Social Network Your Way to the Right Candidate
ningcontentA lot has been written about employers using social networking sites as tools to vet entry level job candidates. In his article for ERE, Social Networking and “Fit,” Dr. Charles Handler talks about employers who use social networks in a different way. Instead of trolling around looking for any kind of dirt they can dig up on potential employees, some employers seek out and connect with those candidates whose values and habits would make them good cultural fits with the companies.
“The use of social networking to help provide accurate pictures of the culture (also called work values) within an organization” will serve to help recent college graduates and college students to decide which companies they should apply to for entry level jobs or internships.
Although the practice of matching the preferences of candidates with those of potential employers isn’t a new concept, it is one that can be extremely helpful when it comes to attracting top talent. “Collective data about an organization’s characteristics, values and culture could have major value for those who are thinking about working there,” Handler says.
Sites like Climber.com and jiibe.com allow visitors to “complete a culture/work values questionnaire as part of the matching and searching process. In essence, a selection of employers is offered based on how the job seeker answers the questionnaire, in addition to his work history and education. These two sites are job-boards-as-networks in the sense that they bring together companies and candidates with similar qualities in an effort to facilitate hiring and job searching efforts.
“Internet job searching has traditionally provided the job seeker with little control, information or feedback about [his] job application,” says Handler, but thanks to new Web technologies like those found at Climber and jiibe, that may become “one of the biggest changes we are going to see” in the world of job searching.
