Finding Work through Social Networks is Rational and Efficient

Finding work through social networks is becoming more and more popular. More and more people find work in such way because it is rational and efficient. In 2013, 92% of all companies used social media sites to recruit new workers, and 73% of all workers were hired through social media. In 2014, 79% of recruiters said they had found employees through LinkedIn. 26% found candidates through Facebook, and 14% through Twitter. Nowadays, employers and recruiters tend to use social media more while job boards less. Therefore, according to this statistics, it is rational and efficient to use social media for job finding than traditional ways.

Finding work via social media sites has many benefits. It gives a possibility to reach a very wide network of people from you city, other cities, and even other countries. Therefore, chances to find the best alternative among thousands of propositions are growing. Social networks also provide relevant information about the company that looks for employees. Social media sites allow a jobseeker to market himself/ herself by posting all important information, usually for free or for a low price. It enables employers to find the employee by keywords. Professional networking sites can allow creating a professional resume and putting key benefits and skills of employee there in order to make it easy for recruiters to find him / her. One of them is LinkedIn it allows employers and employees to find each other. One more advantage of looking for a job in social networks is that the resume is always available. It can be seen round-the-clock from any country where the site is available. Moreover, an employee can easily make changes to his/ her resume if something changes in working experience or skills.

Some recommendations can be made to those who want to find their new job via social media sites. It is important to create a relevant profile. It should contain relevant information about an employee for 15 or even 20 years. The profile should be built using the 3 C’s – Consistency, Clarity, and Constancy. It will be beneficial for a recruiter who looks over many profiles to find a perfect worker. It is also recommended to update information and status regularly. It will show recruiters that the employee is still looking for a job. However, it is also important to make a separate personal and a separate professional account. It can help to make professional information more structured. In addition, potential employers are not likely to see something an employee does not want them to see. The main tip is not to be afraid of unemployed status. There are many companies that need freelance employees, and they are likely to be interested in unemployed person. Social media sites provide a good opportunity to connect directly to a future employee.

It is important to know about the most popular social media sites and the peculiarities of using them to find work. The most popular social media sites that enable an employee to find work are LinkedIn, Plaxo, Twitter, Jobster, Facebook, Craigslist, MyWorkster, VisualCV, JobFox, and Academy. LinkedIn is a good website to post the resume and with the next work. It is also good for college students who are looking for a future work. This site allows posting experience, education information and skills in order to enable employers to find the employee they need. It is important to post complete information about yourself there. Absence of mistakes and other problems will be a benefit.

Facebook is a useful social network to find work. There, many companies have their own pages. It enables and employee to find more information about a company he/ she wants to work for. Some companies post their job opportunities on their pages. Complete and current Facebook profile can help an employee to find a new work. Twitter can be useful, too. An employee can follow an industry that is interesting for him/ her and participate in communities that offer work. It is important not to just retweet what other people are saying. A user should create meaningful content that is interesting to other people. Many companies have job-related Twitter handles. Twitter has some benefits over other social networks. It is open and easy to show an employee’s talents, personality, style, and interests. It makes connection with other people and companies very easy.

An employee can also start blogging to find work. Although it requires much time, it can be helpful if an employee wants to find a job. Blog is something like person’s brand. It can show the skills and experience of the person. Blog helps to connect the person to others. Interesting comments made by the person on others’ blogs can attract to his/her blog, too. As a result, potential employers may become interested in that employee.

Social media sites can be very useful and efficient to those who want to find their new job. Nevertheless, not everything is so good. Finding work via social media sites may have some problems for an employee, and they should be kept in mind. For the people who are currently employed, information in their profiles about job search may cause some problems. If the current employers find this information, they may fire such employees because they consider that they do not like their current jobs. The confidential information about an employee can be used by hackers and other people. For example, they can use a portfolio or examples of work if they are posted in open social media account. Moreover, a potential employee can discriminate employees in recruiting them if he/she finds I social media sites information about their age, religion, disability, and so on. One more problem is that social media profiles often contain not only professional, but also personal information about an employee. According to the survey, 93% of employers look through the candidate’s social media profile. If there are inappropriate photos and information, for instance, naked person or a person who drinks alcohol, it may discourage employers from hiring him/ her. Therefore, it is wise to create separate personal and professional profiles, or not to make such photos and information available to everyone. Grammar errors affect the chances to be hired negatively, too. Finally, it is important to remember that not all companies have social media pages and profiles. Many small companies do not have them. Therefore, it is wise to use both social media and traditional job search in order to find job easily.

As it was mentioned above, more and more companies and recruiters create their social media pages and find potential employees via social media sites. It is quite convenient and has many benefits. Nevertheless, a human resource manager may face some problems while recruiting employees through social media websites. Every company that wants to hire employees via social media should keep them in mind. An important issue is that recruitment in social media can be costly. It requires much time and additional payment to recruiters because there are thousands of profiles on social media sites, and it is difficult to look through them all to find a perfect employee. As the social media profiles are not formalized and do not require documents, they may contain inaccurate information about an employee.

One more problem for human resource managers is that hiring employees via social media sites is quite impersonal. Usually, interviews are conducted via telephone or email, especially when an employee lives far from the company’s office. Sometimes, it is negative for an employer because many personal features of a candidate cannot be studied without a personal conversation. Finally, recruitment via social media sites can damage the image of a company in different ways. For example, there are many candidates who applied to job posting made by a company in social media site. Sometimes, they all cannot be replied properly because of a lack of time. As a result, a company may be considered impolite to its potential employees.

In conclusion, social media has become very popular for job search. It is convenient for candidates and provides good opportunities in finding a good employer. Nevertheless, both employees and recruiters may face some problems if they use social media for employing and hiring. Employees should be accurate in grammar, provide relevant information, and separate their personal and professional information. Recruiters may face some problems because recruitment via social media sites is often costly, requires much time, does not provide complete information about employees, and may damage the image of the company.