networking Sites” compared to only 70,917 search results for the more specific / HR related
key words like “Social Recruiting” and 32,552 for “Social Network Recruiting” (Proquest.com,
2014).
To further emphasize the lack of existing literature analyzing this practice, in my literature
review I came across a study conducted in 2008 about Recruitment and selection practices
in Egypt, and it was a little surprising not to find anything mentioned about the integration of
SNSs in HR processes, while at the same year “Google Trends” was showing high
frequencies in the use of key words like “Social Networking Sites” and “Social Recruiting”
worldwide (Google.com, 2014 – See Appendices 1 & 2).
Overall, I have identified the following points as the main gaps in existing literature produced
in that respect:

9
- Previous research has mainly investigated the role of SNSs in marketing products or
services but not much on its HR applications – see for example “Social media
Marketing” (Evans, D, 2010).
- Previous research either took a global view or stayed focused on developed countries
like the USA and UK and not much on developing countries – see for example “Should
HR Managers use social media to screen job applicants” (Ross Slovensky, William H.
Ross, 2012).
- Previous research has focused more on measuring the integration / diffusion of social
media tools in HR, but not on quantitatively measuring the performance of these tools
against a clearly defined set of HR KPIs – see for example “Social Networking
Websites and Recruiting/Selection Survey” (Shrm.org, 2013).
- Previous research in the Middle East and particularly in the Egyptian case has mainly
focused on the impact of SNSs on social and political dimensions. For example its
role in the Arab Spring; but not much on its professional applications at large – see
for example “Arab Social media Report” (Arab Social media Report, 2011).
2.3 Research questions
In order to clearly define the research scope and create more specific focus on the previously
defined research objectives and gap, three research questions were developed. These
questions are customized to reflect the specifically identified issues in the presentation of the
research objectives and gap.
RQ1: What is level of diffusion of Social Networking Sites in the Recruitment practice
in Egypt?
The overall objectives of this question it to see how popular this practice is within recruiters’
community in Egypt, also if there is any variance in application related to the difference in
organizational scope or industry, therefore this question is not expected to investigate the
practice outside “Egypt” or compare it to other countries in the region or globally.
RQ2: Have Social Networking Sites helped the Recruitment function improve its
performance against its established KPIs?

10
The objective here is to try to quantitatively measure the impact (favorable / unfavorable) of
this practice on the key performance indicators of the Recruitment function.
RQ3: What are the specific uses of Social Networking Sites in the different stages of
the Recruitment process?
The objective here is to more closely look into the specific applications of social networking
tools, which HR activities are likely to be performed using these tools.
3 METHODOLOGY
In conducting my exploratory research I used a mix of secondary and primary research
methods, as follows:
3.1 Secondary Research - Literature Reviewing
The main purpose of writing a literature review is to demonstrate sufficient knowledge about
the research topic, including vocabulary, trends, key variables and theories. (Gall, Borg, and
Gall, 1996) argue that the literature review plays a role in:
• Delimiting the research problem.
• Seeking new lines of inquiry.
• Avoiding fruitless approaches.
• Gaining methodological insights.
• Identifying recommendations for further research.
• Seeking support for grounded theory.
Building on the above listed measures I have defined my research outlines as follows:
Scope:

11
- In my research, I’m looking at Social Networking Sites (SNSs) and particularly focusing
on the most popular sites - mainly LinkedIn, Facebook & Twitter.
- Egypt is the target country of this study, hence any comparisons with other countries in
the region or globally is beyond the scope of this research.
- As it’s a rapidly evolving topic, I was very keen in choosing the most recent literature
sources for my research, hence not considering literature sources earlier than 2004.
- In the first part of my study, I was mainly looking for broad / generic literature,
addressing trends in Social media and HR in general, but as I focus more on the
Egyptian case I become more specific by looking for relevant insights from the country.
- I was only considering literatures written in English since most academic research on
this topic are already in English, even those literature published in Egypt.
Strategy:
- Social media has various applications and uses, it also has various factors affecting
it, and hence I needed to clearly identify specific angles / dimensions to consider when
studying it, as follows:
• Technological (IT & SNSs).
• Generational (Millennials).
• Professional (HR & Talent Management).
• Geographical (Egypt).
- My sources of literature for secondary research mainly came from:
• Academic Journals e.g. Emerald, EBSCO & ProQuest.
• Online Articles & Blogs.

12
- In order to keep track of articles, websites and ideas I used an offline binder as well
as an online one “Evernote” which I found easy and simple to use in keeping track of
online articles and readings.
Keywords:
Defining the right keywords is critical to getting the relevant literature for any research study,
in my case it was a challenging task, since the topic is being referred to in many different
ways on the web and it’s being looked at from different dimensions. For example, while some
literature was clearly referenced under typical HR or Social media topics others were more
difficult to find, covered under keywords like “online collaboration” or even political literature
like “The Arab Spring”. Below mentioned are some of the main keywords used for my
literature review:
Social media, Social media Networks, Online Recruitment, Recruiting via Social media, HR,
HR 2.0, Web 2.0, Recruitment, Talent Management, Recruitment 2.0, Employer Branding,
Employer Branding on Social media, The Role of Social media in HR, The Role of Social
media in Recruitment, Social Recruitment, Employer Branding, The Millennials Generation,
HR in Egypt, Social media in Egypt, Online Recruitment in Egypt, IT in Egypt.
Challenges:
- There is a huge volume of information on the web speaking about social media and
its applications, especially that there’s no standardized / clear “vocabulary” when
speaking about this topic. For examples some articles would refers to it as “Social
media” while others would use “Social Networks” and in many cases the two words
were used interchangeably.
- A particular challenge is regarding the very nature of the topic itself, being “not purely
academic” which meant that information about it was not necessarily found in
traditional sources of academic reference and publications but in fact many
information was on the web itself, written by bloggers or just normal users who have
been experimenting with Social media.

13
- The topic is “new” and still emerging, hence some of the information found on it has
not been fully validated or tested on large scale and remains to be based on “limited
evidence” which poses a challenge on the reliability of this information.
- As the topic could be regarded as a professional topic rather than purely academic,
most of its development is actually in the hands of HR professionals in the corporate
world rather than academic researchers, which meant that those professionals and
their employers would have a tendency to only share information about success
stories rather than failures in order to maintain company’s reputation.
3.2 Primary Research Structure – Online Questionnaire
Given that the use of SNSs in HR is a relatively a new practice to the world and even more
new to Egypt, it was logical to develop a diagnostic survey to evaluate its diffusion and
application in Egypt by HR professionals, hence I developed a quantitative questionnaire (26
questions) using Qualtrics website, a pilot questionnaire was sent to 5 HR professionals to
test the clarity of the questions, its format and the functionality of all its options. The feedback
was then collected and synthesized to produce the final version of the survey which was
deployed to all respondents.
Survey invitations were sent between February 2014 and March 2014 to more than 850 HR
Professionals in Egypt, invitations were sent via LinkedIn network, targeting Egyptian HR
professionals “specifically recruiters” (El.Sheikh, 2014 - See Appendix 29).
Data collection began by compiling lists of companies operating in Egypt from various Online
Business Directories like (Egypt-business.com, 2014) and trade directories like
(Egtrade.com, 2014), ensuring that all key industries and sectors are represented, I then
used the advanced search option of LinkedIn to identify and get in touch with HR
professionals working in these companies, once found, a personalized invitation message
was sent to each of them detailing the purpose of the survey and ensuring the confidentiality
of responses.
The limitation of this approach is that it relied totally on the use of LinkedIn as a medium to
distribute the survey hence survey results are not representative of those who are not at all

14
present on this network, but given the fact that I was conducting the survey while overseas
it was more feasible for me, especially that LinkedIn is already the first “professional network”
in the world and in Egypt and it seemed that many HR professionals from target companies
are present in it, having said that it’s worth highlighting that we need to make a clear
distinction between being present in any given SNS and using it for “professional purposes”
like Recruitment for example.
Survey questions were covering the following areas:
- Demographics of respondents and their respective organizations.
- Presence of social media in their Recruitment strategy.
- Reasons for usage / non usage of SNSs.
- Type of SNSs used.
- Effectiveness of SNSs vis-à-vis other Recruitment tools.
- Benefits of using SNSs in Recruitment (its performance against Recruitment KPIs).
- Readiness and confidence of HR staff to use SNSs for professional purposes.
- Type of information sought by recruiters in candidate social profiles.
The questionnaire was reduced in length to be answered within a reasonable time frame,
complete responses were collected from 83 respondents (response rate 10%) representing
various backgrounds and industries in Egypt.
4 LITERATURE REVIEW
The key point for the theoretical part of the study is to identify the most relevant themes and
trends linked to the concept of Recruitment via SNSs in Egypt, while there are multiple
sources of literature linking to this topic, this literature review section will focus on eight
dominant themes of relevance to the predefined research questions: Web 2.0, Social HR,
Social media in HR, Recruitment, Social media Recruitment, Social media Opportunities &
Risks, Global Talent Market & Egypt.
In his book “Digital Economy” Don Tapscott describes the Age of Network Intelligence as a
revolutionizing phenomenon powered by: the advancement in human communications,
computing (computers & software) and content (entertainment, publishing & multiple
information providers) these forces together create the interactive multimedia / information
highway, forcing us to rethink conventional definitions of economy, business organizations

15
& wealth creation in general. In this new economic model information technology will play a
greater role in increasing organizational knowledge, productivity and effectiveness, Tapscott
identified twelve characteristics that are evident in this new economy (Tapscott, 1996).
Knowledge: With knowledge comes power, knowledge will become the primary driver in
this new economy and all other factors would become secondary, this will change the way
organizations look at their employees from numbers “headcount” on their payroll to
capabilities and knowledge.
Digitization: The development in information technology will make it possible for knowledge
to be stored in digital forms, facilitated by the digital devices which will then enable its free
movement between people and institutions in different parts of the world, in the shortest time
possible.
Virtualization: In the new economy converting tangible elements into “virtual” will become a
common practice which will have implications on economic activities as well as social
relationships.
Molecularization: It is the ‘light organization’ that will be able to survive in this new economy
while the ‘heavy organization’ will disappear for its inability to adapt in response to the
changing dynamics around it.
Integration/Internetworking: Small companies will be able to flourish under the working
conditions of the new economy, as they will be able to have access to sources that was only
accessible to large organizations in the past, moreover they will not be burdened by
unnecessary costs and bureaucratic structures. At macro level, the entire economy will
benefit as all market players - customers, suppliers, competitors, etc. will be connected and
work on integrated systems to survive and create value.
Disintermediation: The role of the middleman will almost disappear in the new economy
as businesses will become directly connected / interactively with their customers through
technological applications. If the middleman is to survive, he will need to create / add value
to the process or else face extinction.

16
Convergence: The new economy will be shaped by the continuous convergence of
computing, communications and content, which will jointly create the interactive multimedia
platforms on which the new economy will rely.
Innovation: The new economy human imagination / creativity aided by information
technology are the main sources of value creation. The challenge foe business will be in
creating a working culture that encourages and recognizes innovation.
Prosumption: The traditional economic model of the past was based on mass production,
in the new economy it’s based on mass customization. Thus consumers will communicate
their specifications to producers and collaboratively they will develop products and services
that are more relevant.
Immediacy: Customer information and expectations are higher and can only accept
exceptional service, including shorter lead times between placing an order and receiving it.
Globalization: According to Peter Drucker, “Knowledge knows no boundaries”. Thus there
is no longer the concept of local / private knowledge, in the digital economy; knowledge has
become a global resource driven by new technology.
Discordance: Like the case with all change initiative comes resistance, in the digital
economy the gap between the technologically literate 'haves' and those who do not have
access to technology 'have-nots' is going to be wider, causing significant problems to society
in future.
4.1 Web 2.0
There are many definitions for Web 2.0 but I chose this one from Webopedia which I believe
makes it very simple and clear for the non-technical reader “Web 2.0 is the term given to
describe a second generation of the World Wide Web that is focused on the ability for people
to collaborate and share information online” (Webopedia.com, 2014)
In September 2005, the concept of "Web 2.0" emerged from a brainstorming conference
between O'Reilly and MediaLive International. In that conference it was concluded that the

17
web has become more important than ever, with new applications and exciting sites being
developed regularly. It was also noted that the companies that survived the dot-com collapse
had some things in common that kept them from alive, those features defined the turning
point for the web "Web 2.0".
Just in the year and a half following the establishment of "Web 2.0" as a concept, it has
accumulated more than 9.5 million citations in Google. Yet there's still a clear disagreement
about just what “Web 2.0” exactly means, with some people even claiming that it’s nothing
but another meaningless marketing buzzword, and others regarding it just as a new
conventional wisdom.
A valid question would be what exactly makes us classify one web application as "Web 1.0"
and another as "Web 2.0"? in fact this question is particularly important because many of
those “buzzword-addicted” startups would like to brand their applications as Web 2.0, but in
fact it’s definitely not. The famous Netscape vs. Google example could be a good way to
demonstrate the difference.
Netscape representing Web 1.0 and Google most certainly representing Web 2.0; Netscape
regarded the web as "platform", their main product was the web browser, and their strategy
was to build on their strong position in the browser market to develop the market for high-
priced server products. Netscape sat the rules and standards and exercised full control in
deciding what content and applications to be displayed (O'Reilly, T. 2009).
This “theoretically” gave Netscape the kind of dominance enjoyed by Microsoft in the PC
market, and after the courageous move, Netscape promoted "webtop" to replace the
desktop, and the plan was to fill it with information and updates pushed by information
providers who would purchase Netscape servers. What happened is that both web browsers
and web servers eventually commoditized.
Google, on the other hand, evolved as a native web application, never packaged or sold as
a traditional software application, hence no scheduled software version updates/releases,
just ongoing improvements and no licensing or sale, just usage. Google positioned itself

18
clearly as a service provider, with customers paying for using its services either directly or
indirectly.
Google had a key competency that Netscape never had or needed, that’s “database
management”. Google isn't just running a collection of tools; it's a highly sophisticated /
specialized database. For Google, data and tools complement each other without the data,
the tools are useless and without the tools, the data is unmanageable. Google defined its
value between web browser, search engine and the destination content server by acting as
a competent facilitator or middleman between the web user and his or her online experience.
As a conclusion, while both Netscape and Google classify as software companies, it's clear
that Netscape belonged to the old software era with Microsoft & Lotus and others who got
their start in software revolution of the 1980's, while Google's belongs to the new generation
of companies like Amazon, eBay and DoubleClick (O'Reilly, T. 2009).
Below table provides further examples to illustrate the difference between Web 1.0 & Web
2.0:
Exhibit 3: Web 1.0 Vs. Web 2.0 (O'Reilly, T. 2009).

19
4.1.1 WEB 2.0 – A BUSINESS NECESSITY
“Two years ago, if anyone had asked you if corporations like IBM would be holding customer
conferences on the virtual reality Web site Second Life, or if Ernst & Young would be one of
the most popular “faces” on the social networking site Facebook, or if Johnson & Johnson
would take up blogging to engage new moms, you would probably have thought, “no way.”
Yet, that is exactly what’s happening.” (Kreitzberg, 2009, pp. 41)
The term Web 2.0 is widely used to describe the social web, which has rapidly become an
important part of our daily lives, the key difference between Web 2.0 and Web 1.0 is the way
it engages with the audience, in the recent past, communication used to be “sender-based”
where companies told their customers what they wanted them to know rather than what
customers really needed to know, hence customers played almost no role neither in the
making of these communication messages nor in evaluating them, Web 2.0 marks the
introduction of a new era “receiver-based” where the audience work collaboratively in
creating the message as well as evaluating its relevance and success in meeting their
objectives.
Web 2.0 refers to a new generation of internet technologies and platforms that includes
blogs; Social Networking Sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter as well as other
content communities like YouTube and Flicker. The underlying theme behind these new tools
is that their business model is built around promoting collaboration and communication
among users. A recent survey conducted by McKinsey & Company on internet technologies
revealed that two-thirds of respondents mentioned that Web 2.0 plays an important role in
determining their company’s market position, and that it is highly regarded as a source of
competitive edge (Leary, 2012).
Hence, it’s fair to say that Web 2.0 has significantly changed the way many companies
operate and communicate with their audiences; in fact the change went well beyond the way
they communicated about their products or services to building mutual relationships, hence
making a company’s success in building strong mutual relationship with customers a key
determinant of its overall success. Yet we should also highlight that while this is the case for
many companies, still in many cases Web 2.0 applications are being demanded by the
people “push” rather than companies applying it themselves “pull”, in fact many companies

20
still prefer to remain within the confines of their comfort zone while their customers or
applicants are consistently pushing for better customer service and quality.
From an internal perspective, Web2.0 has also changed the way employees communicate
and interact inside companies, consequently organizations regardless of size or industry
were expected to integrate this technology in their working practices, by creating working
cultures where transparency and open communication are highly encouraged, yet
organizations are still going slowly in that direction, mainly struggling to find concrete
answers for basic questions like:
- How the use of Web 2.0 can increase revenues?
- How to effectively use it to engage with customers and employees?
- How to use it to recruit, develop and retain talent?
- How to promote and protect organization brand online?
This proves the point that a lot of research is still required to provide solid answers to
businesses and encourage them to move forward in that direction.
4.1.2 HR@WEB 2.0
As we mentioned in the previous section Web 2.0 potentially changes the way companies
conduct business, putting more emphasis on building relationships and engagement not only
with customers but everyone in the process who could be defined as a relevant stakeholder.
However the use of social media in HR is an area that still requires a lot of research to
understand whether social media has been successfully leveraged by HR in comparison to
other business areas or not, also to assess whether HR professionals are both aware of its
potential as well as capable of using it in accomplishing their work.
A study conducted by BCG revealed that Recruitment is the most important function of HR
in terms of impact on the two most important business performance parameters - revenue
and profit margin (Ere.net, 2013 - See Appendix 3), moreover the study made a
comprehensive classification / evaluation of the various HR functions and ranked them
according to their contribution to these two key business parameters, suggesting that
business leaders should prioritize their HR spending based on net business impact

21
generated by each activity, and worth highlighting is that Recruitment came first on that list
(Ere.net, 2013).
Over the past decade, the use of SNSs in Recruitment has increasingly gained popularity
within companies of different scales and scopes, clearly all companies have equal chance
to engage with its audience, with social media the barrier of “size” no longer exists, the good
news for smaller companies is that they can offset part of the gap by becoming more active
online.
It was observed that while recruiters still keep their traditional practice of posting vacancies
on their company webpage they also post the same information on internet boards as they
believe it would speed up the process, the use of social media in Recruitment jumped from
nothing more than 6% in 2010 to 89% by end of 2011 (Jobvite, 2012), LinkedIn and Facebook
were particularly targeted for Recruitment purposes, since they both include job-posting
features (Jobvite, 2012 - See Appendix 4). Yet according to a recent study conducted by
SilkRoad 75% of HR leaders and talent managers believe their companies are still behind
when it comes to social networking technology (Meister, 2013).
It’s a fact that the young and well educated talent that most companies would like to attract
and hire, are very active on SNSs and that’s why they do appreciate employers who
recognize their need to “stay connected” through their own gadgets. According to a Cisco
report 40% of college students and 45% of young professionals are willing to accept lower
paying jobs that give them the space to use social media and mobile devices (Cisco, 2011).
HR on the other hand, is gradually adjusting to the fact that social media has become an
excellent medium for them not only to post openings in the old fashioned “Web 1.0” way, but
to go further more and engage with candidates in open / online dialogues and to jointly define
the unique selling propositions of an employer, be it the working environment, the culture or
the job itself.
The use of social media also makes a very good business case as opposed to traditional
Recruitment methods, social media helps employers save both cost and time spent on
Recruitment. Traditionally, recruiters would seek the help of a Recruitment agency or

22
newspaper to publish a vacancy, in either cases they end up paying a fortune and rarely “if
ever” reach the right target audience. While the focus of this study is primarily on the way
HR utilizes Web 2.0 technologies in selecting candidates “Recruitment”, we need not to
forget that attracting candidates “employer branding” is an integral part of the recruiting
process.
In fact the question for recruiters now is no longer about the importance of social media for
HR but more about which social media tools to use? And what strategy to adopt in order to
really benefit from what social media is offering?
4.1.3 WHAT’S IN IT FOR RECRUITERS?
Today’s young people are progressively using Social Networking Sites (SNSs) to build their
online career presence and look for jobs. For example, a recent survey conducted by
Potentialpark in 2011 on more than 30,000 respondents, between graduates and early
career starters globally, revealed that almost 100% of survey respondents in Europe are
willing to interact with employers online (Potentialpark, 2011).
Web 2.0 offers recruiters the opportunity to connect with a new generation of
candidates through various social and professional networking platforms. But what
makes it important, and do recruiters really need to incorporate it into their recruiting
strategy?
One reason social media needs to be integrated in a company’s recruiting strategy is the fact
that people have already changed the way they look for jobs. According to a recent survey
released by the National Online Recruitment Audience Survey (the largest online
Recruitment research project in the world) in 2009, the number of people who use the
internet “exclusively” to look for jobs has doubled since 2007, in terms of effectiveness, the
same survey revealed that one in four online job seekers who eventually obtained a job they
looked for, found and applied for it to online (Onrec.com, 2014).
These online job seekers aren’t just looking on specialized job boards like Monster.com or
Indeed.com; they’re also using search engines such as Google and Social Networking Sites

23
to either find an employment opportunity or to just keep strengthening their virtual network
with other professionals.
About 10 years ago recruiters resorted to traditional job boards and newspaper ads. to
source candidates, when they posted a vacancy and waited from responses, while this
approach succeeded in generating a large volume of job applicants there were no
guarantees that a single qualified candidate can be found within that pool, the only way to
find out about candidates was to contact them individually by phone and have a conversation
to validate their background and experience which could go on to consume long hours each
day.
Today, by leveraging on social networks, recruiters can instantly tell if a candidate is suitable
to be considered for a given vacancy or not, based on information they have provide on their
social profiles. Furthermore SNSs gave recruiters the chance to communicate and engage
in a two-way dialogue with candidates in case further efforts were needed to sell a vacancy
or persuade a qualified candidate.
Another reason why social media should be adopted by recruiters is attributed to the current
economic crisis that we still see and live in many parts of the world, which on one hand
continues to put pressure on Recruitment budgets and on the other hand raises expectation
on quality of future hires. In such case social media becomes imperative to meeting both
targets (Jobvite, 2014 - See Appendix 5)
For companies to effectively benefit from the advantages of social media in the Recruitment
domain, they need to ensure their brand is well established within target communities and
groups where their candidates hangout then start building “relationship” with the right
candidates who could be of a great help to the company’s Recruitment effort in many ways,
as follows (Andrews, C. 2012):
- They could directly fill in existing vacancies.
- They could be a talent pool for future vacancies.
- They could be leveraged in promoting for the company’s brand by sharing updates
and vacancies within their professional network and friends.

24
4.1.4 WHAT’S IN IT FOR JOB SEEKERS?
Over the past decades the concept of branding has been used to refer to companies or
products, now this concept has extended its coverage to include individual personalities as
well. Chris Brogan explains that a strong personal brand is a product of four elements trust,
reputation, execution and attention (Harris and Rae, 2011) he also said that: “A personal
brand gives you the ability to stand out in a sea of similar products. In essence, you’re
marketing yourself as something different than the rest of the pack.”
There are several tools that could be deployed to enhance one’s personal brand, (Harris and
Rae, 2011 - See Appendix 6) illustrating the key tools available today for such purpose.
Job seekers are advised to ask themselves an important question If a Recruitment consultant
“googled” your name, what he will find? it could be old Facebook pictures of the candidate
lying on the beach or hopefully a record of the applicant’s academic achievement, university
awards with a link to candidate’s blog showcasing his strong interest in his chosen field of
study or work. Therefore candidates should provide information that helps recruiters to
establish a well-rounded view about their personalities for recruiters to assess their potential
fit with their organizations (chrisbrogan, 2014).
There’s no doubt that candidates who are able to demonstrate a professional image on social
media, supported by solid references and testimonials from relevant people can enjoy higher
chances of getting the jobs they wanted. For example, candidates who consistently update
their LinkedIn profile content and regularly add new contacts to their professional network
will have better visibility on search engines, hence higher chances to show up when
recruiters look for someone to hire with their qualifications and experience.
On the other hand, job seekers who are actively present on LinkedIn can easily validate the
suitability of the proposed job, for example by checking on testimonials and endorsements
available on their prospective line manager’s profile, or they could search for the profile of
someone who previously held the same job they are applying for, these online practices
could significantly reduce the uncertainty and risk in the Recruitment process.

25
Due to all these new practices from both the recruiter and the job seeker sides a ‘‘complete’’
LinkedIn profile is becoming more and more a necessity rather than an option to progress in
the Recruitment process. A ‘‘complete’’ profile should ideally contain full details of the
candidate’s educational background, employment history, appropriate keywords
reconfirming his field of interest and at least three testimonials from past employers and work
colleagues.
4.1.5 EMPLOYER BRANDING @ WEB 2.0
When I started my first role in HR, about 7 years ago the term “employer branding” used to
sound awkward not only for business managers but to HR professionals as well, who in many
cases saw it as a waste of time and money, but with increased expectations from top talent
for better work opportunities that align with their life style and personal objectives,
competition among companies has intensified for that talent, and consequently HR was
pushed to perform activities that for long existed outside its scope and focus, traditionally
belonged exclusively to PR or marketing departments.
But before we go any further in discussing employer branding, we need to first define it,
according to the Chartered institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) The term
‘employer branding’ is used to describe how a company markets what it has to offer to both
potential and existing employees. So while marketers have developed techniques and
strategies to attract customers and maintain their loyalty to a given brand, “employer
branding” involves applying a much similar approach to people management (Cipd.co.uk,
2014).
Over the past few years we have seen employer branding progressively gaining popularity,
becoming a favorite topic for researchers and making it to the top priorities list for business
leaders who for the first time became personally involved in developing employer branding
strategies for their organizations.
According a research conducted by CIPD there are three key reasons for the increased
interest in employer branding. Firstly the importance of a “brand” as a social concept has
greatly increased in popularity. Secondly HR professionals continue to evolve as credible
and strategic business partner to the business. Thirdly due to the difficult labor market

26
conditions where skill shortages continue to pose a real challenge, hence the need for
employer differentiation becomes evident (Tavleen, K, 2013).
Organizations who operate in such competitive markets, are always looking for new ways to
differentiate themselves and standout as an employer of choice to their target talent, for
many years organizations used traditional branding tools such as company websites and
printed brochures etc. which in today’s world doesn’t seem to play an effective role in talent
attraction any longer, today’s talent are looking for more genuine sources of information such
as personal insights from current employees or friends rather than taking for granted what
organizations are trying to sell to them.
Today’s young talent are spending substantial amount of their time on SNSs, the phenomena
is also spreading backwards within older generations. Over the past few years there has
been a growing interest in studying emerging concepts like “personal branding” and “digital
shadows. In today’s world, building and maintaining a strong personal brand online is
becoming a real differentiator between the influential and the passive members in different
domains and even societies, hence It is essential for everyone to ensure that the nature of
information representing him online is going to attract rather than discourage potential
employers (Harris and Rae, 2011).
This empowering nature of social media represents a great opportunity for employer
branding but unlike company websites, it’s no longer the exclusive right of organizations to
write their own content, all social media users are invited to contribute as well, be it an
employee who already works there and want to express how he feels about the working
conditions or a candidate who just had an interview and didn’t quite feel he was fairly treated.
People can freely write, edit and share information online, good or bad experiences will be
available online for prospective candidates to judge whether corporate culture and practices
suit their aspirations or not (Kaur, T, 2013).
In the new Web 2.0 era they are both the producer and consumer of online information,
according to Career Builder survey, 91% of candidates believe that an employer brand plays
a critical role in their decision whether or not to apply for a company. The key areas they

27
identified that make a company attractive are company culture and a good reputation for
treating employees well (Builder, 2014 - See Appendix 7).
In conclusion; it can be said that the competition for top talent has indeed intensified; even
during recession time, yet good talent have always had choices given their scarcity in the
market.
4.2 Social HR
Increasingly companies are integrating more social technologies into their HR operations,
from attraction, selection and skills development to employee engagement. Traditional HR
is realizing day by day that it needs to adopt Social Networking Sites that are being used
heavily in our daily lives. According to (Lotter, 2014) below are some key trends in social HR:
4.2.1 GAMIFICATION
Over the past few years, the workplace has become increasingly populated with a generation
of employees who grew up with computer games. For this generation, such games has
played a major role in shaping their lives, culture and even vocabulary, since much of their
socializing used to happen around computer games, hence it’s not surprising to see
companies trying to attract, engage and retain this particular generation of employees by
taking games seriously (Accenture, 2013).
Gamification refers to adding a game element or mechanisms into traditional “non-gaming
activities” like business activities” Gamification elements can include gathering points,
rewards or tokens based on predefined business rules, the focus is not on the entertainment
part, since the employee experience is not about leaving the real world to play some game.
Instead, Gamifying a business process or function makes it more interesting, fun and
rewarding for employees, eventually leading to higher levels of performance and
engagement.
Remarkably, developing Gamification solutions for businesses is significantly less expensive
than developing full-fledged games, as it relies on integrating preexisting game mechanics
and rules into work activities, features like real-time feedback, competition and reward can

28
make a big difference to the way employees perceive their normal work activities (Accenture,
2013).
The two HR functions that have seen some Gamification development are sourcing and
performance management, also the applications of Gamification can be further boosted
when integrated with social media, but we have to also consider that we are still at a very
early stage of the HR Gamification, hence companies willingness to integrate these
applications is still very limited, many companies would still prefer to do thing the
conventional way while others actually banning the use of social media in the workplace
altogether, with all these complications it’s still expected that Gamification would continue to
evolve in the future, and high-performing enterprises will likely push the boundaries to see
how close they can get. Gartner predicts that 70% of Global 2000 businesses will be
managing at least one “gamified” application or system by 2014 (Gartner.com, 2014).
4.2.2 SOCIAL RECRUITMENT & EMPLOYER BRANDING
More recruiters are utilizing social media networks to recruit candidates with higher levels of
suitability and fit. Social media networks have made it possible to recruiters to have visibility
on areas that wasn’t by any chance mentioned in a traditional candidate resume, like
endorsements by previous managers and skill assessment.
Recruitment via social media definitely reduced the Recruitment lead time; it also allowed
recruiters to proactively identify potential candidates in the market even before a vacancy
existed. According to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) the number of
companies using social media networking sites in Recruitment showed a significant increase
from 34% in 2008 to 56% in 2011(SHRM, 2012, p. 2).
Organizations are using social media to engage with new recruits throughout the selection
process to create an excitement about their career opportunities. Social media is also used
to speed up the integration and orientation into the new business culture (Kaur, T. 2013).

29
4.3 Employee Engagement
Employee engagement is another important area for HR which has also used social media
networks to engage with employees regardless of their level or position, in fact many
companies have already established a practice to measure their employees’ satisfaction and
engagement, by running satisfaction surveys every year or two.
The role of social media networks in fostering employee engagement has become
particularly evident, especially at recent times of economic uncertainty; employers were
faced with many HR challenges ranging from low productivity to high turnover, hence
frequent communication with employees became an essential tool to employee engagement.
SNSs also gave employees the opportunity to share and express their views about the way
things work in their organizations and provide input to areas they never had access to ex.
Company’s vision, strategy, etc (Lotter, 2014).
4.3.1 SKILL DEVELOPMENT
Learning and development has greatly benefited from social media technologies, many
learning programs has converted to “simulation-based” where employees role play rather
than sit and watch in a class room, it also enabled employees to participate from various
geographies around the world. Employee portals and wikis have gained popularity among
employees, enabling them to share knowledge and best practices in a very collaborative
manner, hence making the learning process more engaging and exciting (Lotter, 2014).
4.3.2 PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT
Unlike traditional performance management tools, social media networks made it possible
for employee’s performance to be evaluated on real-time basis by peers and co-workers,
employees can get endorsed for their skills and achievements on a daily basis. Performance
evaluation gains more credibility as more people from different levels are invited to voluntarily
provide feedback, reducing chances of bias to minimal levels.
After all, Recognizing high performance and achievers becomes more rewarding and visible
when done on social platforms rather than behind closed doors (Acas.org.uk, 2014).

30
Overall, we can see that social media has and would continue in the future to enrich the
human resources function, moving it from an administrative function to a truly engaging
business partner that can play a significant role in improving the effectiveness of an
organization.
4.4 Recruitment
4.4.1 IS IT OBSOLETE?
The rapid advancement in internet technology, social media networks and employee referral
schemes made finding talent much easier than any time before; hence a lot of interest and
concern has developed about the future of the Recruitment function and whether or not it’s
still desired to remain within its traditional meaning.
Bersin & Associates reported that spending on external recruiters amounted to a one third
of Recruitment budgets in 2010; this high spending on external Recruitment services
(averaging 21% of a new joiner’s total annual salary) almost halved in 2011 in favor of direct
Recruitment via social networks (Shamir, 2012).
Over the past 3 decades or so, finding candidates has been the most challenging part of the
Recruitment process, today the situation has changed considerably, with the heavy presence
of SNSs in everyone’s life, finding talent or information about someone has become much
easier, almost everyone has become so visible through their “digital footprint” on SNSs. In
fact the majority of applicants in the market are mostly defined between “active” and “pro-
active” on the social web, meaning that they can even identify and connect with recruiters
before recruiters approach them (Sullivan, 2013).
In fact, the more strategic part of the Recruitment process now is the “selling” aspect, that’s
convincing a candidate to accept a job offer and join the company, this remains to be the
biggest challenge in the process, despite its importance many managers and even recruiters
are not good at selling job offers to candidates, also the concept itself is hugely under
researched at the moment.
It’s important to highlight that doing Recruitment activities is no longer the exclusive
responsibility of recruiters, company employees has proven over the years that they can

31
contribute effectively in different parts of the process as well, from attraction to selection,
through their own company’s ambassadors program or employee referral scheme, in which
case they are equipped with a comprehensive “selling toolkit” coupled with strong and
powerful techniques to successfully sell various aspects of the job and the organization to
candidates, some companies even go further to complement that by providing employees
with a compact training on using and conversing over different SNSs.
There’s no doubt that existing Recruitment software or cloud-based HR management
software like “Taleo” has played a strong role in facilitating Recruitment work, but it cannot
completely replace the recruiter’s role, with all the intangible / human aspects that a recruiter
brings into the process, after all we will still at least need to have someone to operate the
software, yet we need to keep in mind also that this is still a work in progress for the IT
industry who on the other hand are for sure are going after substituting 100% of the
Recruitment process. For instance, social Recruitment tools like Jobvite, HireRabbit and
BranchOut are shifting away the Recruitment responsibility from recruiters to company
employees, who in return get rewarded for plugging in their personal networks into their
companies’ networks. The more this practice gets diffused across industries the more we
will see the role of recruiters getting marginalized and gradually substituted by large networks
of engaged non-expert users (Sullivan, 2013).
4.4.2 RECRUITMENT PRACTICES & CHANNELS
Recruitment can be defined as the process of searching for the right talent and stimulating
them to apply for jobs in the hiring organization, it is also the process of discovering “sources”
of talent to meet the staffing needs and attracting an adequate number of potential recruits,
depending on the size of an organization and its annual Recruitment volume, the
organization decides on whether to retain the recruiting function internally, ideally done by a
human resource generalists / specialists, or to outsource it to external agencies /
independent consultants (V. Sinha, P. Thaly, 2013).
Bascially, Recruitment can be divided into three fundamental phases Defining Recruitments
Needs, Attraction & Selection. Recruiters relay on a variety of approaches and channels to
achieve their Recruitment target, in most cases they will use a combination of two or more
of the following sourcing channels (Top Consultant, 2013):

32
- Employee Referrals: Are special human resource schemes for encouraging existing
employees to promote job openings within their offline and online networks, in many
companies a monetary bonus is given to the employee for each successful recruit.
- Social media (LinkedIn, Facebook, etc): Refers to Social Networking Sites, which enable
people to exchange content and work together in virtual communities (networks). Some of
the most popular sites include LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Google+.
- Corporate Websites: Through a dedicated career section hosted on company’s official
website, candidates can directly fill out and submit job applications either for existing
vacancies or future ones.
- Campus Recruitment: Is the process of working collaboratively with key schools and
universities to identify and attract top graduates for future hiring.
- Recruitment Agencies/Consultants: These are service providers specialized in identifying
suitable candidates to fulfill employer Recruitment needs from a pool of prescreened /
interviewed applicants.
- External Job sites/portals: These websites are specialized in providing employment and
career services to multiple employers enabling them to post vacancies and collect candidate
resumes.
- Job advertisements: Considered to be one of the least targeted of all Recruitment channels,
were vacancies are advertised in newspapers and journals commonly known to reach a wide
range of prospective candidates.
The choice of which recruiting channel depends on various factors like job position, strength
of the company’s employer brand, the budget made available to the recruiting team.
Obviously each channel has its own benefits and limitations and one channel or strategy
might not work for all situations all the time, that’s why many companies regularly assess the
effectiveness of various channels to understand which works best in each situation.

33
4.4.3 LATEST RECRUITMENT TRENDS & CHALLENGES
To put things in context we need to have a look at the key challenges and trends in
Recruitment function, according to an article published by Dr John Sullivan, an international
HR thought-leader from the Silicon Valley, he is expecting that there will be an increased
need for high performers, technologists, and innovators in key jobs in almost every industry,
and he also highlighted some specific trends that will be of key importance to the Recruitment
function starting 2014, below are just few relevant examples (Sullivan, 2013):
- High competition for top talent, after several years of recession many markets are picking
up again; which will put pressure on existing Recruitment tools to the extent that companies
will be in a definite need to find different tools that give them a recruiting edge in today’s
highly competitive market.
- Real time metrics and big data will become essential and will be deployed to enable
managers and recruiters to know about existing and future vacancies, as well as proactively
identify best successors either internally or out there in the market, this way organizations
will be better informed and prepared.
- Referral programs will continue to be a preferred sourcing channel for Recruitment for its
proven relevance and efficiency, companies will target to fulfill up to 50% of their Recruitment
needs through these programs, especially after the remarkable success of social media tools
in spreading Recruitment messages within employees own networks.
- Employer branding becomes a highly credible Recruitment strategy, after being neglected
for many years, with the fierce competition for top talent it has become a business necessity,
contributing to the difference that we see in desirability of big names like Google or Apple
and the rest in the market, the fact that people can virally spread either positive or negative
comments over SNSs made companies realize that these powerful tools could either build
or destroy a company’s reputation.
- Candidate’s social media profiles (mainly LinkedIn profiles) will become increasingly
acceptable to officially initiate the selection process in lieu of traditional resumes, opening
up new opportunities to connect with busy professionals and passive candidates, those

34
talented people in the market who simply can’t afford spending long hours on job search or
updating their resumes.
- Significant shortages in finding up-to-date and competent recruiters will become an evident
problem for companies, as top talent became difficult to attract and recruit, only top recruiters
will be in a position to get top talent, hence it could become harder for average recruiters to
deliver results for their companies given the lack of well-structured training programs to
develop recruiters’ capabilities in most companies.
4.5 Social media Recruitment
4.5.1 ATTRACTION
Social media has traditionally been used by companies to promote their products or services.
Lately it’s also been used to brand countries as great places to work.
Job applicants are using SNSs to find information about potential employers and find out
more about their cultures and working practices. Hence, traditional brochures and corporate
websites are not sufficient tools any more, today’s applicants are looking for personal reviews
and insights from existing employees (Laick and Dean; 2010).
(Waters & Jones 2011) highlighted that YouTube videos are increasingly being used by
organizations to ‘educate and inform’ as much as they are being used to entertain. They also
mentioned that while “text conversations” are quite significant means to develop an
organization’s brand and reputation, a combination of words and “visual elements” can
further enhance organization’s identity. SNSs enable individuals to embed organizational
updates and videos on their social profiles as well as share it with others. Organizations can
then easily track where their information is being seen and who is commenting on it, hence
bringing more opportunities for conversations between organization’s staff and candidates
that can improve the image of the organization.
As far as attracting potential candidates is concerned, companies should identify which SNSs
they need to be present in and how, based on their desired target audience, for example if a
company is mainly looking for young people, they should primarily look in Facebook where
young people are known to be very active (Brecht et al., 2011).

35
4.5.2 SCREENING & SELECTION
This is one of the most controversial areas to consider when discussing the use of
SNSs in Recruitment, Should HR managers consider candidate information on SNSs
as part of their formal / informal screening process or not at all?
There are numerous arguments in favor of using such information, as well as several
arguments against using it, as it embodies a risk of breaching privacy regulations. Here’s a
true story of how conversing over social media could impact someone’s professional career,
it all started with a simple tweet from Conner Riley, who at that time was 22 years old,
pursuing a master’s degree in Information Management and Systems at University of
California, Berkeley, she wrote:
“Cisco just offered me a job! Now I have to weigh the utility of a fatty paycheck against the
daily commute to San Jose and hating the work.”
Apparently a Cisco employee saw the post and responded to her with his own tweet:
“Who is the hiring manager? I'm sure they would love to know that you will hate the work.
We here at Cisco are versed in the Web.”
That exchange attracted many others to comment in what became known as "Cisco Fatty"
incident – shortly this trail of tweets exploded with people talking about how Riley lost a real
many people criticized her for saying something stupid like that online. Eventually Riley wrote
post on her blog apologizing for previous her tweet, and informing everyone that she already
turned down the Cisco offer, probably she did that because she expected Cisco to withdraw
their offer anyway (Nadirnasir.blogspot.fr, 2009).
A survey conducted in 2013 by the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM)
revealed that two-thirds (69%) of organizations have never used or no longer use SNSs to
screen job candidates, while 20% are currently doing so, and another 12% who plan to
(Shrm.org, 2013).

36
The same survey also explored the reasons why many organizations refrain from using
SNSs in screening applicants and among the key insights found was that, 74% of
organizations were concerned about the legal issues associated with discovering protected
/ private information about candidates (e.g., gender, race, age, and religion) While 63% say
that candidate information on SNSs may not be a relevant indicator of a candidate’s
performance or work potential, and 61% say this information may not be relevant to judge
whether a candidate is a good fit for the organization1 (Shrm.org, 2013 - See Appendix 11).
4.5.3 ONBOARDING
According to a survey conducted by the Aberdeen Group, it was found that 86% of new
joiners choose to stay or leave a company within their first 6 months of employment,
moreover it was found that a new employee is 69% more likely to stay for more than 3 years
with a company if they experienced a good onboarding program (Willyerd and Willyerd,
2012).
Onboarding has clearly become a key priority for many companies in 2013 and beyond,
driven by high competition to attract and retain top talent, intensifying need to accelerate
performance early on and a growing number of companies with dispersed employee
populations globally. According to a survey conducted by Impact Instruction Group, 49% of
surveyed companies are currently in the process of reviewing their existing onboarding
programs to cope with these challenges (Impact Instruction Group, 2013).
Michael Watkins mentioned in his book “The First 90 Days” that the break-even point, where
a new joiner adds more value than he consumes is usually 6.2 months, hence the need for
accelerated onboarding programs becomes evident, and social media tools can greatly
improve the “speed and quality” of the onboarding experience for new joiners, if we take a
look at the way a college student prepares for attending a new school, we will notice that he
is likely to have joined at least one or two Facebook groups in advance, where he gets to
know about his future classmates, discover places to visit or even plan a meeting with some
people during the first week. Now compare that to the experience of a new joiner who
1Totals do not equal 100% due to multiple response options.

37
prepares to join a new company, it’s totally different, what we all know is that in most cases
he barely exchanged one or two emails with his future manager or an HR person from the
time he accepted the offer till he eventually comes onboard (Watkins, M. 2003).
What social media can do here is remarkable. For example, planned new joiners can be
offered the chance to join online communities / forums with other new joiners or other
employees, who are already onboard, enabling them to build connections with others,
exchange pictures and get joining tips before even coming to the company for day one.
Once onboard, a new hire should find it easy to get access to the information he needs to
perform his job as well as interact with those people who are considered key to his work, in
such case his company can invite him to join relevant online “communities of practice” where
he can easily start asking questions and getting information from day one already, which is
by far a better way than asking him to go through an endless trail of old emails and
documents stored on someone’s hard drive.
4.5.4 BEST PRACTICES
Below are some relevant good examples from the market demonstrating the use of social
media in the various phases of the Recruitment process:
Glassdoor Website – Empirical evidence:
Glassdoor is a U.S.-based job listing and career website where employees can anonymously
share pros and cons of their companies and bosses, employees share with a great deal of
details information about salaries, selection process, working environment and even work
place pictures (Cbc.ca, 2014)
The website has increasingly gained popularity for welcoming people to rate their current or
previous employers and leave personal comments / ratings based on their own experiences.
Glassdoor promotes itself as a credible and reliable source of information for job applicants.
Since reviews are written by actual employees, candidates trust that information they will find
there will not be fabricated by companies, hence many of them will actually visit Glassdoor
when evaluating a job offer or in doubt about suitability of an employer.

38
While Glassdoor’s primary focus is on potential candidates it also gives space to companies
to share part of the action, by letting them set up their own pages, presenting (company
mission, values, cultures and other details) also giving them the possibility to make links back
to their corporate websites, Facebook and LinkedIn pages. Under companies section the
website has made some classification to highlight certain companies based on member
reviews, like ‘Best Places To Work’ and ‘Most Popular Companies’ (Hebberd, 2012).
Since Glassdoor first opened its virtual doors in 2008, it successfully reached out to about
22 million members in 190 countries, and it grew remarkably with a compound annual
revenue growth of about 160% (DE LA MERCED, 2014). In 2013, Glassdoor was chosen as
the ‘Best Employment Site 2012’ by the Webby Awards, and it is positioned as ‘a free inside
look at jobs and companies’. It has become like Trip Advisor for jobs (Hebberd, 2012)
Accenture - Infographic Resume Builder:
Accenture, the famous management consulting firm, introduced a tool through its careers
website to help candidates get a visual image of their resumes, through its infographic
resume builder, helping candidates to standout through presenting their details in an
unconventional way that would attract recruiter’s attention, the resume builder transfers
candidates’ information from their LinkedIn account into a colorful and engaging infographic
format, candidates have the chance to further customize their resume, and apply directly to
vacancies in Accenture (Careers.accenture.com, 2013 – See Appendix 8).
Addeco Group - Resu-ME:
Adecco Group, the world’s largest provider of HR solutions, the company introduced a new
tool “Resu-ME” which extracts information from your LinkedIn profile and converts it into an
interesting career video supported with voice-over and exciting infographic.
You are then given a URL of your career video, which you can readily share on social media;
you also have the option of sharing it back with Adecco. What’s really impressive about the
tool is the quality of the video it produces within just few seconds, the tool also gives you

39
access to customize your video by changing both the content and display of your details.
(Sundberg, J. 2013)
L’Oreal - are you IN:
L'Oréal the world's largest cosmetics and beauty company, the company introduced a clever
practice to engage with candidates online through its campaign “L’Oreal are you IN?”, in
which L’Oreal challenges the campaign followers, who already exceeded the 300K mark, to
share an ‘IN’ moment like Inspired, Innovative, Insightful, etc.
L’Oreal will then pick the ten best moments and share them back on its company page, giving
those followers the chance to gain broad exposure on social media networks to other
followers as well as professional recruiters.
The campaign is hosted on a micro-site named lorealareyouin.com, for which a LinkedIn
account is needed for access, users will then need to mention why they are “IN” by picking
an “IN” reason, then they are prompted to mention why exactly they think they are so. The
idea of the campaign is to create something “visual” from a person’s traditional LinkedIn
profile hence attracting others to like their post and share it within other SNSs like Facebook,
Twitter and of course LinkedIn which will eventually strengthen L’Oreal brand exposure on
social media and attract more followers (Sundberg, J. 2013 - See Appendices 9 & 10).
L’Oreal then will be able to analyze the data of users, what words they picked to describe
themselves, whether or not they are followers of the company page, how present there are
on social media; with these insights L’Oreal can take the necessary actions to get closer to
its customers and applicants (Sundberg, 2013).
4.6 Social media Opportunities & Risks
4.6.1 BENEFITS
There are many benefits for using SNSs in HR, Raquel Garcia, an HR consultant, founder
and president of Silicon Valley Human Resources says that social media offers a number of
benefits for Recruitment. First, she says, “You can learn a lot about your potential recruit
from their social media pages and find great passive talent on line.” (Cues.org, 2009)

40
And while the main objective is Recruitment we can see that it also fulfills other important
objectives like improving company’s employer brand and digital footprint, which we will
explore in more details in this section.
Cost Saving:
It’s widely known that Recruitment via SNSs is very cost-effective compared to traditional
Recruitment methods, instead of subscribing to expensive employment services and
incurring all related expenses like publishing, accommodation and travel for HR staff, many
companies are now using their Recruitment budgets differently. Jon Hull, Global Head of
Resourcing at RS Components UK - states that, the average hiring cost for a senior position
using SNSs is £714, compared with £7,500 via traditional Recruitment methods
(Hrmagazine.co.uk, 2012).
One of the key reasons why SNSs is highly efficient is because of its “targeted approach”;
SNSs’ fairly sophisticated tools have made it possible to target the right candidates. For
example, now there is software that scans an individual’s LinkedIn profile once he clicks on
a link related to a certain company, then the software will start sending him vacancies from
that company that correspondents to his interest, which works pretty much the same as
Google Ads.
Setting Realistic Expectations:
The interactivity that SNSs like LinkedIn Facebook, and Twitter offer can play an important
role in the quality of the Recruitment process, the exchange of information helps both the
candidate and the employer decide if they are the right fit for each other, in terms of shared
culture, values and other important expectations. This exchange of expectations helps
reduce the risk associated with taking the wrong decision by either party. For this to happen,
both parties (organization & candidate) are advised to present as realistic picture of
themselves as possible.
The interaction with candidates via SNSs not only helps to improve the Recruitment
experience for successful candidates but for the unsuccessful ones as well. For example, if

41
a candidate has interacted with an organization in a two-way conversation via SNSs, they
would definitely feel that they have received a more personalized experience compared to
receiving an unexplained rejection letter or email. That way, companies that have high
number of applicants every year, can ensure that rejected candidates still maintain a positive
image about their company. For example, candidates still buy their products or willing to
apply again (Institute for Employment Studies, 2013).
Strengthening Organizational Brand:
Social media can help improving organizational brand as an employer, when staff use SNSs
such as Twitter and Facebook to communicate with their local communities and friends, a
human face is given to the company making it more approachable which is likely going to
encourage people to apply. For example, on Facebook, people still 'like' or 'share' vacancy
posts, even if they are not personally going to apply for it; this definitely raises awareness of
the organization and promotes for its brand.
That’s why many companies are encouraging their employees to act as advocates or
ambassadors for them, by using their own / personal social profiles in sharing organizational
related content or news and to aid the organization in its Recruitment efforts and objectives.
4.6.2 BARRIERS TO IMPLEMENTATION
While SNSs clearly offer various benefits to recruiters and employers in terms of cost
reduction and being more targeted, using SNSs in Recruitment also carries certain costs and
risks. The most serious are legal risks as well as many ethical questions - especially relating
to the screening practice (Clark and Roberts 2010):
“Employers have always been able to request background and reference information on job
applicants but have been self-restrained in doing so because of the cost and legal
requirements … This norm is now shifting, as employers are routinely conducting informal
online background checks without applicants’ knowledge. Based on the information they find,
employers are making decisions … While the practice seems to be taken for granted as
acceptable, few employers have explored whether the practice is ethical.” (Clark and

42
Roberts, 2010). Let’s have a closer look at some of the key barriers facing the integration of
SNSs in the Recruitment profession.
Information Accuracy:
Little is known about the accuracy of information available on SNSs or the occurrence of
different types of faking – “fake good’’ or ‘‘fake bad’’ on the web. In fact, information that
people choose to share on SNSs can vary greatly according to two main factors the “context”
and the “presumed audience”. For example, some people might like to post photographs of
them socializing at parties to impress their friends. However, this will not necessarily impress
recruiters (Davison, Maraist and Bing, 2011).
Some SNSs, such as LinkedIn are clearly designed for professional use by potential
employees and employers. However, others, such as Facebook, serve a more personal and
social networking objective (Davison, Maraist and Bing, 2011) pointed out that:
“Employers often assume that the information posted will be more accurate than what
candidates provide in a formal cover letter - because they do not expect the website
to be viewed by employers (i.e., they have no motive to ‘‘fake good’’) - Nonetheless,
an individual who creates a webpage may be trying to impress friends and family and
the type of distortion or ‘‘faking’’ may differ depending on the intended viewer.”
High chances for Mistakes:
Another risk for employers while using SNSs in external communications or information
sharing, is the probability of making mistakes quite easily and frequently, fast-communication
tools such as Twitter is able to transfer short messages very quickly “tweet” and reactions to
a post can then happen almost instantly, allowing no room for organizations to make any
corrections or retrieve their messages.
While it’s possible for an individual with a personal Twitter account to delete a message that
he/she later discovered a mistake in, it’s advisable that organizations tweet or publish a
“correction” rather than deleting a mistaken post or tweet. Removing information that has
already been published is sometimes regarded as “scrubbing” and it always leaves an

43
impression that the organization is trying to hide the error or even pretend it never happened
(Rosenberg, 2011).
Diversity:
A key risk for relaying heavily on SNSs-based Recruitment is concerning the level of diversity
represented by the applicant pool on SNSs. It is likely that there will be gender, generational
and racial factors in the background that determine the acceptance level and friendliness of
these sites for different groups of people:
“There may be demographic differences in terms of who has a webpage or profile and
who does not. Certain socioeconomically disadvantaged racial or ethnic groups may
be less likely to have access to computers and Internet and thus may be less likely to
access social networking websites. There are also likely to be age differences in
access to this technology as well.” (Davison et al, 2012)
Therefore, the group of applicants who are capable of responding to online job ads might be
limited to those who are IT literate, excluding those who don’t possess the necessary skills
and knowledge to deal with these SNSs and who would have been capable of responding to
traditional job ads in the past.
In order to mitigate this kind of risk, Recruitment strategies should still be complemented by
other traditional Recruitment methods to capture talent that might otherwise be missed for
not being on the SNSs “radar”. (Davison, Maraist and Bing, 2011) highlighted that US
organizations might be violating civil rights laws by unintentionally excluding groups of
applicants above the age of 40, providing that the younger people are more active on SNSs.
There are also issues around the particular types of SNSs that employers choose to target.
SNSs differ in terms of the demographics of their users and their primary purpose. As
mentioned earlier, LinkedIn is a professional network, whereas sites such as Facebook are
largely used for making informal social connections. Twitter, in contrast, may be used for
professional or social purposes. Thus, the reason why applicants want to access a particular
website has important implications for an organization that is recruiting (Davison, Maraist

44
and Bing, 2011). In this context, LinkedIn is probably more effective than a social space such
as Facebook.
Negative online conduct:
SNSs could be powerful tools for Recruitment and conducting business in generals. It helps
promote a positive image of the organization. But it also gives power to content viewers to
criticize and leave negative remarks which could also spread very quickly.
Handling negative feedback is a business imperative and just deleting negative comments
is not considered “handling”. Negative comments requires organizations’ attention and quick
response quickly and address issues, the longer the time it takes to respond the more difficult
it could take to repair.
Organizations need to know that no matter how good or convincing they believe to be, they
will never have full control over what’s being said about them on SNSs. And instead of taking
that as a reason to leave SNSs, organizations need to see it as an opportunity to engage
more with their audiences and possibly turn negative impressions to positive ones
(MLive.com, 2013).
Legal Considerations:
Legal concerns are considered amongst the biggest barriers facing the diffusion of SNSs in
Recruitment.
As highlighted by (Brown, V. and Vaughn, D, 2011) the information found on SNSs presents
a series of legal challenges and issues. SNSs easily allow for individual biases to affect hiring
and screening decisions. Obtaining information through SNSs without candidate’s prior
knowledge and consent could be classified as an invasion of applicants’ privacy. (Davison
et al, 2012)
A lot of literature highlighted that the law has not fully clarified the boundaries of applicants’
privacy on SNSs. “It is unclear how privacy laws will be interpreted when it comes to
information an individual posts on a SNS. Key legal questions are whether the individual

45
consented to the information being made available to everyone, whether the information is
relevant to the employment decision, and whether the information falls within a protected
realm of personal privacy even if a person makes the information available to many people”
(Clark and Roberts, 2010).
Another area that’s worth exploring is applicants’ perception of their personal sites being
surveyed by prospective employers, a study conducted by Baglione et al. found that students
were somewhat neutral about employers’ viewing of their personal profiles (Davison et al,
2012).
Last but not least, as far as the good practices of candidates’ screening are concerned,
recruiters are required to collect the same standardized set of information about each
candidate they are evaluating. However, given that the level and amount of information made
available vary greatly from one candidate to another it is difficult to conduct an equally fair
comparison and evaluation (Brown, V. and Vaughn, D, 2011)
4.7 Global talent market
4.7.1 GENERATIONAL – WHAT’S DIFFERENT ABOUT THIS GENERATION?
One of the key areas that require an extensive research is the nature of today’s
generation - what features and expectations they have? Answering to this will help us
understand why social media has come to play a vital role in Recruitment.
Generation Y (Gen Y) is used to describe individuals born between 1977 and 1994, who in
fact are the newest and largest generation entering the workforce, this generation is also
referred to as the millennials, internet generation, dot.com or generation next. As a result of
what this generation has in common, in terms of social and historical experiences, they have
been claimed to be significantly different from their predecessors in “work related”
characteristics (i.e. Gen X, baby boomers, etc.), this generation is now representing the most
recently defined generation as well as the largest ever to enter the workforce. (Luscombe,
J., Lewis, I., & Biggs, H. C, 2013)
The most evident work-related characteristics of Gen Y employees’ expectations are related
to organizational responsibility and job flexibility (Lindquist, 2008). Their expectation for -

46
high job flexibility makes them uninterested in a job for life, and more likely to leave their
current employer than previous generations (Oliver, 2006) for many of them, a one-year of
employment with the same organization can be considered as long term (Martin, 2005).
Gen Y also focuses much of their energy on maintaining their private lives; hence they highly
regard the importance of having work-life balance (Crumpacker and Crumpacker, 2007).
Despite this high attention to their private lives, they are still career oriented (Oliver, 2006)
and seek to do meaningful work and roles (Martin, 2005) which leads us to talk about their
second expectation - organizational responsibility. Gen Y look to assume early
responsibility at work, they want to do challenging work, they need to have enough space to
create, work in teams with other motivated workers and positive managers (Martin, 2005).
Gen Y is also known to be results oriented, good at multi-tasking, and consistently looking
for work and pressure (Shaw and Fairhurst, 2008).
Due to these unique characteristics and expectations, Gen Y could seem challenging for
employers to manage and satisfy. For example, they can’t be micromanaged or restricted in
the way they prefer to finish tasks (Broadbridge et al., 2007a; Martin, 2005). They are also
known to be emotionally needy, constantly looking for feedback and praise from their
managers at work (e.g. Shaw and Fairhurst, 2008). Further, they value training and
mentoring as it enables them to remain marketable, hence more flexibility to change jobs
more often (Cennamo and Gardner, 2008).
In addition to the previously mentioned characteristics, a key highlight of Gen Y is their
friendliness with technology, hence they likely to put more value on organizations that are
technically up-to-date, technological applications are not only heavily integrated in their
private lives but in their workplaces as well, as many of them favor sending instant messages,
text messages or e-mails over face-to-face interactions (Crumpacker and Crumpacker,
2007; Glass, 2007).
Lastly, they prefer working within celebrative environments, in which they can feel included
in discussions and decision makings; hence they value employers who are open, transparent
and honest.

47
In conclusion, a clear distinction has to be made between digital natives “Gen Y” as
extensively detailed above and digital Immigrants “previous generations” who in fact, from
their name “immigrants” resemble real life immigrants in their efforts to adapt to new
environments, given that there’ll always be some degree of their native "accent" that is still
retained, which can be seen in such things like turning to the Internet to look for information
second rather than first (See exhibit 4), or studying a manual before operating a new machine
rather than directly assuming that the machine itself will teach them how to use it. Hence it’s
important to realize that today’s older workforce were "socialized" very differently from their
kids, and are now trying to catch up with learning a new language. And as scientists say a
new language learned later in life goes into a different part of the brain (Prensky, 2001).
Exhibit 4: Generation Y (Builder, 2014)
4.7.2 PASSIVE CANDIDATES
A lot of discussion within Recruitment forums has gone into the role of social media
in attracting and connecting with passive candidates. But who do we classify as
passive candidates? They are defined as qualified candidates for employment who

48
aren't necessarily looking for work, but who may be interested if the right job comes
along (Doyle, A. 2014).
Until very recently employers assumed that there is a sizeable number of qualified talent who
are out there in the job market and who are currently not interested in changing their jobs,
hence recruiters used to label them as “passive talent” to make a clear distinction between
them and other “active candidates” who are passionately looking for jobs.
But according to a recent study conducted in 2013 by CareerBuilder this is not the case any
longer, as Kassandra Barnes, Research and Content Manager at CareerBuilder said it. “We
need to get rid of the words ‘active’ versus ‘passive’. They just aren’t relevant words in the
job search landscape anymore’’ (Lorenz, 2012).
One of the key findings of the survey was the discovery that, the majority of the already full-
time employed workers were either actively looking for news job or open to consider new
opportunities (Builder, 2014 - see Appendix 12) and 35% said they begin preparing for their
next job within weeks of starting a new one. When it comes to frequency, 40% percent of the
already full-time employed workers said that they are even searching for new opportunities
during daytime as part of their “regular routine” (Builder, 2014).
When looking at it from a generational perspective, 83% of millennials are actively looking
or open to consider new opportunities, compared to 80% of Gen X and 71% of baby boomers
(Builder, 2014 - see Appendix 13) and 49% of millennials are more likely to search for new
opportunities during work hours, compared to 33% in the case of their older “baby boomer”
counterparts (Builder, 2014).
It’s also worth highlighting that diversity factors was highly carefully regarded by
CareerBuilder in their survey, to ensure representation of different demographic segments,
genders and various income levels (Builder, 2014 - See Appendix14).
Building on these important findings, employers are advised to stop thinking of candidates
in the old terms of being “passive” or “active” since these days are nearly obsolete. The
digital landscape has made the large majority of workers constantly on standby mode for

The role of social media networks in recruitement

The role of social media networks in recruitement

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

Similar to The role of social media networks in recruitement

Similar to The role of social media networks in recruitement (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (12)

The role of social media networks in recruitement