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Job Hunting and Social Media

While at ALA this year I met a few people who proudly announced that they weren’t on Facebook or any social site when I suggested resources there that might help with their questions. That’s fine since it’s a personal choice but one that might not be very good for them in the long term. I was most worried about a few who were seeking work as recent LIS grads and acted stunned when I told them that much recruiting took place in social web sites and they should be concerned if their skills weren’t discoverable by recruiters there – especially in a difficult job search economy when every effort should be made to be present and available for those with the jobs.

Anyway, I thought that this study deserved wider distruibution throughout library land since so many libraries support job seeking and finding strategies for their users:

Most Companies Use Social Media For Recruiting, Says Survey
Written by John Paul Titlow / July 6, 2010

social recruiting plans

“A large majority of companies are moving away from job boards and toward social media as their primary recruiting tool, according to annual survey results released by social recruitment software company Jobvite.

The report, entitled Jobvite Social Recruiting Survey 2010, was based on an online survey taken by 600 participants between May and June [2010].

Of the respondents who are actively hiring this year, 92% said that they either “currently use or plan to” use social networks for recruiting new employees. Meanwhile, spending on more traditional tools like job boards and third-party recruiters either decreased or stayed constant for a majority of companies.

Not surprisingly, the social networking site most used by companies for recruiting is LinkedIn (78%) , followed by Facebook (55%). The site that saw the most growth was Twitter, which wasn’t even a blip on the radar when Jobvite first conducted this survey in 2008, but was used by 45% of respondents this year.

Most hiring firms will review a candidate’s social media presence as part of the vetting process, with 38% indicating that they always search for applicants’ social networking profiles and 32% doing so only sometimes.

Indicating that the social media’s involvement in job recruiting is more than just hype, the survey reported that 58% of companies had successfully hired employees via a social networking site.

The complete results of the survey are available on Jobvite’s website (free registration required to download).”

networks for social recruiting

For those libraries who also offer courses on job finding, this report and some of what it says might make great fodder for teaching management of your social profile and reputation as part of the job search process.

From Gale you might also consider our Career Transitions knowledge portal that helps libraries organize their career advisory services into a simpler process as well as reducing the effort in supporting your communities and making your effort more scalable. Ask your rep.

Stephen

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Posted on: July 7, 2010, 8:56 am Category: Uncategorized

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