Social Media in Recruitment

Abstract

Social media, in addition to allowing people to connect and communicate socially, has allowed employees and employers to connect for business purposes. This has high relevance to new media theory, as it is technology that has affected the recruitment and business practices of many organizations. The following presents an analysis of social media trends and usage across a sample of 102 participants of the 2013 Social Media and Recruitment Conference, using a 14 item questionnaire, with semi-structured interviews used for insight in interviewing three experts from major companies. Results revealed that the conference participants felt that social media was beneficial, although had considerable disadvantages, while they provided their perspectives on trends, advantages, and disadvantages. Meanwhile, the interviewees felt that social media is a valuable supplement, while online recruiting is basically the nature of modern recruiting, although companies with enough funding seem to prefer special online programs or software for their recruiting.