Sectors and Companies LinkedIn: How Social Recruiting Works Simon Brunner, Journalist, Bulletin 13.03.2014 How do people find a job in the 21st century? And how do companies find good employees? On the internet, of course. Till Kaestner of LinkedIn explains how companies can use social recruiting to find the right employees. LinkedIn: How Social Recruiting Works Photo: LinkedIn Simon Brunner: Mr. Kaestner, how did you find your current job? Till Kaestner: Through my social network! I read in the newspapers that LinkedIn was planning to expand its activities in Europe. I was interested, so I contacted the company through my online network – using LinkedIn, as it happened. The rest was a mere formality. Is your story typical of job searches today? We describe the old system as post and pray. Its no longer enough for a company to put up a notice of a job opening at the factory gate, expecting a line of suitable job candidates to magically appear. This is not so much because of the internet, but because the market has changed. In certain industries, demographic changes have led to a serious shortage of skilled workers and managerial staff. The market has shifted from the supply side to the demand side; at a certain level, there are more jobs than applicants. As a result, most attractive candidates already have a permanent position where they are fairly content. The challenge is to convince them to leave. Social recruiting plays an important role in this context. Related Links: Read more in Bulletin magazine Bulletin: Work So most people who are on LinkedIn arent looking for a job. Why do they use the site? Exactly. Fewer than 20 percent are really seeking a new job. The other 80 percent are maintaining their network, looking to see what their friends are doing or reading articles related to their fields. Companies are hoping to reach out to these passive candidates in the right way and at just the right time. What is the actual impact of this? Someone with a Brazilian qualification applying to an international company, for instance, will not usually land a demanding and well-paid job, but can only hope to eventually be promoted from third undersecretary to second undersecretary. How? More and more, human resources departments are doing what marketing and sales departments have done for a long time – promoting their companies. Theyre trying to develop a brand as an employer. However, it is still relatively uncommon for companies to have the necessary skills in this regard. There is a world of difference between placing an ad and establishing a significant social media presence. While it sounds like a lot of extra work, taking advantage of social media leads to much greater efficiency – it makes it possible to reach a much larger number of people at the same time or to target a specific group. How have job seekers changed in recent years? Members of Generation Y want to know exactly what its like to work for a certain company. What are the companys values? How do people at the company interact with one another? Who would be my boss? What are his or her hobbies? How do people dress? How much travel would be involved? Are there opportunities for advancement? What work models are in place? Questions like these are rarely answered by traditional job listings. Companies that are open and honest about themselves therefore tend to be successful on LinkedIn. Most important, in my view, is for current employees to share their insights. They are a companys best and most honest brand ambassadors. What factors make for a successful job search on the internet? Because data is so abundant, we can identify quite precisely the profiles that are often viewed. The answer is simple: The photo is crucial. Profiles that include a photograph are viewed four times as often. Its also important to include personal details. Empty words like creative, team player and resilient are deadly; employers go right on to the next profile. What else should people avoid? The purpose of a job search is for employers and employees who are a good match to find each other. Thanks to social networks, each side is able to find out a great deal about the other before they meet in person. But that means that honesty is crucial – hiring takes place in the real world, and if someone has lied it will quickly become apparent. Furthermore, today over half of all companies carry out background checks on job applicants, and this, too, has become much easier because of the internet. Does a line still exist between private and professional networks in the online world? Of course. Studies have shown that using a social media platform like Facebook is perceived to be a leisure time activity, like going to the movies or watching television. Time spent on a professional network, on the other hand, is seen as an investment, and involves very different attitudes and objectives. In the business world, LinkedIn also appears to serve as a dating site of sorts. This is clear from articles like Is LinkedIn the New Dating Hot Spot? (Forbes) and Thousands Of People Are Looking For Love On LinkedIn (Business Insider). Does that bother you? Of course were pleased if LinkedIn generates emotional connections, but it is fundamentally a businesslike, professional environment. Do you, personally, accept every contact request you receive? Definitely not. If a stranger sends me an add request without any explanation, I decline. After all, my network defines who I am! I have about 2,500 contacts on LinkedIn. While I dont know all of them personally, every one is relevant, in a wider sense, to my professional life. LinkedIn is active in over 200 countries – are there regional differences? Only a few; roughly the same functions are used everywhere. But we have observed differences from one country to another in the degree of contact people want. The Japanese tend to be cautious, Americans are very informal and open, Central Europeans are rather hierarchy-conscious – we are unlikely to add an executive to our network and then send off a message like Hi boss, hows it going? Do you have a job for me? If I google you, the first hit that comes up is your profile on Xing, a LinkedIn competitor. Why is that? Its only natural that I have a profile on a competitors site, although less and less is happening there. Xing is very good at SEO, so thats why my Xing profile shows up first in a Google search. But this will soon change. Till Kaestner Till Kaestner Till Kaestner, 42, has worked for LinkedIn since 2012 and currently holds the position of commercial director for Germany, Austria and Switzerland. He has a degree in architecture and lives with his wife in Munich. They have four daughters. Glossary LinkedIn The largest social recruiting platform, with over 250 million registered users. LinkedIn is listed on the stock exchange (NYSE), and its market capitalization totals almost 30 billion dollars (December 11, 2013). Social recruiting A method of finding employees using social networks. Also referred to as social hiring, social recruitment and social media recruitment. Social network A loose association of internet users who share a network community. Facebook, with over a billion members, is the worlds largest social network. Synonyms: social media and social platform. Post and pray This refers to the traditional method of listing job openings. Companies place an ad, hoping that a suitable candidate will contact them. Social media presence Nearly all major companies maintain profiles on social media, where they present information about themselves and communicate with their stakeholders (customers, investors, potential employees, etc.). Generation Y A demographic term for the cohort of individuals who were teenagers around the year 2000. Synonyms: Gen Y and Millennials. A successor generation to the baby boomers and Generation X. Add contact Adding new contacts on a social network. SEO Search engine optimization (SEO) seeks to ensure that a website will be among the top hits that appear in an online search.
Posted on: Fri, 14 Mar 2014 07:51:24 +0000
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