Social sites go mainstream - Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle):

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“The Internet is a powerfulk toolfor recruiting,” said Robin Stacey, vice president-humanh resources. “It’s a valuable way to find people.” The Irving-based which employs about 100, still uses recruiters for executive but forall others, including recent graduates and thosr who hold MBA degrees, it turnss to online resources. Stacey also often prospectas for employees using the LinkedIn business socialnetworking site, which allowws her to look for possible candidatesw and then find individuals on the site that she and the candidate both know in order to facilitate an “It’s a good way to contact people and save s a lot of money,” Stacey “It’s made our jobs so much easiefr because we can get so much information more quickly.
” No longer must a company process pilesd of paper resumes or wait for responsew to a newspaper ad, she “You are able to contact someone and have a resumse back from them in minutes.” Companies are taking an “if you can’t beat join ’em” approach to social networkingb sites. Realizing that prospective hires (and are eager to communicate througu theWeb sites, companiews have crafted profiles on some of the most popularf sites, including Facebook and MySpace.
A social network allowxs people to create profiles of complete with pictures ifthey like, and share that Others in the social network may link to that individual’x profile, thus creating virtual communitiesz made up of several It’s an increasingly popular way to share ideas, informatio and resources, and companies are tapping into the About 70% of all Internet users between the ages of 18 and 29 have postes profiles on an online social network, according to the Pew Internef and American Life Project research, and a growing number of individual in older age groups are doing the Although Facebook started out in 2004 targetiny college students, membership has evolved to include working professionals.
LinkedIn began at abouft the same time to offer professionals a way to builda network. Now about 25 million people are including companies that create thei own profiles to build their brand recognition and promot e productsand services. They also can pay to use recruitmenf tools to search for candidates with specifix skills and receive information about new members who fit the Companies have already made the migration to usinb national online job boards suchas , Monster.com and others. Some recruitingf and HR professionals complain that the ease of submitting resumezs online has created a flood of notonly qualified, but also unqualifies candidates.
To help stem the tide, some companies opt to bypass the procesz of soliciting resumes frominterested applicants, accordintg to a 2007 study by industr trade association Society for Human Resourcde Management. By searching for so-called passive or those who are not actively job employers are able to streamline the process and move quicklgy toqualified candidates. The thred most common methods used by survey respondents were viewinb membership directories for associations andtrade groups, scannin social networking sites and mining industry-specific discussion forums, newsgroups or listservs.
More and more, they use the Interneft in many stages ofcandidat recruiting, which can produce a speedier result, said Debrz Squyres, director of human capital consulting in the Dallas office of , a San Francisco area-based human resources outsourcing providefr and consultant to small-and mid-sized companies. Informatio available through online sourcesd such as social networking sites allows companies to see how a job applicanyt might representa