Human Resources in the Internet

HUMAN RESOURCES in the INTERNET AGE -- LITERATURE REVIEW

Alessie, Lorenza. "Big Brother is watching: Lorenza Alessie, associate director at HVS

Executive Search, investigates how professional and social online networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn are affecting the face of recruitment." Leisure Report Journal. 2008. HighBeam Research. (January 4, 2011). http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-183134139.html.

The growing availability and popularity of online social networks and related applications already provides Human Resource managers extensive amounts of personal information about prospective job candidates. On one hand, employment law has been evolving to respond to the contemporary implications of digital networks and personal privacy concerns; on the other hand, many job applicants routinely make available to employers specific types of information that employers may not request of job applicants.

Nevertheless, social and professional networks have become very useful to employment candidates, particular among the lower rungs of the employment ladder. While executive-level employees are generally identified through traditional business channels, in the case of entry-level and younger, relatively inexperienced professionals, professional networks increase the likelihood of being noticed by business recruiters searching those resources for prospective employees. Today, social networking may be eroding the lines that have previously separated professional and private lives, but that may very well be largely because it is a new set of social phenomena. As people become more accustomed to the possible negative consequences of publicizing certain types of personal information, they will probably learn to become more discriminating in that regard. It has even been suggested that it is "unfair" for employers to mine social networks for private information. However, by definition, once individuals choose to publish personal information online, it is no longer private as a matter of law.

"Joined-up thinking; Social networking. (online social networks)." The Economist. 2007.

HighBeam Research. (January 4, 2011). http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-161613793.html.

Social networking sites such as MySpace were a relatively new phenomenon in 2007, but even then, contemporary business organisations had already begun exploiting similar Internet-age capabilities such as LinkedIn, which has been online since 2003 and slightly longer than MySpace. Since this article was published, FaceBook has largely overtaken MySpace in popularity, but in 2007, MySpace already demonstrated the various ways that different types of business organisations benefit from incorporating online networking sites into their recruiting processes.

Specifically, sales-oriented businesses have established a virtual presence, often through fictitious representative characters such as Pizza Hut's MySpace pizza-delivery- driver persona named "Ted" who helps announce upcoming sales promotions. Within industries where it is important to reach a very wide range and high volume of potential employees, online sites such as LinkedIn have proven very useful. Meanwhile, within industries requiring specialised knowledge, skills, and training, other sites such as Jobster give employers much more control that enables them to narrow their recruitment efforts as well as to retain greater control over information exchanged through the virtual medium. In principle, one of the most important advantages offered by this component of recruitment is that it increases access to candidates who satisfy the traditional criteria of "internal" applicants in that the network functions allow current employees and industry contacts to publicize open positions among first-hand contacts who already possess the knowledge, skills, and training and similar advantages traditionally offered by internal hires.

Reinhardt, Eric. "Survey: Hiring managers turning to online networking sites." the

Business Journal. 2008. HighBeam Research. (January 4, 2011). http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P3-1493507931.html.

In the Internet age, online social and professional networks such as LinkedIn, FaceBook, and MySpace are quickly becoming commonplace in the realm of job searching on the part of applicants and recruitment by organisations. Already in 2008, at the time of its publication, this source documented that "nearly nine of every ten" Americans are on one or more social or professional online networks. Likewise, 62% of business executives responding to a poll indicated that they expect social and professional online networking sites to continue developing as important recruitment tools for modern business organisations. Job seekers appreciate the opportunity to increase their possible visibility to many suitable employers in a passive manner and Human Resource managers appreciate the immediate access to a much wider pool of prospective applicants than might ordinarily be available to them exclusively through traditional recruitment tools and methods. Experts in the field caution both job seekers and employing organisations that online social and professional networks should be incorporated as adjunctive measures on both ends and not relied upon exclusively or instead of certain aspects of traditional recruitment, hiring, and job searching. Finally, the other obvious implication of the growing use of social networking sites (in particular) for this purpose is that one must become more careful than many have been in the past in terms of what information one posts in the vast public Internet forum to which prospective employers now share ready access.

"Professional sites net members in recession." Recruiter. 2009. HighBeam Research.

(January 4, 2011). http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-207095054.html

According to representatives of the most popular professional online network, LinkedIn, the firm has experienced a dramatic increase in use and popularity among job seekers since the onset of the current economic recession. Specifically, in the UK, LinkedIn has experienced an increase of forty-three percent in job postings and a forty-one percent increase in job applications filed through its services in between the 4th Quarter of 2008 and the 2nd Quarter of 2009. Business recruitment analysts suggest that much of the increase in popularity among job seekers is attributable to the low cost of job searching utilising this methodology. However, the company has also benefited from a thirty-five percent increase of its paid premium services during this same period, indicating that the availability of free networking opportunities is not the only reason for its popularity. Indeed, the company projects that as social online networking becomes more and more commonplace in society, its role specifically in connection with job searching and recruitment functions will reflect corresponding increases as well. In that regard, professional recruiters already consider LinkedIn and similar social and professional networks to be extremely valuable with respect to identifying employment candidates with particular knowledge, skills, and abilities required by specific employers and employment firms. That is substantially a function of the fact that employers and recruiters have long understood the relative value of targeting job postings and other recruitment efforts to specific populations of prospective employees and these online media increasingly provide those very capabilities.

Tatham, Helen. "Executive Recruitment: Virtual Hiring Ventures - Give Me the Job or...; Guns? Nudity? This is not executive interviewing as we know it. But in virtual reality, the boundaries are very different "New Zealand Management Journal. 2009. HighBeam Research. (January 4, 2011). http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-19946099.html.