David Manaster is raising some interesting points about using social media effectively. In a recent webinar on recruiting technology trends, an overwhelming amount of recruiters (66.82%) indicated that LinkedIn is their preferred social networking tool. What methods do you use, and which work best? What are the trends you’re predicting for 2009? What fads will cool off in the new year, and of course, which are just getting warmed up? Or are you a “phone will remain king” type of recruiter?
| # of Respondents | % of Respondents | |
| 298 | 66.82% | |
| 35 | 7.85% | |
| MySpace | 7 | 1.57% |
| YouTube | 0 | 0.00% |
| 4 | 0.90% | |
| Other | 16 | 3.59% |
| None of the above | 86 | 19.28% |
| Total Respondents | 446 | 100.00% |
2 comments
Ethics Concerns Jan 6, 2009 at 1:12 pm
I question how reliable social networking sites are as professional reference sites. I recently worked with a woman who would spend several hours each week building her connections and asking for recommendations from people. She is on LinkedIn. During a casual lunch conversation, she acknowledged that the recommendations and connections were from her boyfriend, her brother, her best friends, several high school friends, etc. All people that she knows and that have professional jobs, but their comments sounded like she was the best and the brightest person in the world. When in actuality she is a pretty woman, but not hard working and prefers the “social†aspect of work versus actually doing the work. The recommendations referred to her project management skills, etc., but she had in fact not done any of that work. Her friends and family just wrote whatever they thought sounded the most professional. How disappointing. Someone will hire this person thinking they are getting a great employees, and she has not been ethical in her LinkedIn page.
MPlank Jan 6, 2009 at 8:58 pm
I definitely think the use of web 2.0 sites is going to continue to be a strong method of networking and recruiting efforts. In response to Ethics Concerns response above I would hope the person responsible for reference checking would confirm the relationship with listed professional references vs. just accepting what is listed on LI. For the recruiting world LI will continue to be a great source of finding potential “passive” candidates to source along with possible contacts for sales folks. I think recruiters and sales folks that use a variety of techniques will continue to lead the pack.