Jobvite, a provider of next-generation recruitment solutions, has published results of its 2008 Social Recruitment Survey.
Social recruitment is the practice of leveraging social and professional networks, online and offline, for talent acquisition.
The survey shows that the majority of companies (78%) are tapping social networks to find employees. The most common method of social hiring is leveraging employee networks through referrals - 75% of companies surveyed do so.
64 per cent of companies are making contacts through online social networks, predominantly LinkedIn (80%) and Facebook (36%).
When asked which techniques they plan to use more next year, 68% of recruiters said they will increase their use of referrals and employees’ networks. Overall, responses reveal that recruiters are already engaging in social recruitment using a range of methods, both online and offline.
But Jobvite says that most have yet to implement a comprehensive social recruitment strategy that fully leverages companies’ most valuable social networks – those of their employees.
The interesting thing here is that there is implicit endorsement in social networks as a recruitment tool. So, while most employers don’t want their staff flicking to Facebook and sending IM to their friends during work hours, at the same time they are encouraging employees to cultivate potential candidates.
Yesterday, I explored how savvy companies are leveraging social and professional networks, online and offline, for talent acquisition. But here’s IBM’s somewhat cynical take on cultivating potential candidates through social networks.
In the most recent issue, Workforce Magazine provided some stats on the top HR leaders among Fortune’s 20 Most Admired Companies. Jason Corsello (who writes Human Capitalist blog) analysed those statistics and uncovered some interesting facts:
Companies also appearing on the Best Companies to Work: 8 (40%)
Average HR leaders’ tenure at their company: 15.2 years
Years in top HR leadership position: 3.1 years (this is somewhat misleading as 50% of the leaders have been in their position less than 2 years)
Demographics: Male 11 (55%), Female 8 (40%), Undisclosed 1 (5%)
Average age of top HR leader: 48.8
Youngest HR Leader: 35 (Laszlo Bock - Google, 35)
Average age (male): 50.6 (52.2 without Laszlo Bock)
Also, 66 per cent of the companies included use VP/SVP of Human Resources as their title of choice. Interestingly, Google and Southwest are more progressive and use “people” instead of HR (goes back to yesterday’s post about “talent” v “HR”.
Is the next Galileo sitting at home wasting his potential watching DVDs of Star Wars instead of watching the stars themselves? Is the next Shakespeare tapping out love texts on her mobile phone instead of writing the next Romeo and Juliet?
Luddites and techno-phobes complain that digital technologies are stifling creativity and creating a generation of unmotivated couch potatoes.
Technology has undoubtedly made life much easier for so many - but that doesn’t mean we’ve become lazy. Instead, technology has further enabled us to expand our infinite creative potential.
The Internet has given people a means to break down barriers that once muffled the flow of information and collaboration. With people from across the globe now able to access seemingly infinite amounts of information and to be able to collaborate and share ideas, we are entering an exciting new era.
With blogs and wikis, everyone can communicate. With RSS feeds, everyone can read about it. MySpace, Ning, Bebo and FaceBook help us to connect with the world. Flickr helps to sort, store and share your snaps, while YouTube let’s you show off your movie making talents. Tagging sites like Del.ici.ous enable us to share our favourite webpages. Gliffy provides the tools to draw and share diagrams, Googledocs eliminates the challenges of document version control, while Slideshare hosts and shares presentations. The list is endless.
And despite what the naysayers say, Internet technologies are not making us lazier, but instead have the capacity to deliver sharp upswings in productivity.
While MySpace might seem like fun and fluff, social networks, teleconferencing, wikis and other technologies that allow interaction on a large scale are changing traditional business models and improving productivity.
Cisco Systems’ Chairman, John Chambers, recently suggested that businesses that embrace collaborative communications models, such as social networking, into their processes could see a return to 3 to 5 percent annual improvements in worker productivity.
By allowing people both in and outside of companies to connect with each other, and share information over the network, the pace of business operations will escalate. The power of connecting will enable us to do things at a dramatically different speed.
So, in the words of science fiction writer, Robert A Heinlein, “progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things.”
Everyone’s talking about Facebook. And if you’re an employer, you’re probably worried about your workers wasting office hours social networking when they should be productive.
Relax. Facebook can be an essential addition to your employees’ web working toolbox.
So how can Facebook benefit business?
For starters, Facebook is all about community. As a social networking tool, it allows you to leave messages on users’ walls, join groups and participate in discussions. You can connect with old and new co-workers and clients without being intrusive. Add these people to Facebook and stay in touch without needing to actively maintain a conversation via email or phone.
Use Facebook to virally tackle a business cause. Look for business opportunities out of shared interests. Ask questions, and take advantage of Facebook’s collective intelligence with the My Questions application. Gain insight into business challenges and discover new resources through your network.
Of course, it’s important to edit your profile and security settings, giving careful consideration to exactly who sees your profile and when. Facebook can come back to haunt you, as the Australian swimming team found out recently.
But before brushing aside Facebook as a fad, remember: if you are hiring the next generation of workers, it’s important – regardless of your age – that you remain web-literate and in touch with the latest Internet trends.
Today, 11 percent of Fortune 500 companies have corporate blogs, according to SocialText, but only a handful have a designated chief blogger.
This will certainly change, as more companies embrace the power of social media.
March 2008 marked an inflexion point in Australia. It was the month that people spent more time online than watching TV.
According to AC Nielson, Australians on average spend 13.7 hours online and only 13.3 hours watching TV. As the eyeballs move from TV screen to PC screen, this marks a change in the way we connect with people within our existing circle of friends and, more importantly, our ability to access and interact with virtual acquaintances who have new ideas, opinions and knowledge that we can leverage in our jobs and our lives.
This is a brave new world and we are yet to understand the opportunities that might flow from digital interactions for organisations and individuals. My interest in Internet communities and how they interact goes back to the early 2000s, when I was at CSC working on global knowledge management communities.
There are many such global communities and social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace (where I have profiles), Linked In for professional exchanges and Second Life where I have purchased an island for the Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA) and had my own avatar.
I’ve been an active blogger since 2006, at a time when just a handful of business leaders had blogs of any kinds.
While I don’t believe the concept of a ‘chief blogger’ is right for all brands, blogging can offer some companies real benefits: it can humanise a company (like Microsoft), provide transparency (like Dell) or promote a company as a great place to work (like Southwest Airlines).
My blog is my personal views on a range of topics related to talent - the attraction, retention and management and other issues which impact on how people make decisions around jobs, employers and lifestyle.
More importantly, I am interested in generating discussion and participating in a community conversation about talent management. So, if you have an idea to share, spark up a conversation.
Every time you write, video or podcast something online, you are leaving a digital fingerprint of ourselves for the whole world to see.
It’s timely advice for job seekers at a time when recruiters are looking up job applicants on social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, Xanga and Friendster, where they’ll often find risque photographs and provocative comments from candidates about drinking, recreational drug use and sexual exploits in what some mistakenly believe is relative privacy.
The New York Times cites the example of Tien Nguyen, a senior at the University of California, who was struggling to get job interviews after completing his studies.
A friend suggested that Nguyen research himself on Google. He found a link to a satirical essay, titled Lying Your Way to the Top, that he had published on a website for college students. He asked that the essay be removed. Soon, he began to be invited to job interviews.
“I never really considered that employers would do something like that,” he said. “I thought they would just look at your resume and grades.”
In the information age, the English language contains five times more words than it did during Shakespeare’s day, more than 3,000 new books are published each day and apparently a weekly selection of the New York Times contains more information than the average human being would have encountered during a lifetime in the eighteenth century.
While we all come to grips with a world in which information sharing is just a mouse click away, we must teach our children and teenagers to be selective with the information – both in what they absorb and what they transmit.
Web 2.0 is truly one of the greatest technology bubbles to come along in recent years, but with every Gen Yer so eager to become an Internet star, it’s important to remind young people of the consequences of their actions. Here are some tips to share with the young people in your lives:
Your thoughts aren’t private! It’s great to post an online blog and share your views on the world about anything and everything, but if you wouldn’t post something on you local community noticeboard, don’t post it on the Internet. It’s not as anonymous as you may think.
Think before you write! Paper diaries are a great way to vent your intimate feelings. Something you post on the Internet that may be personal or ‘blowing off steam’ is traceable if someone searches hard enough. If you wouldn’t say or do it in public, don’t do it online. In all likelihood, it won’t come back to haunt you, but it still has the potential to.
Do your research. If you feel passionate about something, make sure it’s an informed view. Opinion carries weight when it can be backed up by fact, and not speculation.
Knowledge is power, but it is also a Pandora’s Box. At a time when so much information is readily available, people have the means and methods to formulate and share strong views and opinions. While this is something that should be encouraged and nurtured, young Web 2.0 aficionados need to be reminded that Big Brother is watching!
This is a brave new world and we are yet to understand the opportunities that might flow from digital interactions for organisations and individuals. My interest in Internet communities and how they interact goes back to the early 2000s, when I was at 
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