Social Media and Recruitment: It's not what you know, but who you know that makes the difference

Jenny Navan “It‟s not what you know, but who you know” H.Dip in e-Business

Social Media and Recruitment

“It's not what you know but who you
know that makes the difference.”

A s t u d y o f s o c i a l r e c r u i t i n g i n I r e l a n d f r om a j o b - s e e k e r s ‟
perspective.

A p o s t - g r a d u a t e d i s s e r t a t i o n s u b mi t t e d i n p a r t i a l f u l f i l me n t
o f t h e r e q u i r e me n t s o f H .Di p i n B u s i n e s s i n E - B u s i n e s s .

National College of Ireland
Higher Diploma in e-Business
2009/2010

Jennifer Navan
09104950
Jennifer.Navan@student.ncirl.ie

Word Count: 14,622

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Declaration of Originality

I hereby certify that this material, which I now submit for
assessment of the programme of study leading to the award of a
Higher Diploma in Business in e -Business is entirely my own work
and has not been taken from the work of o thers save and to the extent
that such work has been citied and acknowledged within the text of
my work.

Signed: __________________________

Date: 30th July 2010
Student Number: x09104950

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Abstract

Social Media is an important development not only to the world of
the Internet, but it also has an important impact on societ y as a
whole. The Internet has affected nearl y every element of our lives
and social media is soon to become as prolific. Social media has an
impact on business, marketing, personal shopping habits, even
politics. Over the last twelve months, social media has also started
to have an impact on recruitment.

Social recruiting is the term given to recruitment via social
networking sites. Social recruiting has been gaining popularity
across the world over the last twelve to eighteen months and is
becoming more main-stream in Ireland. This project aimed to
investigate whether the Irish public were interested in finding out
about jobs through social networking sites, or if this was viewed as
a v i o l a t i o n o f t h e i r p r i v a c y. A n o t h e r a s p e c t o f t h e s t u d y w a s t o
establish whether or not the Irish public still believed the old adage
of „It‟s not what you know, but who y ou know that makes a
difference‟, and thus see if people leverage their online connections
to the same extent they would use their offline friends and contacts
to aid them in securing a job.

T h e r e s u l t s c l e a r l y i n d i c a t e d t h a t a l t h o u g h t h e r e h a s n o t ye t b e e n
much success with social recruiting, peo ple are willing to try using
it and welcome being contacted through social networking sites to
learn about employment opportunities. An overwhelming majority
also believe in that „It‟s not what you know but who you know that
makes a difference‟. This was supported by the amount of
respondents who use personal contacts to help them to find
e m p l o ym e n t .

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Dedication

Without the help, support and love given to me by certain
individuals, this research paper would not have been possible.

Thanks to my family and friends who have been extremely
understanding of absences and distractions , special mention to my
parents Patricia and Bob and my sister Michelle.

I would like to thank Darragh , for his love and unwavering support.
His encouragement has truly supported me through this year, and
w i t h o u t h i m , t h e ye a r w o u l d h a v e b e e n m u c h m o r e d i f f i c u l t .

“It always seems impossible until it‟s done.”
Nelson Mandela

Acknowledgements

T h a n k yo u t o m y e m p l o ye r C p l f o r t h e i r f u n d i n g a n d s u p p o r t .
A special mention must be given to my former manager, Paul Bacon;
my enthusiasm for social media is second only to his. His
encouragement to return to education made this possible. My current
manager, Judith Moffett must also be thanked for her support, both
professionally and personally.

I would like to thank my supervisor Dermot Bradfield and all of my
classmates and lecturers for their support, guidance and advice
t h r o u g h o u t t h e ye a r .

I w o u l d a l s o l i k e t o t h a n k e a c h o f t h e p a r t i c i p a n t s o f t h e s u r v e y,
without whom, this project would no t have been possible.

To the many people who provided me with presentations, articles and
w o r d s o f e n c o u r a g e m e n t a n d s u p p o r t , t h a n k yo u .

To each and every one of you, I extend my deepest appreciation.

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Contents

i) Title 1
ii) Declaration of Originality 2
iii) Abstract 3
iv) Acknowledgements 4
v) Contents 5
vi) Table of Figures 6

1) Executive Summary 7
2) Introduction 11
3) Literature Review 16
4) Methodology 23
5 ) A n a l ys i s 28
a. Social Media Usage in Ireland 29
b. Social Media in Recruitment 34
c . E m p l o ye r s R e s p o n s e s 37
d. Job Seekers Responses 41
6) Conclusion 57
7) References 61
8) Appendices 64

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Table of Figures

Figure A
Breakdown of Survey Respondents .............................................................................................................................. 27
Figure B
Usage of SNSs ................................................................................................................................................................ 33
Figure C
Employers Use of Social Media ..................................................................................................................................... 38
Figure D
Employers Reasons for Using Social Media ................................................................................................................... 39
Figure E
Job-Seekers Usage of Social Media ............................................................................................................................... 42
Figure F
Job-Seekers Reasons for Using Social Media ................................................................................................................ 43
Figure G
Job-Seekers Opinions of Social Media Sites .................................................................................................................. 44
Figure H
Job-Seekers - Social Media in Recruitment ................................................................................................................... 45
Figure I
Job-Seekers Contact Through Social Media .................................................................................................................. 46
Figure J
Job-Seekers Thoughts on Social Media in Recruitment ................................................................................................ 47
Figure K
Using Social Media in Job-Hunting ................................................................................................................................ 48
Figure L
Using Social Media Over the Next 12 Months............................................................................................................... 48
Figure M
Securing Employment Through Social Media................................................................................................................ 49
Figure N
Knowledge of Others Securing Employment Through Social Media ............................................................................. 49
Figure O
Job-Seekers Current Employment ................................................................................................................................. 50
Figure P
Job-seekers - Using Personal Connections .................................................................................................................... 52
Figure Q
Employers - Using Personal Connections ...................................................................................................................... 52
Figure R
Job-Seekers - It's Not What You Know, but Who You Know ......................................................................................... 53
Figure T
Job-Seekers - Friends .................................................................................................................................................... 54
Figure U
Employers - Friends ....................................................................................................................................................... 55

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Executive Summary

The aim of this project was to establish whether jo b-seekers in
Ireland were interested in using social media in order to find new
e m p l o ym e n t . T h e p r o j e c t w a s a l s o i n t e n d e d t o i n v e s t i g a t e w h e t h e r o r
not people believed in the adage that „It‟s not what you know but
who you know that makes a difference when looking for work‟ and
therefore examine whether or not people were using their online
c o n n e c t i o n s t o a s s i s t t h e m i n f i n d i n g e m p l o ym e n t .

The topic is one which has not been researched to any great extent in
I r e l a n d . I t w a s c h o s e n a s a t o p i c f o r r e s e a r c h a s m a n y e m p l o ye r s
b e l i e v e s o c i a l m e d i a i s t h e w a y f o r w a r d i n r e c r u i t m e n t , ye t l i t t l e
research has been carried out on how this may impact on job -seekers,
on their desire for privacy or on their need to maintain a separation
between their professional and per sonal lives. Figures gathered for
both the UK and the USA show a dramatic increase in the use of
social media in recruitment, or social recruiting. H owever when
considering factors such as the main age groups of the working
population in both of these coun tries, it is evident that the
differences in the make -up of the Irish population may mean that
Ireland does not follow suit, or at least not at the pace which some
expect.

An online survey was carried out amongst Internet users in Ireland to
establish their opinions on several key points of interest such as
their current and planned usage of social media, their openness to
being contacted about job vacancies on social networking sites and
t h e i r u s e o f p e r s o n a l c o n n e c t i o n s t o a i d i n s e c u r i n g e m p l o ym e n t . T h e
survey focused mainly on the job -seekers perspective but also took
i n t o a c c o u n t s o m e e m p l o ye r s p o i n t s o f v i e w a l s o .

Looking firstl y at the usage of social media, it can be defined as
“Online applications, platforms and media which aim to facilitate

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interaction, collaboration and the sharing of content.” – (Universal
McCann, 2008)

The main social networking sites in use in Ireland are LinkedIn,
T w i t t e r a n d F a c e b o o k . G e n e r a l l y, T w i t t e r a n d F a c e b o o k w o u l d b e
viewed as „personal‟ sites whereas LinkedIn would mainl y be viewed
as a „professional‟ site. All three have experienced rapid growth in
membership over the last eighteen to twenty-four months. The most
common age profile of users for these sites is eighteen to thirty-four,
h o w e v e r d u e t o i n n o v a t i o n s i n t e c h n o l o g y, s u c h a s s m a r t p h o n e s
(iPhone and Android) and touch screen computers (iPad); the age
g r o u p i s e x p a n d i n g t o i n c l u d e b o t h yo u n g e r a n d o l d e r u s e r s .

Social recruiting is the act of conducting recruitment through social
networking sites. It has been growing in popularity amongst both
agency recruiters and in -house recruiters over the last eighteen
months, starting initiall y with the launch of LinkedIn in 2003, which
was the first professional networking site with a large take -up. Since
the launch of LinkedIn, social recruiting has spread to other social
networking sites such as those which are deemed to be more personal
than professional. One of the reasons for the increased use of social
r e c r u i t i n g i s t h e r e d u c e d c o s t s w h i c h a r e i n v o l v e d a n d s e c o n d l y,
given that 78% of Generation Y1 trust their peers compared with just
14% of those who trust advertisements (Brave New Talent,2009),
there is greater scope for creating a genuine connection by
contacting and engaging with someone through social media rathe r
than posting an online advert for example.

The research was conducted through an online questionnaire and was
aimed mainly at job -seekers but did have a small element for
e m p l o ye r s . T h e r e s u l t s t o t h e r e s e a r c h a r e b r o k e n d o w n w i t h i n t h e
p a p e r t o f o c u s s e p a r a t e l y o n e m p l o ye r s a n d j o b - s e e k e r s .

1
Generation Y refers to those born between 1980 and 2000

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T h e e m p l o ye r s ‟ r e s p o n s e s t o t h e s u r v e y s h o w t h a t t h e m a j o r i t y o f
respondents (15%) use social networking sites to promote their
business primarily. This was followed by business development
(14%) in second place and in fourth place at 11% was recruitment.

O f t h e e m p l o ye r s w h o p a r t i c i p a t e d i n t h e r e s e a r c h , a l l u s e d s o c i a l
media to some extent, with 87% currently using social media to some
e x t e n t w i t h i n r e c r u i t m e n t a l r e a d y. H o w e v e r o n l y e i g h t o f t h e t w e n t y -
two respondents had hired someone successfully through a social
networking site.

The job-seekers responses correlated with the expected findings.
Eight y-three respondents took part in the research, and of these, 41%
currently use social networking sites to help fin d employment. The
s u c c e s s r a t e s i n f i n d i n g e m p l o ym e n t t h r o u g h s o c i a l n e t w o r k i n g s i t e s
are still relatively slim, with just 5% of respondents securing
e m p l o ym e n t , a l t h o u g h 2 1 % d i d s u c c e e d i n p r o g r e s s i n g t o i n t e r v i e w
stage after making initial contact throug h social networking sites.

When asked about planned use of social networking sites for
recruitment, 70% of job-seekers responded that they are planning on
using social media as a job hunting tool in the next twelve months
showing that Ireland is following the trend set in the UK and the
USA of adopting social recruiting. This is supported by the
o v e r w h e l m i n g m a j o r i t y o f j o b - s e e k e r s ( 7 5 % ) a n d e m p l o ye r s ( 6 2 % )
who believe that „It‟s not what you know, but who you know‟ that
counts when looking for work. Both parties would turn to friends and
f a m i l y t o l o o k f o r a s s i s t a n c e i n f i n d i n g e m p l o ym e n t a n d w i t h t h e a i d
of social media, it appears they will use both their online and offline
friends to assist them in this task.

Although there is a need for further researc h on the topic, it appears
that despite a make-up in the labour force in Ireland, when compared
to the USA and the UK, Irish job -seekers are readil y adopting new

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technology such as social networking sites, and are using it to their
advantage by leveraging both online and offline contacts to find
e m p l o ym e n t .

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Introduction

A s a S e n i o r R e c r u i t m e n t C o n s u l t a n t , w i t h f o u r ye a r s ‟ e x p e r i e n c e i n
science recruitment, I have witnessed several shifts in the
e m p l o ym e n t m a r k e t . S t a r t i n g w o r k i n 2 0 0 6 a s a g r a d u a t e , I e n t e r e d a
recruitment world where the candidate was king. They had their pick
and choice of who they wanted to work for, what location they
wanted to work in, what salary and benefits they wanted and what
job they wanted to do. E m p l o ye r s required us as recruitment
consultants, to help them find high calibre candidates but often
would be satisfied to just find anyone at all. There was a clear
shortage of labour during this time and with clients businesses
expanding and busier than ever, they wanted a workfo rce and they
w a n t e d o n e i m m e d i a t e l y.

Now in 2010, with Ireland just barely out of recession , we are most
definitely in a different market. There is still a shortage of qualified,
experienced employees but there i s not an abundance of vacancies;
t h e e m p l o ye r i s n o w k i n g . T h e y c a n c h o o s e w h o t h e y w a n t , h o w m u c h
they are willing to pay; and when they actually hire someone, it will
be because they want that person, not just any person. This is
w i t h o u t d o u b t a m a j o r c h a n g e i n j u s t f o u r ye a r s ; h o w e v e r , t h e r e i s
another change which is perhaps just as altering to the industry –
Social Media.

Social Media or Social Network Sites (SNSs) refer to ;
“Web-based services that allow individuals to construct a
public or semi-public profile within a bounded system,
articulate a list of other users with whom they share a
connections, and view and traverse their list of connections
and those made by others with the system.”
( B o yd & E l l i s o n , 2 0 0 8 )

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Universal McCann2 define Social Media as “Online applications,
platforms and media which aim to facilitate interaction,
collaboration and the sharing of content.” (Universal McCann, 2008)

Social Media is a shift from „Web 1.0‟ to „Web 2.0‟ which is
essentially a movement towards dialogue, collaboration and sharing
online versus the essentially one-way s ys t e m of information
gathering which previousl y ex isted on the Internet. Interaction is the
key to social media and the term itself suggests the idea that in
r e a l i t y, s o c i a l m e d i a c a n b e j u s t a s , i f n o t m o r e , p o w e r f u l a s
traditional media. When we take into account that 14% of Generation
Y (those born between 1980 and 2000) trust advertisements,
according to Brave New T a l e n t 3, versus 78% who trust the
recommendations of their network, we can see the scope and impact
which social media can have (Brave New Talent, 2009).

Taking social media one step further, Matt Alder, digital recruitment
expert and founder of Metashift defines social recruiting as “simply
using social channels to find the best people for an organisation” .
(Alder, 2009)

As there is such a skills shortage due to the effects of the recession,
finding the top candidate has become all the more important . Finding
the perfect candidate essentially involves headhunting them , which is
a l l a b o u t w h o yo u k n o w a n d h o w yo u c a n u s e t h o s e c o n n e c t i o n s t o
make contact with your target candidate. Social media and SNSs play
a large role in allowing individuals to make those connections and to
h a r n e s s t h e m t o a s s i s t t h e m i n a n y m a n n e r o f w a ys , i n c l u d i n g f i n d i n g
n e w e m p l o ym e n t .

2
Universal McCann is a global media agency who has conducted an annual social media tracker, globally,
over the last four years.
3
Brave New Talent is an organisation which helps employers to reduce and control their social media
footprint more effectively.

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In the last 12 months, the explosion of SNSs and applications for
smart phone devices such as the iPhone and the Android has caused a
large shift in communications, moving now into a virtual world. This
h a s t h r o w n u p m a n y i n t e r e s t i n g d e b a t e s a b o u t p r i v a c y, a b o u t s o c i a l
i n t e r a c t i o n s , a b o u t s o c i a l m e d i a i n g e n e r a l a n d a l s o a b o u t p h ys i c a l
interactions.

These debates centre around whether or not too much information is
f r e e l y a c c e s s i b l e o n t h e I n t e r n e t , l e a d i n g t o a n i n c r e a s e i n c yb e r -
crime and identity theft and a decline in traditional values such as
the art of writing and conversation.

With that as a background I became interested in whether people
were actually using social media channels to find new jobs or if it
w a s j u s t a m yt h . T h e q u e s t i o n a l s o a r o s e a s t o w h e t h e r t h e y , t h e j o b
s e e k e r , f e l t i t w a s a n i n t r u s i o n o f t h e i r p r i v a c y, w h e t h e r t h e y v i e w e d
certain sites as being strictly business or strictly personal .

F i n a l l y, I w a n t e d t o e x a m i n e t h e o l d s a yi n g t h a t “ I t ‟ s n o t w h a t y o u
know, but who you know, that ma kes the difference” . If the belief
still exists that this is true, are people leveraging their connections
online to help them in finding a job, or , does it remain the case that
this is done only with their „real world‟ connections?

Certain large multinat ionals have ambitious plans. For example,
some have mentioned plans of recruiting between 60- 80% of all new
e m p l o ye e s d i r e c t l y u s i n g s o c i a l m e d i a w i t h i n t h e n e x t s i x t o t w e l v e
months, having achieved this relatively quickly in locations such as
America. However, the uptake of certain social media outlets in
Ireland has not been quite as quick as it has been elsewhere in the
world. This target of 60 – 80% is not factoring in recruitment which
is already taking place online in the form of online jobs boards and
online application forms.

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S e v e r a l c o m p a n i e s a r e t o yi n g w i t h s o c i a l m e d i a a n d r e c r u i t m e n t a t
the moment; some even have very successful campaigns .
In one example, Microsoft Ireland saved £60,000 in recruitment fees
through using LinkedIn for a recrui tment project to hire nine highly
specialised software engineers. Fitzgerald managed to source seven
of the nine engineers through LinkedIn . These were vacancies which
would normally have been recruited for through advertising and
r e c r u i t m e n t f i r m s , a n d a t t h a t , F i t z g e r a l d s a ys i t w o u l d h a v e b e e n
hard to find these individuals.

"These are quite unusual skills which are used to protect
hardware," said Fitzgerald. " We get attacked, so about 18
months ago we decided to create a team that can continually
reverse-engineer viruses."

" We knew we would have to look across Europe to find these
people, and LinkedIn allowed us to contact people in Finland
and Romania where the recruits came from. ” (Finders, 2009)

This is not a common story yet however , it is still quite limited to
the large multinational corporation s (MNCs) and a lot of other
organisations, are still asking the why, what and who questions in
terms of the uses and benefits of social media and also the how
question in relation to developing a successful recruitment campaign
online.

If the aim is to achieve this level of recruitment (60-80%) through
social media in a short space of time, user attitude is crucial. There
must be a strong buy-in to social media, a desire to find work in this
w a y, t h e k n o w l e d g e o f h o w t o f i n d w o r k i n t h i s w a y a n d a n
understanding of the implications social media will have on job -
hunting and privacy.

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With little research done into this area, I a im to get a snapshot of
user attitude to social recruitment or recruitment throu gh social
media in Ireland at this moment in time.

In order to establish user sentiment , primary research was conducted
o n t h e t o p i c i n t h e f o r m o f a n o n l i n e s t u d y. T h e r e s e a r c h f o c u s e d o n
wh y social media is used, how it is used and how it is viewed. It also
focused specifically on the respondents ‟ attitudes to social media in
recruitment, taking into account the respondents ‟ previous
experiences with social media in recruitment, their opinion of it,
their thoughts on using social media in recruitment go ing forward
a n d c r u c i a l l y, w i l l l o o k a t t h e r e s p o n d e n t s ‟ b e l i e f s w i t h r e g a r d s t o
t h e s a yi n g „ I t ‟ s n o t w h a t y o u k n o w , b u t w h o y o u k n o w ‟ . T h e
responses to these questions will be reviewed in this paper against
t h e r e s p o n d e n t s ‟ a n s w e r s t o h o w t h e y u s u a l l y f i n d e m p l o ym e n t , h o w
t h e y i n t e n d t o f i n d e m p l o ym e n t i n t h e f u t u r e , a n d h o w m a n y s o c i a l o r
online connections they have versus those in the offline world.

For the purpose of this dissertation, the focus will be mainly on the
job-seeker and their attitude to social media in recruitment, however
t o g i v e a b r o a d e r o v e r v i e w t h e r e w i l l b e a n e l e m e n t o f e m p l o ye r s
opinions discussed also.

The primary research will be evaluated against published research on
the topic from the UK , the US and from Ireland.

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Literature Review

Quite a lot of recent work has been put into researching the
phenomenon of social media, the explosive birth and growth it has
a c h i e v e d a n d t h e i m p a c t w h i c h i t i s h a v i n g o n b u s i n e s s , yo u t h a n d
older generations at the moment.

Research to date has tended to focus on topics such as:

Social media and Privacy; Facebook have been embroiled in
debates over privacy for the last 18 months ,
Social Media and Marketing,
Social Media and Politics; some people believe that without the
use of social media, Barack Obama would not have been
elected President of the USA, now 77% of TDs say they will
use social media as part of their next election campaign
compared with 32% of those who used it in 2007 (Business &
Finance, 2010); and
Social media and communicati on skills to name just a few
examples.

To date, there has not been a vast amount of research conducted
o n s o c i a l m e d i a i n r e c r u i t m e n t . H o w e v e r t h e e m p l o ye r s ‟ p o i n t o f
v i e w i s c o v e r e d m o r e f r e q u e n t l y, t o t h e e x t e n t t h a t t h i s y e a r s a w
the second annual glob al gathering in London for a social media
i n R e c r u i t m e n t c o n f e r e n c e . T h i s ye a r ‟ s c o n f e r e n c e a t t r a c t e d t w o
hundred recruiters from the UK, New Zealand, South Africa, USA
and nine other European countries. Research in the USA by
J o b v i t e 4 a l s o f o c u s e s m a i n l y o n t h e e m p l o ye r s p o i n t o f v i e w ,
although it does highlight the fact that ;

„Fifty years ago, employees dreamed of working for a company
their entire life. But in 2006, the average worker now has 10.8

4
Jobvite are an American recruitment agency who use real-time technology and social media.

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employers‟ in their lifetime, compared to 4 in 1960s – and Gen
X may have 14. Today the job search is always on‟.
(Jobvite, 2010)

As an overview of what is Social Media and Web 2.0, „The Facebook
S t o r y ‟ ( L a c y, 2 0 0 9 ) p r o v i d e s g r e a t i n s i g h t i n t o h o w a f e w yo u n g
entrepreneurs created a storm in Silicon Valley an d created websites
which were to be adopted by the masses against all expectations.
This book provides an excellent introduction into the evolution of
sites such as Blogger and Facebook, and explains the original vision
the site founders had.

To put Social Media in context, Socialnomics (Qualman E. , 2009)
gives us an insight into why social media exploded and why the
growth rate was so prolific. Some of the research he has done truly
highlights the scale of adoption of social media.
When we look at the figures for adoption of other inventions, we will
see that Social Media has risen quickest by far.

Years to reach 50 million:

R a d i o – 3 8 ye a r s
T V – 1 3 ye a r s
I n t e r n e t – 4 ye a r s
i P o d – 3 ye a r s
Facebook added 100 million users in less than 9 months
iPod5 application downloads hit 1 billion in 9 months
(Qualman E. , 2009)

According to Qualmans research, Boston College will stop offering
@bc.edu email addresses to incoming freshmen for the year 2013 as
e-mail is becoming obsolete at this stage.

5
iPod applications includes applications from the iTunes Store for the iPod generations and the iPhone.

17 | P a g e


To highlight the size of social media usage, in 2009 according to
Qualman, Ashton Kutcher and Ellen DeGeneres have more followers
on Twitter than the entire population of Ireland, Norway and
Panama.

Of the research I have conducted, both recruitment companies and
jobs boards alike believe that social media will hav e a major impact
going forward for both recruitment and job -hunting.

The extent and impact the shift towards social media will have on
r e c r u i t m e n t d i f f e r s h o w e v e r . I n a n i n t e r v i e w w i t h M i k e T a yl o r f r o m
web-based-recruitment.com, James Caan, founder of Alexander
M a n n , a l e a d i n g U K r e c r u i t m e n t a g e n c y, a n d o f D r a g o n s ‟ D e n f a m e ,
believes that social media will really have more of an impact for
smaller recruitment agencies as they do not have an existing large
database of candidates which the larger agencies would have, making
social recruitment necessary for them, ye t optional for larger
agencies (Caan, 2009).

To give an ex ample of a large MNC, Microsoft Ireland believe that
over the next eighteen months, a very large p ercentage of their new
hires will be identified through social media , this is following on
from their successful use of social recruiting in the USA.

In 2009 in the USA, 80% of companies were using LinkedIn as their
p r i m a r y t o o l t o f i n d e m p l o ye e s . ( Q u a l m a n E . , 2 0 0 9 )

To look at Ireland, and the usage of social media here,
RecruitIreland.com advices that 93% of social networkers use
Facebook, however 73% of th ose keep their accounts private. In an
e x a m p l e o f h o w e m p l o ye r s a r e u s i n g s o c i a l m e d i a , 2 5 % o f j o b -
s e e k e r s s u r v e ye d i n d i c a t e d t h a t t h e y w e r e a w a r e o f s o m e o n e b e i n g
reprimanded in work over their online activity (RecruitIreland.com,
2010).

The correlation between these statistics and whether or not social
media will become an essential and successful to ol for recruitment is

18 | P a g e


n o t ye t c l e a r ; h o w e v e r e v e r y r e s e a r c h p a p e r a n d w e b s i t e w h i c h
discusses social media in recruitment refers to similar statistics
about the amount of users of each of these sites and how they have
grown. Perhaps the view is that it is inevitable that where one goes,
the other must follow however there is no empirical evidence to
make this statement in earnest.

Brightwater recruitment agency suggests that 90% of IT job -seekers
use LinkedIn currently (Campbell, 2010) and as LinkedIn is
predominantly a business networking site, it would imply that this is
the function job -seekers are using LinkedIn for; however, one would
ex pect IT profess ionals to be ahead of the trend in terms of using
social media for such a purpose. There is still no s olid evidence that
other sectors will follow suit, nor does it give us any information
about whether or not they wish to use social media for the purpose of
job-hunting.

If we are to look at statistics for social media users in Ireland we see
that there are 1.58 million active users of Facebook as of April 2010
(De, 2010), 3000 FourSquare6 (Fagan, 2010) users in January 2010,
25,000 Irish LinkedIn accounts in April 2010 (Hand, 2010) and
150,000 Twitter (Morris, 2010) users in April 2010. Although this
still doesn‟t provide proof that Irish job -seekers wish to use social
m e d i a t o f i n d e m p l o ym e n t , i t d o e s g i v e a n i n d i c a t i o n a b o u t t h e I r i s h
social media market.

Outside of Ireland, it is still a difficult area to find literature on.
Lucian Tarnowski of Brave New Talent in the UK suggests that
Generation Y job-seekers expect to be informed about jobs and
businesses through social media, an opinion which the Recruitment
and E m p l o ym e n t Confederation (REC) in the UK also hold.
I n t e r e s t i n g l y, t h e R E C h a v e p u b l i s h e d a 3 5 p a g e g u i d e t o S o c i a l
M e d i a i n R e c r u i t m e n t ( R e c r u i t m e n t & E m p l o ym e n t C o n f e d e r a t i o n ,

6
FourSquare is a location based social networking website which allows users to share their location with
their friends or followers and earn badges for frequenting venues regularly.

19 | P a g e


2 0 1 0 ) - ye t d o n o t m e n t i o n a n yt h i n g a b o u t u s e r a t t i t u d e s t o w a r d s
social media in recruitment. The National Recruitment Federation
( N R F ) i n I r e l a n d d o n o t ye t h a v e c o n t e n t o n t h e i r w e b s i t e a b o u t
social media in recruitment, however they di d discuss it at their last
AGM, although again, this was mainly from an e m p l o ye r ‟ s
perspective.

US research on the topic of social media is mainly focused on the
marketing sector; however some of these studies do shine a light on
how recruitment via social media may be received. AWeber study on
marketing suggests that 50% of respondents “indicated that
behavioural targeting increases their conversion rates either
significantly or moderately” when they have received a targete d
email with a link for example (AWeber, 2010). This means that
respondents were more likely to be influenced either significantly or
moderately when they received an email which was more targeted to
them and based on t heir behaviours, which may or may not have been
gathered via the Internet. When this is applied to the recruitment
sector, perhaps there is correlation in the effect that a direct email
may have versus a general posting on a social media site. Jobvite in
the USA have conducted some very interesting research on social
r e c r u i t i n g a l t h o u g h t h e y o n l y c o n s i d e r t h e e m p l o ye r s ‟ p e r s p e c t i v e
(Jobvite, 2010)

In the course of conducting research for this dissertation, it became
evident that a lot of the research and ma terial to be quoted would
have to be taken from our closest neighbours, the UK.

UK research is frequently quoted in all subject areas for Ireland as
there tends to be a lack of research conducted exclusively on Ireland.
To put the differences between the U K and Ireland into context
however, it is important to look at the different labour force models
which exist in both the UK and Ireland.

In the UK in 2009, Generation Y account for 33% of the UK
workforce, just 1% less than the largest group in the work -force, the

20 | P a g e


Bab y Boomers of 1946 – 1964. In 2010, Gen Y is predicted to
account for the largest component of the workforce (Alder, 2009).

In Ireland, if we look at the Central Statistics Office ( CSO) figures
for 2006, the most recent Census, we see that Gen Y accounts for
16% of the workforce, Gen X accounts for 42% and the Baby
Boomers account for 36% with the remaining 6% accounted for by
the mature generation.

The CSO predicts the labour force of ;
2011 will comprise of Gen Y: 26%, Gen X: 40% and Baby Boo mers:
32%.
In 2016, the prediction is; Gen Y: 36%, Gen X: 40% and Baby
B o o m e r s : 3 2 % a n d f i n a l l y, i n 2 0 2 1 , t h e p r e d i c t i o n i s G e n Y : 4 2 % ,
Gen X: 36% and Baby Boomers: 14%.
7
(Central Statistics Office, 2010)

In terms of population breakdown, these figures indicate that
Ireland‟s labour work force currently looks quite different to the UK,
and will do for some time. If Gen Y in Ireland will not outgrow Gen
X until 2021, this could have implications on the adoption of social
media by Irish job -seekers.

Executives Online8 have conducted some research into the area of
social recruiting, taking into account both the job -seekers and the
e m p l o ye r s ‟ p o i n t o f v i e w . T h e y f o u n d t h a t i n t h e U K , a t h i r d o f
respondents had searched for a job by using a SNS however only 7 %
had been successful in securing a job through such a site. When they
questioned employers, they found that 10% of respondents had tried

7
These figures are based on a number of assumptions and projections including fertility rates, mortality,
immigration and emigration and education. For the purpose of this research, the figures are based on Table
10 which factors in a low net migration over the next decade and are the most conservative of all predictions
in terms of population growth, which would have a large impact on the growth of Gen Y.
8
Executives online are an Interim Management and Executive Recruitment firm based in the UK and
Ireland.

21 | P a g e


using SNSs to recruit someone however only 4% had hired a
candidate found through a social networking site. Generally
respondents of the Executives Online research w ere positive about
the future role of SNSs and half of all respondents believed that
SNSs will “grow in importance and will someday be ho w everyone
hires and finds work. (Executives Online, 2009) .

22 | P a g e


The Methodology

The purpose of this paper is not to find out whether or not companies
are experiencing any success with social recruitment, but whether or
not job-seekers wish to find employment through social recruitment,
to see if they are currently using social media for this purpose, or if
they intend to in the future, and, as stated, to see if job -seekers
believe that „It‟s not what you know, but who you know‟ which may
be able to give us an indication about the future uses of social media
in social recruitment in Ireland.

To do this and to gain a full picture of the Irish market , some
research was conducted on employers‟ attitudes; however the
majority of the research was on job -seeker attitudes. Reading and
other research was also conducted to understand the medium of
social media and the business of recruitment.

Due to a lack of secondary research being available on this topic, it
was decided that primary research must be conducted. To identify
whether or not the Irish public were interested or involved in jo b
hunting through the use of social media a survey was developed. The
survey was designed to be conducted online to enable as many
respondents as possible to partake in a timely and convenient
manner. An online survey would allow a greater number of
participants from across Ireland take part versus face to face or
telephone interviews which would be more timely and costly and
would reduce the element of anonymity which was afforded by
conducting the survey online.

The survey focused mainly on job seekers; however, to capture the
v i e w s o f e m p l o ye r s w h o c a m e a c r o s s t h e s u r v e y, a s h o r t s u r v e y f o r
e m p l o ye r s w a s a l s o c r e a t e d w h i c h r o u t e d a c c o r d i n g l y d e p e n d i n g o n
w h e t h e r o r n o t t h e r e s p o n d e n t w a s a j o b s e e k e r o r a n e m p l o ye r .

23 | P a g e


After conducting a short poll of user sentiment on both LinkedIn and
Twitter, it was decided that the survey should be less than three
minutes long, unless respondents were to be paid for their time.

C h o o s i n g w w w . i m p r e s s i t y. c o m a s t h e c h a n n e l f o r t h e s u r v e y, t h e
questionnaire was designed. The main focus was on the job seeker,
on which sites they currently use, their opinion of each of these
s i t e s , w h e t h e r t h e y h a v e u s e d t h e s e s i t e s t o f i n d e m p l o ym e n t , o r
k n o w a n yo n e w h o h a s , b e i t s u c c e s s f u l l y o r n o t .

F o r b o t h j o b s e e k e r s a n d e m p l o ye r s , t h e q u e s t i o n ; “ D o y o u b e l i e v e
that it is not what you know but who you know that makes the
difference?” was posed. With the main purpose of social media
being the leveraging of connections both online and offline, it was
important to explore the actual belief in this statement in its
traditional sense, versus the take -up of social media to help someone
s e c u r e e m p l o ym e n t .

T h e f u l l q u e s t i o n n a i r e f o r b o t h j o b s e e k e r s a n d e m p l o ye r s i s i n c l u d e d
in the Appendices – see Appendix I. A breakdown of the responses is
provided in full on the attached CD - see Appendix II

The survey was disseminated through several social media sites and
also via email. A link to the survey was posted on www.boards.ie
www.twitter.com www.linkedin.com www.facebook.com and was
emailed directly to about 50 individuals.

It was not the aim of this s tud y to achieve a representative sample of
the population and therefore candidates were not asked any
demographic questions such as questions about their education, their
current position (their sector was asked), the highest income in the
household or other such qu estions.

Respondents were asked whether or not they were based in Ireland
(as this stud y is concerned onl y with Irish attitudes) but not
whereabouts exactly in Ireland so the survey is not broken down by
geographic location.

24 | P a g e


Respondents were also asked whether they classed themselves as an
e m p l o ye r or a job-seeker in order to route the questionnaire
accordingly.

Respondents were asked about what sector they mainly worked in,
a n d i f t h e y w e r e a n e m p l o ye r , t h e y w e r e a s k e d a b o u t t h e i r c o m p a n y
size; however these questions were all optional. The decision not to
include all demographic questions was to ensure that respondents did
not drop out of the survey because of these questions, as they are
highly personal questions and can cause unease. Due to the time
constraints of this research, it was also felt that by including
complete and detailed demographic questions, a balanced response
may not have been attainable.

The response rate was unfortunately not as high as had been hoped,
with 136 responses received ov er the four week data collection
window. Of those 136 responses, 15 were disregarded as they did not
live in Ireland and 12 were disregarded as they were not completed.
Through using a shortened URL and the service provided by Bit.ly 9
the survey generated interest by 235 people, however reasons
u n k n o w n , n o t a l l p a r t i c i p a t e d i n t h e s u r v e y.

The majority of respondents were job -seekers as hoped and a small
g r o u p o f e m p l o ye r s a l s o t o o k p a r t . F o r b o t h g r o u p s , t h e t yp i c a l a g e
range was late twenties to mid-thirties.

If future research was to take place on this topic, more time should
b e g i v e n t o r u n t h e s u r v e y a n d a l s o m o r e t i m e t o p r o m o t e t h e s u r v e y,
through this the aim would be to increase the participation rates
which would in turn give the researcher a more thorough overview of
the market.

9
Bit.Ly is a URL shortening service, which allows users to create a shortened version of a web address and
track how many users click on the link.

25 | P a g e


Also, the respondents tended to be mainly in the eighteen to thirty-
four age groups, again with future research and more time and
resources, it would be recommended that a paper based survey
amongst the wider public would b e conducted, which may have given
a broader overview of opinion. If time had been permitting, a short
s u r v e y c o n d u c t e d i n a p o p u l a r v e n u e o r l o c a t i o n w i t h p a s s e r - b y‟ s
would have added an extra dimension and allowed this study to gain
the opinions of people who perhaps do not use social media to a
great extent.

If more in-depth research was to take place, it would be advisable to
include questions to obtain information about the demographics of
the respondents and also as to their geographical location, as these
additional factors may be quite relevant for establishing whether or
not social media in recruitment is being adopted across all sectors
nationwide, or if it is localised to certain sectors or geographical
areas.

Breaking the responses down further provides us with eighty-three
j o b s e e k e r s a n d t w e n t y - s i x e m p l o ye r s , a l l b a s e d i n I r e l a n d . D u e t o
the routing of the survey at the very beginning, where the survey
divides depending on whether the respondent was a job seeker or an
e m p l o ye r , i t w a s i m p o s s i b l e t o m a k e t h e q u e s t i o n s i n t h e r e s t o f t h e
survey compulsory to answer. This led to a low take up on some of
the questions.

For future research, it would be beneficial to choose a site which
would allow the survey to be designed more carefully and structu red
m o r e a c c u r a t e l y. T h e r e w a s a l s o a n u m b e r o f s u r v e ys w h i c h w e r e
i n c o m p l e t e a n d t h e r e f o r e t h e r e s u l t s w e r e d i s r e g a r d e d , t yp i c a l l y
t h e s e s u r v e ys t e r m i n a t e d a f t e r j u s t t h e f i r s t q u e s t i o n .

26 | P a g e


Figure A: Breakdown of Survey Respondents

The original thesis proposal also included a plan to conduct some
f a c e t o f a c e s u r v e y s w i t h e m p l o ye r s a n d k e y p l a ye r s i n t h e i n d u s t r y.
Due to time constraints‟, this was not carried out however; it would
prove worthwhile considering including this element in future
research.

27 | P a g e


Analysis

T o e s t a b l i s h w h e t h e r t h e h yp o t h e s i s , „ I t ‟ s n o t w h a t y o u k n o w , b u t
who you know‟ is held b y Irish job -seekers, it is important to look at
several different areas.

F i r s t l y, t h i s p a p e r w i l l e x a m i n e t h e u s a g e o f s o c i a l m e d i a i n I r e l a n d ;
establishing the prevalence of social media usage and the general
uses in Irish society.

S e c o n d l y, it will look at social media in recruitment; how
r e c r u i t m e n t h a s e v o l v e d o v e r t h e l a s t n u m b e r o f ye a r s a n d t h e i m p a c t
social media is currently having on recruitment processes in Ireland.
Thirdly it will look at the responses from the online survey which
was conducted between May and June 2010; evaluating the responses
obtained and analysing these in detail whilst comparing the results
with previous research .

Through the combination of these, it should be clearer as to whether
or not Irish job-seekers are currently using social media to find new
job opportunities, whether they leverage their social c onnections to
assist them in this task and whether there is a convergence between
the online and offline world in this matter.

Through the ex amination of current usage of the Internet and social
media, it is hoped that a prediction of future use of social
networking sites can be extracted . Also it is hoped that a conclusion
as to the opinion of job seekers on the usage of social media in
recruitment can be obtained. Finally through an examination of
whether the belief is commonly held that „It‟s not what you know,
but who you know‟, it shall be examined that if this belief is held, do
the responses about social media in recruitment compare favourably
with the responses to questions about offline recruitment.

28 | P a g e


Social Media usage in Ireland

To examine social media in recruitment in Ireland, it is first
important to understand what social media is and to establish the
prevalence of social media in general in Ireland. An understanding of
what is social media, why social media exists, the purposes of social
media and how prevalent it is in Ireland is necessary to further
examine the specific area of social media in recruitment.

For the purpose of this paper, the main SNSs examined are Facebook,
LinkedIn and Twitter. Within Western Europe and the USA, these
three sites are widely acknowledged as being the most popular and
influential social media sites.

As already discussed, social media refers to “Online applications,
platforms and media which aim to facilitate interaction,
collaboration and the sharing of content. ” – (Universal McCann,
2008)

An online application or a web application is computer software
which helps the user to perform related tasks and is accessed over
the Internet. As the application is hosted online, and does not need
to be installed on every user‟s computer, it makes them easy to
update and maintain by developers.

When used with social media, these applications allow users to
interact with each other, share content such as photos, videos or
games and collaborate by allowing users to access the shared content
a n d e a c h m a k e c h a n g e s t o i t o r d i s c u s s i t r e m o t e l y.

Facebook was established in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg as a
networking site for his fellow students in Harvard University. It
rapidly expanded and was soon open to all students with a college
email address in the USA. The demand grew again and membership
w a s s o o n o p e n e d u p t o e v e r yo n e . A c c o r d i n g t o B r e a k i n g N e w s . i e o n
t h e 2 1 s t J u l y 2 0 1 0 , s i x ye a r s a f t e r b e i n g e s t a b l i s h e d , F a c e b o o k

29 | P a g e


gained its five-hundred millionth member, meaning that 8% of the
world‟s population have a Facebook account (Breakingnews.ie,
2010). Zuckerberg himself believes that membership could grow to
o n e b i l l i o n u s e r s w i t h i n t h e n e x t t h r e e t o f i v e ye a r s ( G o r d o n , 2 0 1 0 ) .
I n 2 0 0 9 , t h e f i g u r e s f o r F a c e b o o k s h o w e d t h a t i f i t w e r e a c o u n t r y, i t
would have the 4th largest population globally with 400 million
members; while for the UK 11% of all time online is now spent on
social networking sites, second only to time on search engines such
as Google. (Brave New Talent , 2009)

According t o Facebook Ireland, in April 2010 there were 1,418,100
F a c e b o o k a c c o u n t s i n I r e l a n d . O f t h o s e , 8 4 7 , 0 0 0 w e r e a c t i v e , d a i l y,
users. 83% of users come back to Facebook every week. Of the
online population, 73% are present on Facebook. The division of
male and female users is 55% Male to 45% Female. 27% of users are
o v e r 3 5 ye a r s o f a g e . 3 5 % o f u s e r s a r e 2 5 - 3 4 ye a r s o f a g e a n d 9 1 % o f
users are over 18 years of age (1,286,960 in total). In Ireland 124 is
the average number of friends on Facebook and over 467 ,000 users
access Facebook by mobile (De, 2010).

Twitter is a micro-blogging site, allowing users to post messages up
to one-hundred and forty characters in length. Frequently described
as an „online water cooler‟ due to the random chit -chat which often
takes place, it was established in 2006 and formally launched to
S i l i c o n V a l l e y i n 2 0 0 7 . I t s f o u n d e r s J a c k D o r s e y, a n e n g i n e e r w i t h
O d e o 10 a n d E v a n W i l l i a m s , f o u n d e r o f B l o g g e r 11, s a w T w i t t e r a s b e i n g
a w a y t o p o s t a u n i v e r s a l s t a t u s u p d a t e , t o l e t e v e r yo n e k n o w w h a t
you were doing, e.g. “busy trying to meet a deadline ”, or “free for a
chat” etc. The status update is visible on users‟ mobile phones,
internet browser and desktop if the users‟ wishes. It can now also be
connected with both LinkedIn and Facebook.

10
Odeo is a firm who provide a directory and search engine for audio and video, initially established by
Williams to focus on the latest phenomenon of pod-casting
11
Blogger is a free blog publishing tool, founded by Williams and later sold to Google

30 | P a g e


Whilst many see it as useless and creating an abundance of pointless
information, its founder‟s vision is that it will help create more
intimate friendships and relationships, with people sharing more
details about their lives, instead of just giving the headl ines during a
catch-up conversation. Twitter is now also being viewed as a search
engine, handling 800 million search queries per day (Schroder,
2010). As of June 2010, Twitter has 190 million users and they post
messages, or „Tweet‟ 65 million times a day. Chief Operating Officer
( C O O ) o f T w i t t e r , D i c k C o s t o l o s a ys t h a t m o s t u s e r s d o n ‟ t a c t u a l l y
„tweet‟ but instead use Twitter as a “consumption m e d i a 12”
(Schonefield, 2010)

Twitter have not provided figures on membership in Ireland, however
according to Ronan Morris of Web Together , the number of Irish
Twitter users is estimated at 150,000 (Morris, 2010)

LinkedIn is an online networking site, tailored more for business
than pleasure. It was founded in 2002 and launched in 2003. There
are more than 70 million users worldwide, covering 150 industries
and has over 1 million company profiles. The site allows these users
to create a profile, which looks similar to an online resume, and
connect with people they know directly (1 st connections), those
known through a mutual connections or groups (2 nd connections) and
those known through a third party (3 rd connections). For example, by
l o o k i n g a t o n e p a r t i c u l a r L i n k e d I n a c c o u n t , w e s e e t h a t i f yo u h a d
471 1st connections, yo u could be linked with 5,025,328
professionals. This is depending on several factors such as how well
c o n n e c t e d yo u r f i r s t a n d s e c o n d d e g r e e c o n n e c t i o n s w e r e t h e m s e l v e s .

LinkedIn has not provided figures on membership in Ireland,
however according to Irish blogger, Barry Hand, the number of Irish
LinkedIn users is estimated at 25,000 although this figure appears to
be very approximate. (Hand, 2010)

12
Many users of Twitter do not actually post messages; they purely read others „tweets‟. This is harking
back to Web 1.0 where media was consumed, rather than with users engaging and participating in the
conversation.

31 | P a g e


Other SNSs popular with the Irish online population include;
Foursquare, confirmed that in January 2010 it had 3000 Irish users
and Boards.ie which had ove r 5 million visitors between January and
April 2010, 76% of which was Irish traffic and a total of 88,003
active users since January 2010 according to Boards.ie
C o m m u n i c a t i o n s M a n a g e r , D a r r a g h D o y l e . ( D o yl e , 2 0 1 0 )

Some figures from Dave Davin, Director at RAIC Productions ,
compiled in October 2009, show ;

Travel is the top activity online in Ireland, 51% of Irish people
use the Internet to source travel information .

Each day close to one million people or 28% of the adult
population in Ireland use the net .

100,000,000 Facebook users log on every day.

The greatest concentration of online shoppers in Ireland is among
2 5 - 3 4 ye a r o l d s a t 5 2 % , f o l l o w e d b y 3 5 - 4 4 ye a r o l d s a t 4 4 % a n d
1 6 - 2 4 ye a r o l d s a t 3 4 % .

Today there are 1.2 million broadband subscriptions in I reland.
(Davin, 2010)

According to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), as
of June 2010, 65.8% of the Irish population are now using the
Internet. This is an increase from 20.9% of the population in 2000
(Internet World Stats, 2010) .

Irish usage of the internet is ever growing and with faster broadband
speeds now slowly becoming available, growth is set to continue
over the next few years. Mobile internet usage has been the fastest
g r o w i n g a r e a o f i n t e r n e t u s a g e i n t h e p a s t f e w ye a r s . W i t h g r o w t h s e t
to continue, we can expect the usage of social networking sites to

32 | P a g e


rise accordingly, however the purpose of this usage is still to be
established.

For the purpose of this research it was important to first establish
h o w m u c h t i m e b o t h j o b s e e k e r s a n d e m p l o ye r s s p e n t o n S N S s a n d
a l s o , w h i c h s i t e s t h e y u s e d . B o t h j o b s e e k e r s a n d e m p l o ye r s w e r e
a s k e d t h e s a m e q u e s t i o n , h o w e v e r e m p l o ye r s w e r e a s k e d t o a n s w e r
about their use purely in a professional manner, rather than in their
own personal time.

The results clearly identified the same three sites as being the most
popular with both job -seekers and e m p l o ye r s alike; Facebook,
Twitter and LinkedIn. Several of the sites which were less business
o r i e n t e d w e r e n o t u s e d a t a l l b y e m p l o ye r s , a l t h o u g h m a n y o f t h e s e
also had only a small following by job -seekers.

Figure B: Usage of SNSs

In terms of time spent online, the average amount of time spent on
SNSs by job-seekers was 90.52 minutes and the av erage time spent
b y a n e m p l o ye r w a s 4 5 . 7 2 m i n u t e s p e r d a y.

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Social Media in Recruitment in Ireland

To understand social media in recruitment, we must understand what
recruitment is.

Recruitment, for the purposes of this paper, refers to both agencies
and in-house recruiters, attempting to source and secure suitable
candidates for vacancies within their organisations or within their
clients‟ organisations.

Traditionally recruitment took place through posting adverts in the
broadsheet newspapers or indus try magazines and using a „rolodex‟
s ys t e m , w o r k i n g t h r o u g h b u s i n e s s c a r d s a n d c o n n e c t i o n s w h i c h t o o k
many years to establish.

Since the early 1990s, recruitment has been moving slowly away
from traditional print media to online jobs boards and the „rolodex‟
s ys t e m h a s l a r g e l y b e e n r e p l a c e d b y c o m p u t e r i s e d d a t a b a s e s .

W h e n n e w s p a p e r s s t a r t e d p o s t i n g c o n t e n t o n l i n e 13, t h e i r d i s t r i b u t i o n
a n d s a l e s o f f l i n e s t a r t e d t o d e c l i n e . O v e r t h e l a s t f e w ye a r s , a l l
newspaper sales have been adversely affected by the recession in
s e v e r a l w a ys . A d v e r t i s i n g a n d r e c r u i t m e n t b u d g e t s h a v e b e e n s l a s h e d
in most companies, leading to a reduction in the amount of job
listings in papers. Coupled with a decline in newspaper circulation
figures and the belief that “We no longer sear ch for the news – it
finds us” (Qualman E. , 2009) media has been moving more and more
online. With this shift to online (social) media, there has been a
correlating shift to online recruitment.

Online jobs boards in Ireland have been steadil y increasing their fees
y e a r o n ye a r f o r t h e l a s t f e w ye a r s a n d s e v e r a l o f t h e l a r g e r

13
Th e I r i s h T i m e s , t r a d i t i o n a l l y o n e o f t h e m o s t p o p u l a r I r i s h b r o a d s h e e t s f o r
posting job adverts, launched the ir online newspaper in 2008

34 | P a g e


r e c r u i t m e n t a g e n c i e s a n d e m p l o ye r s a r e n o w s h i f t i n g a w a y f r o m t h e
mainstream jobs boards such as Monster.ie and IrishJobs.ie to move
towards their own in -house websites or different portals. Some
companies such as Microsoft have their own careers website and also
their own careers Twitter profile. Other companies and agencies have
established a presence on Twitter, Facebook and Bebo where they
can connect and engage with job -seekers directly and post regular
u p d a t e s o n t h e v a c a n c i e s t h e y h a v e , t h e t yp e s o f i n d i v i d u a l s t h e y a r e
seeking to recruit and snap -shots of their business and how they
operate. LinkedIn is a prime ex ample of the shift towards social
recruitment.

This latest shift away from online recruitment, to social recruitment
can be summed up as “simply using social channels to find the best
people for an organisation” (Alder, 2009).

Alder also stated that:

“Every single employer won‟t use social media for recruitment
in years to come. The adoption curve for those who do take it
up will be steeper and faster than we saw with online
recruitment however, rapidly ramping up over the next 18 to 24
months.”

Whilst we do not have empirical evidence to back this belief up, it
does tie in so far with the increased prevalence in social recruitment
in both the UK and Ireland, albeit just an increased prevalence, not
necessarily an increased success rate.

Lucian Tarnowski of Brave New Talent (BNT) explained that :

“Social recruitment offers both a method for alerting people to
job opportunities, as well as a channel for engaging in
conversations about the role and the candidate. Placing social media
communications within these two distinct groupings both simplifies
the theory and makes sense of the practice ”.

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Tarnowski formed this opinion on the basis of his experience
w o r k i n g w i t h e m p l o ye r s i n t h e U K t o c o n n e c t w i t h j o b - s e e k e r s
through the use of social media. Tarnowski is CEO of BNT, an
o r g a n i s a t i o n w h i c h h e l p s e m p l o ye r s t o r e d u c e a n d c o n t r o l t h e i r
social media footprint more effectively. An example he provides is a
project with One Young World, an annual global leadership summit,
w h e r e h e w a s c h a l l e n g e d t o f i n d 1 5 0 0 yo u n g l e a d e r s f r o m 1 9 2
countries with a $0 marketing budget. They h ad to achieve fair and
proportionate representation. Through the use of various social
m e d i a p l a t f o r m s , t h e y e n g a g e d w i t h 1 0 0 , 0 0 0 yo u n g p e o p l e a n d 2 5 0 0
world class Gen Y leaders were identified from 140 countries.

Although this research and case study is based in the UK, these are
the t yp e s of examples Irish companies are mentioning when
discussing their move to use social recruitment. The empirical
evidence for Ireland is lacking and onl y time will tell if Irish
e m p l o ye r s w i l l h a v e a n y s u c c e s s w i t h s o c i a l r e c r u i t m e n t .

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Employers Responses

The study was concerned mainly with job -seekers opinions; however
there were some questions which warranted gaining the view of
e m p l o ye r s . A s m a l l s e c t i o n o f t h e s u r v e y w a s d e s i g n e d f o r e m p l o ye r s
to answer to provide som e material for comparing job-seekers and
e m p l o ye r s r e s p o n s e s .

L o o k i n g f i r s t l y a t t h e e m p l o ye r s s e c t i o n o f t h e s u r v e y, w e c a n s e e
w h y e m p l o ye r s u s e S N S s . T h e r e s u l t s t o t h i s q u e s t i o n s h o w t h a t
fourteen out of twent y-two respondents are currentl y using social
media sites for recruitment purposes. Of these fourteen, six operate
within the HR and Recruitment sector and nine are in companies
e m p l o yi n g o v e r o n e h u n d r e d s t a f f i n I r e l a n d . O f t h e t e n w h o u s e
S N S s t o b a c k g r o u n d o r r e f e r e n c e c h e c k p o t e n t i a l n e w e m p l o ye e s , s i x
again operate within the HR and Recruitment sector and five are
c o m p a n i e s e m p l o yi n g o v e r o n e h u n d r e d s t a f f i n I r e l a n d a l o n e .

A l t h o u g h t h e e m p l o ye r s e c t i o n o f t h e s u r v e y w a s m o r e o f a n a s i d e ,
should there be further research carried out in this area, a question
a b o u t a n e m p l o ye r ‟ s p l a n n e d u s e o f S N S s o v e r t h e n e x t t w e l v e
months would be interesting to examine to see if there is a large
change planned in use of SNSs or if the usage will remain as is.

37 | P a g e


Figure C: Employers Use of Social Media

With the majority of e m p l o ye r s using LinkedIn p r i m a r i l y, the
responses to this question tie in very closely with the main function s
of LinkedIn versus other SNSs.

F o c u s i n g f u r t h e r o n t h e c u r r e n t u s e b y e m p l o ye r s o f S o c i a l M e d i a ,
e m p l o ye r s w e r e a s k e d t h e q u e s t i o n : „ A s a n e m p l o y e r , h a v e y o u e v e r
used social media sites for any of the following reasons? To
advertise a vacancy within your organisation? To background check
a potential employee? To verify anything about a current / potential
employee? To successfully hire someone? None of the above? ‟

Eight out of the twenty-two had successfully hired somebody through
the use of SNSs, making that a 57% success rate out of those who
had advertised a vacancy through SNSs.

Six of the twenty-two respondents had never used social media for
any recruitment purposes.

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A g a i n , i t w o u l d b e u s e f u l t o v i e w e m p l o ye r s p l a n n e d u s e o f s o c i a l
media in recruitm ent over the next twelve months and beyond and to
s e e i f t h e b r e a k d o w n o f t h e u s a g e c h a n g e s m u c h , o r i f i t s t a ys
relatively similar.

Figure D: Employers Reasons for Using Social Media

The results to this survey vary fr om those carried out by online jobs
board, RecruitIreland.com who recently carried out some research
with 100 recruiters. Unfortunately the term „recruiters‟ hasn‟t been
clarified b y RecruitIreland.com as to whether it refers to agency
recruiters, in-house recruiters or by hiring managers. For the purpose
o f t h i s r e s e a r c h , t h e t e r m „ e m p l o ye r ‟ h a s b e e n u s e d , w h i c h t a k e s
a c c o u n t o f a n yo n e i n t h e p o s i t i o n t o h i r e o r h o s t t h e r e c r u i t m e n t
process.

The research b y RecruitIreland.com found that 46% of recruiters
check out applicants online during the recruitment process. These
checks varied from Googling the candidates name to checking their
Facebook page or their recent Twitter postings, commonly known as
Tweets and checking the candidate‟s personal blogs. The survey also
showed the recruiters check out 53% of candidates online after
t h e y‟ v e c o m p l e t e d t h e i r f i r s t r o u n d i n t e r v i e w .

They also found that one in five recruiters have rejected a candidate
because of something they have seen online. The reasons for these

39 | P a g e


r e j e c t i o n s i n c l u d e d i d e n t i f yi n g c o m m e n t s w h i c h w o u l d c o n f l i c t w i t h
t h e b u s i n e s s e t h o s , p r o o f o f l yi n g o n t h e C . V . o r o f f e n s i v e c o m m e n t s
a b o u t t h e c a n d i d a t e s ‟ c u r r e n t e m p l o ye r .

Of the 54% of recruiters who did not check out candidates online,
the main reason given for not doing so was that they felt it was
irrelevant and 20% of the recruiters felt it was unethical.

The e m p l o ye r s ‟ questionnaire also featured several questions
i d e n t i c a l t o t h o s e p o s e d t o j o b - s e e k e r s . T h e s e w i l l b e a n a l ys e d i n
more detail later on in this paper.

T h e e m p l o ye r s s e c t i o n o f t h e s t u d y p r o v i d e s s o m e c o n t e x t f o r t h e
ex amination of job -seekers responses. It also shows us that in terms
of the use of social media in recruitment, Irish emplo yers , with an
8 7 % p a r t i c i p a t i o n r a t e 14, a r e a t a f a i r l y s i m i l a r l e v e l t o t h e U S A
w h e r e 8 3 % o f e m p l o ye r s s u r v e ye d i n 2 0 1 0 b y J o b v i t e a r e n o w u s i n g ,
or planning to use social media for recruiting (Jobvite, 2010).

Due to the questionnaire having some non -compulsory questions
included, there was a low par ticipation rate with some of the
questions, and as a result, these had to be discarded. These questions
focused on what percentage of recruitment had been done through
various mediums over the past twelve months, and what percentage
where expected to be ca rried out over the coming twelve months.
These questions could have shed important light over the potential
increase of recruitment via social media and this would be an area
which should be examined in future research.

14
87% comprises of respondents using social media currently in the hiring process, in any capacity.

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Job-seekers Responses

W h e n d e s i g n i n g t h e m a i n p a r t o f t h e s u r v e y, t h e q u e s t i o n s d i r e c t e d t o
job-seekers, the aim was to establish which social media sites they
use, the reasons why people use social medi a, how they view social
media in relation to recruitment, whether they had ever had any
e x p e r i e n c e o r c o n t a c t w i t h e m p l o ye r s o r r e c r u i t e r s v i a s o c i a l m e d i a
and their general opinions in this area.

The idea of “It‟s not what you know, but who you know, that makes a
difference” was also explored in more detail, to see if t hat belief was
held, and if it was, did job -seekers leverage their offline or online
connections to any great extent to assist them in finding new
e m p l o ym e n t . T h i s q u e s t i o n w a s a l s o p o s e d t o e m p l o ye r s t o s e e i f
there was any correlation between the opinions of both groups and
t h e r e s u l t s w i l l b e a n a l ys e d f u r t h e r i n t h e p a p e r .

To establish how much the respondents use social media, some
general questions of social media usage were posed.

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Figure E: Job-Seekers Usage of Social Media

The responses to this question ties in with the overall popularity of
Facebook (sixty-nine users), Li nkedIn (fift y users) and Twitter
(thirty-three users). The “Other” option included FourSquare, a
l o c a t i o n b a s e d s i t e , F o r m S p r i n g 15, B l o g g e r , A S m a l l W o r l d 16, Q u b e 17,
B o a r d s . i e a n d X b o x L i v e 18.

When it came to the „Why‟ question, results again were broadly in
line with the designed and widely accepted uses for each of these
sites, with the majority of users (44%) stating “keeping in touch” as
the primary reason. To look briefly at this point at social media in
recruitment; thirty-five of the eighty-five respondents did state that
they used social media to “look for employment”.

15
FormSpring is a questions and answers website.
16
ASmallWorld is a private online social networking community, accessible by invitation only.
17
Qube is a luxury and exclusive online professional networking site, which requires a paid subscription.
18
Xbox Live is an online multiplayer gaming website.

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Figure F: Job-Seekers Reasons for Using Social Media

Respondents were then asked “What do you think is the main
purpose of each of the following sites? ( I.e. is it for work use,
personal use, both, advertising, young people, etc.) You can answer
these even if you do not use each of these sites.”

At this point, there was only a small proportion of respondents
holding the opinion that the sites main purpose was for recruitment
with only a very small percentage viewing „Recruitment‟ as a
purpose for the site, given that 41% use social media sites to look
f o r e m p l o ym e n t , i t s h o w s t h a t p e r h a p s t h e r e i s s o m e i m b a l a n c e
between what users are looking for, versus the services on offer with
these social media sites.

19% felt that the main function of Twitter was „Work Purposes or
Networking‟, 54% shared that opinion for LinkedIn, 16% for
Facebook and 25% for Blogs.

Despite the majority of the research to date being focused on social
media and marketing, and this being the init ial purpose firms use
social media for, less than 14% respondents view marketing as being
the main purpose of either Twitter or Facebook, and only 6.25% see

43 | P a g e


it as the function of Blogging and 2.7% as the function of Bebo. 0%
see advertising as being the ma in function of LinkedIn.

19
Figure G: Job Seekers Opinions of Social Media Sites

Looking specificall y at job -seekers thoughts on social media in
recruitment, after ask ing: “Have you personally ever used social
media sites for any of the following purposes ?”, we see that 58%
o f r e s p o n d e n t s d o n o t u s e s o c i a l m e d i a t o e n g a g e w i t h e m p l o ye r s ,
they use it more as a tool to obtain information, to look for
v a c a n c i e s a n d t o r e s e a r c h t h e c o m p a n y. 2 6 % o f r e s p o n d e n t s a c t u a l l y
u s e s o c i a l m e d i a t o e n g a g e , o r c o n v e r s e w i t h e m p l o ye r s .

19
This question was a free-text question and the results have been grouped
together by similar answers to form an easier to analyse set of responses.

44 | P a g e


When this is compared with UK research by Brave New Talent, 67%
of Generation Y is happy to be invited to engage or converse with
e m p l o ye r s o n l i n e a n d 6 2 % a r e h a p p y t o b e i n v i t e d t o j o i n e m p l o ye r
communities. Further research shows that 79% of UK Generation Y
use Social Media to find out about opportunities whilst 81% are
receptive to employers.

What is not apparent from this is whether there is a cultura l
difference between the UK and Ireland, whether Ireland will follow
suit, and if Ireland does, when that will be.

Figure H: Job-Seekers: Social Media in Recruitment

To see the extent of usage of social media for recruitment purposes,
respondents were asked if they have been contacted directly through
a social media site about job opportunities. Of the sevent y-five
respondents, thirty-three had been previously contacted through a
S N S i n r e l a t i o n t o a j o b o p p o r t u n i t y.

Of the 44% who had been contacted about job opportunities through
SNSs, 64% of those had previously stated that they themselves used
SNSs as a way to look for vacancies and 55% used SNSs to promote
themselves in order to secure employment and only 12% had used

45 | P a g e


S N S s t o s p e a k w i t h a n e m p l o ye e o f a n o r g a n i z a t i o n w i t h r e g a r d s t o
an interview.

45% of those who had never been contacted through SNSs regarding
job opportunities did not use social media for any recruitment
purposes themselves.

Figure I: Job-Seekers Contact Through Social Media

To establish the respondents‟ opinions of social media in
recruitment, they were posed with the question “How do you feel
about being contacted through Social Media Sites about job
opportunities?”

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Figure J: Job-Seekers Thoughts on Social Media in Recruitment

The majority of respondents held a generally positive opinion on
being contacted via social media with regards to job -opportunities,
with only 10% of respondents holding a negative point of view. The
one respondent to answer “Other” held the opinion that it is “Fine to
be contacted by companies, but definitely NOT by agencies” and a
second respondent who answered that they prefer to hear about
vacancies in this manner also said that: “As long as they are
targeted and relevant opportunities , then definitely I expect to hear
from them about jobs. Social media is so much better then as you
usually hear from decision makers, not time wasting agencies!”

From a recruitment agency perspective, th ese are interesting
opinions and ones which would raise many questions about privacy
and ethical behaviour. As with the 22% who indicated that they are
„open to hearing about vacancies once they have indicated that this
is acceptable‟, the question of how this stance can be communicated
must be raised. Lin kedIn is the only SNS which allows users to

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i n d i c a t e t h e i r w i l l i n g n e s s t o b e c o n t a c t e d r e g a r d i n g e m p l o ym e n t
o p p o r t u n i t i e s , a n d t h i s i s n o t n a r r o w e d d o w n t o „ b y a n a g e n c y‟ o r „ b y
e m p l o ye r s o n l y‟ . F r o m a w e b s i t e d e v e l o p m e n t p o i n t o f v i e w , t h i s
could be an interesting avenue to explore and an area which warrants
further research into attitudes and behaviours.

To look at the evolving attitudes of respondents, the survey was
designed to take a snapshot of the current usage of SNSs as a tool
for job hunting. In order to gain this image, a number of questions
were asked about respondents‟ current usage of social media and
their expected use of social media over the next twelve months.

The response to the question: „Do you use social media as a job
h u n t i n g t o o l ? ‟ w a s f o r t y - o n e s a yi n g „ Y e s ‟ a n d t h i r t y - f i v e s a yi n g
„No‟. This compared with a planned increase of the „Yes‟ group,
increasing to fift y-three users over the next twelve months and with
„No‟ group decreasing accordingly to twenty-three.

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Figure K: Do you use
social media as a job
hunting tool?
No
46% Yes
54%

Figure L: Do you intend
to use social media as a
job hunting tool in the
next 12 months?
No
30%
Yes
70%

This would perhaps indicate that we are following both the UK and
USA in terms of our use of social media sites.

To establish the Irish success to date using SNSs to find
e m p l o ym e n t , r e s p o n d e n t s w e r e a s k e d a b o u t t h e i r o w n e x p e r i e n c e w i t h
SNSs in terms of securing an interview or a job. To explore fully the
success rates, respondents were asked to diffe rentiate between
actually securing a job through SNSs and securing an interview.
Respondents were asked about their own experience, and their
k n o w l e d g e o f a n yo n e e l s e w h o m a y h a v e s e c u r e d a n i n t e r v i e w o r j o b
through the use of SNSs.

This second question does have its limitations in the fact that many
of the respondents may have known each other and therefore may
have been answering about the same person however, without being

49 | P a g e


able to go into too much detail in the limited space on the
questionnaire, the responses should still be able to give us an initial
idea about the prevalence of social media in recruitment. It is an
area that could be explored in more detail in further research.

Figure M: Securing Employment…Media Figure N: Knowledge of Others…Media

To look at the success rates of our respondents, 26%, or twenty
respondents, secured at least an interview through the use of SNSs.
J u s t f o u r o f t h e s e r e s p o n d e n t s , s e c u r e d e m p l o ym e n t t h r o u g h S N S s .
When we compare this with their usage of SNSs, all respondents
stated that they do use SNSs as a job hunting tool. Only one of these
respondents has stated that they no longer intend to use SNSs in the
next twelve months as a job hunting tool. This person had secured an
interview through SNSs.
I f c a r r yi n g o u t t h i s r e s e a r c h a g a i n , i t w o u l d b e b e n e f i c i a l t o h a v e a n
open text box after these two questions to ask for the reason the
respondents would or would not use SNSs for recruitment purposes
in the next twelve months, if they were already using them.

To explore the main theme of this paper a little further, and to get an
overview of the point of view the respondents may have held, each
respondent was asked how they secured their most recent job.

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Figure O: Job-Seekers Current Employment

Over a quarter of respondents, the majority at 27%, secured their
most recent position through „Recruitment Agencies or through
Career Guidance Advice‟. Should this research be conducted again,
dividing these into two separate options would be beneficial.

18% of respondents answered that they obtained their most recent
position through a „Head-hunter‟. A definition of what is a head -
hunter should have been provided in the questionnaire. There has
been confusion in the past about what is a head -hunter versus a
recruitment agency. Some people believe that if they are not actively
l o o k i n g f o r n e w e m p l o ym e n t a n d a r e t h e n c o n t a c t e d b y a r e c r u i t m e n t
agency who they had previously registered with, then this indicates
that they were „head -hunted‟. A more accurate definition of head-
h u n t i n g w o u l d b e t h a t a c o m p a n y o r e m p l o ye r i n d i c a t e d t h a t t h e y
wanted to meet particular individuals, such as Mr X, Mrs Y and Ms Z
and gave this requirement to a head -hunter or recruitment agency on
the provision that they would locate these sp ecific individuals and
g e t t h e m t o s p e a k w i t h t h e c l i e n t c o m p a n y. A s n o d e f i n i t i o n w a s
provided and the error of definition is frequently made, it is
important to keep in mind that some of this 18% may have actually
s e c u r e d e m p l o ym e n t t h r o u g h r e c r u i t m e n t a g e n c i e s .

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T h e s e c o n d m o s t c o m m o n w a y t o s e c u r e e m p l o ym e n t w a s t h r o u g h a
„personal connection‟. This was matched at 19% by a combination of
both online and traditional advertisements.

Just 4% of respondents, or two individuals, secured their most recent
position through SNSs. Of these two respondents, one works in IT
and the second in Marketing. The marketing respondent further
clarified their position by explaining they replied to an advert on
LinkedIn. What would be beneficial at this stage is to know whe ther
this respondent replied to a paid advert on LinkedIn ( approx . $250 to
post a paid advert) or if the respondent replied to a free job posting
on LinkedIn which would be part of the „Groups‟ section, where like-
minded individuals, or those with somethin g in common, such as
geographical area, industry etc., can post jobs on a discussion board.
This would be important to look at in further research as it would
give a much clearer picture as to whether this particular individual
d i d t r u l y s e c u r e e m p l o ym e n t t h r o u g h s o c i a l n e t w o r k i n g , v e r s u s a
newer version of the an online jobs board.

The 19% who secured their most recent job through a personal
c o n n e c t i o n a r e o f g r e a t i m p o r t a n c e t o t h i s s t u d y. O f t h e 1 9 % ( t w e l v e
respondents) who secured their most recent pos ition through a
„Personal Connection ‟, five do not currently use SNSs as a job
hunting tool, four do not intend to use it as a tool and nine have not
secured an interview or job through SNSs. Three personally secured
interviews and four knew people who sec ured interviews and a
f u r t h e r t w o k n e w p e o p l e w h o h a d s e c u r e d e m p l o ym e n t t h r o u g h S N S s .
It is important to establish these respondents background at this
s t a g e i n o r d e r t o a n a l ys e i t c o n t e x t u a l l y a g a i n s t t h e b e l i e f t h a t „ I t ‟ s
not what you know, but who know ‟.

A t t h i s p o i n t o f t h e s u r v e y, b o t h j o b - s e e k e r s a n d e m p l o ye r s w e r e
asked the same questions. Both were first asked „Have you ever
asked a friend / family member to help you secure a job (u sing any
personal connections?).‟

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Social Media and Recruitment: It's not what you know, but who you know that makes the difference

Social Media and Recruitment: It's not what you know, but who you know that makes the difference

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