#Hiringvia socialnetworks: #workforthewealthy, #connected and #savvy As #recruitingshifts to #closednetworksonline, many #Americans #withouteasyaccess or #socialmediaskills are at a #disadvantage • The #unconnectedlife: #growingupwithoutinternet • Fifty-six and jobless: what do you do now? Share 89 Email Jana Kasperkevic Follow @kasperka Follow @GuardianUS theguardian, Tuesday 3 June 2014 16.32 BST Jump to comments (15) Social media smes Companies are relying on, and even creating, social networks, for the purposes of finding and hiring. Photograph: Anatolii Babii / Alamy Heres an interesting paradox: more bosses like to use social media, like LinkedIn and Twitter to hire. It sounds great: free, open, casting a wide net. But heres the catch: what if it limits the good jobs to people who have great connections on social media, rather than just great skills? One thing is indisputable: the job-search process is an unholy technological mess. With 287,000 Americans currently unemployed and currently looking for a job, recruiters are flooded with emails; job searchers sift through endless postings on socially connected networks like Twitter, LinkedIn, company websites and various other job boards. “We spam them, they spam us back,” Michael Bailen, head of talent acquisition at Zappos told the Wall Street Journal last week. According to him, Zappos hired about 1.5% of the 31,000 applicants whose applications were reviewed in 2013. And so the innovative online shoes and apparel retailer has made a bold decision: no more job postings. Twitter blocked in Turkey following premiers threats Internet access, unavailable at home to many, is increasingly becoming a privilege of class as well as a necessity to finding a job. Photograph: Tolga Bozoglu/EPA That’s right. Zappos has decided that in order to find the best suited candidates, it didn’t need piles and piles of resumes. After all, job listings just got in the way of what hiring really was about: building relationships, Stacy Donovan Zapar, who is in charge of Candidate experience and engagement at Zappos, wrote in a post on LinkedIn. Job postings are a conversation killer. A job posting is that bright shiny object in the room that distracts from the real conversation and networking to be had. Its a dead-end road, a recruiting black hole where applicants go to die or leave with a negative experience and impression of your company. Theyre one-way conversations where your candidates dont really have a voice. Theyre that sore thumb sticking out as we make this evolution back to old-school, relationship-based recruiting. What Zappos does need, according to Zapar, is interaction with its potential employees. A chance to get to know each other. Sounds cozy and comforting. Yet it won’t actually be that much of an old-school interaction – as much of this bonding will take place on Zappos new career site, where the interested applicants will still have to create a profile and upload a resume. The company will also leverage its “active social media presence on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn,Instagram, Pinterest to give people an inside peek into life at Zappos,” Zapar wrote in a second post explaining Zappos new approach to hiring. The “get to know us” part of the process is, however, not a requirement or prerequisite. US money internet phones gadgets Internet and our various devices have already invaded the most personal corners of our lives, including the bedroom. Photograph: Alamy If youre over 39, youre rolling your eyes right about now. As the hiring process evolves to include not just custom career sites and job boards, but also interactions on variety of social media networks, there are certain demographics that have a distinct advantage – the computer savvy millennials. Who is left behind? By selecting candidates based on their computer literacy or their passion for the company, Zappos isn’t actually doing anything wrong, says Eric B Meyer, partner in the labor and employment group at the Philadelphia-based Dilworth Paxson LLP. Ostensibly anyone with an internet connection could connect with Zappos this way. And Zappos is an internet-based shoe company, so you really have to be at the very least internet savvy, I would think, in order to be considered there, he explains. Rittenhouse Square, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA Rittenhouse Square, Philadelphia, is among the wealthier sections of a city in which 55% of households lack internet access. Photograph: Alamy In Philadelphia, where he practices, about 82% of people had access to internet in 2013, according to The Pew Charitable Trusts. Yet, with about 55% of Philadelphia households lacking access to internet in 2012, most Philadelphians likely depend on their smartphones to remain connected, concluded Julia Reyes of Technical.ly Philly. Furthermore, it would be hard to prove discrimination against “one specific protected class” of people, says Meyer, since nearly everyone has some access to the internet today, even if not at home. Everyone has a smart phone now. Everyone can basically get to the internet through a smartphone. You can set up a Twitter account on your smartphone. You can set up a Facebook profile on your smartphone. You can tap into a LinkedIn on your smartphone. Its not as if you are without other means to learn about positions that are being advertised on these social networking platforms. I find it hard to believe that any particular protected class would be intentionally excluded from these job opportunities.” And while many of these social media networks have a particular demographic that they appeal to – for example, LinkedIn attracts older users than Twitter – we all have the ability to sign up for these services, says Meyer. Technology Adoption by Lower Income Populations from Pew Research Centers Internet & American Life Project Not exactly. Internet access is still a class distinction. Overall, about 15% of Americans do not access internet at all. Another 15% do go online, but do not have access at home. These numbers get higher as the income drops, found Pew. About 30% of those making less than $20,000 a year are not online at all. Another 30% access internet outside their home, most often at the library. Many of those using libraries services are using them to apply for jobs. In a 2013 Pew study focused on library services, 47% of job seekers revealed that library services that help them find or apply for a job are “very important” to them and their families. “Employers are moving [online]. Applicants are going to have to adapt. Its not that hard to ask an applicant to adapt and search for positions through this way, rather than sending in a resume through snail mail, said Meyer. Twitter Wall Street flotation Companies want to contact prospective employees without making eye-contact. Photograph: Kacper Pempel/Reuters Its also not just a matter of internet access. Its a well-known trend in education that disadvantaged minority students are hard to identify and tend to get lost at prestigious universities simply because they dont have the advice and social infrastructure to know where to go. Those who are middle-class and college-educated, living in city centers with successful friends, may know the power of LinkedIn or which companies have their own job boards. That does exclude potentially skilled applicants, however, who dont fit that profile, including more experienced workers in their 50s and many who dont have the money or connections to be savvy on social media. The move of hiring for skilled jobs to closed online communities especially wont help those in certain income brackets, where 10% of the growth in the job market comes from temporary jobs rather than full-time and the job market is filled with the ghosts of the long-term unemployed. Yet, ask any manager with the power to hire people: after years of HR tsunamis, its hard to accept a reversal from the move towards smaller, more handpicked hiring networks. The overwhelming message is that the evolution of hiring will center around being well-connected. Apply online or remain unemployed. Adapt or be left behind. theguardian/money/us-money-blog/2014/jun/03/social-network-jobs-internet-connection-media?guni=Network%20front:network-front%20main-5%20on%20the%20guardian:Network%20front%20-%20all-purpose%20editable%20trailblock:Position3
Posted on: Wed, 04 Jun 2014 22:05:00 +0000
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