SOCIAL MEDIA USAGE DURING RECRUITMENT PROCESSES
Master thesis, Msc Human Resource ManagementUniversity of Groningen, Faculty of Economics and Business 1st of July 2011 M. A. Jonker Studentnumber: 1608991 Eendrachtskade zuidzijde 158 9726 DC Groningen tel.: +31 (0)6-45818835 e-mail: m.a.jonker@student.rug.nl Supervisor/ university J. van Polen Second corrector Metha Fennis-Bregman Supervisor/ field of study M. Walma
Royal Boom Publishers, Meppel
ABSTRACT
The purpose of this research is to provide an answer to the main research question: “How can social media be used during recruitment processes?” This is researched by executing
literature study and semi-structured interviews at external companies that use social media for recruitment processes. This research also investigates whether or not social media could be of help during recruitment processes at Royal Boom Publishers. This is done by combining the information from literature and the external interviews, with information gathered at Royal Boom Publishers. The results show that there are a variety of social media websites, and that these can be used for various purposes such as marketing, webcare, providing information and recruitment. In the Netherlands the most used social media websites are Youtube, Hyves, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. In this research these five are investigated and it will be stated how these can be used during recruitment processes. It appears that there are several advantages for organizations when they use social media for recruitment processes such as: lower costs, scalability and giving potential employees a good view on how it would be if they would work at the company. Furthermore, it appears that besides just posting job openings at the various social media websites, companies can do much more than this with help of social media. Among others, they could for example search for employees on the internet, do background checks and see whether or not the applicant would fit within the culture of the organization.
TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract 2 Table of contents 3 1. INTRODUCTION 4 2. THEORY 6 2.1 Social media 6
2.2 Social media for organizations 9
2.3 Social media for Human Resource Management 13
2.4 Social media during recruitment 17
3. METHODS 21
3.1 Data gathering 21
3.2 Data analysis 25
4. RESULTS 26
4.1 How social media is used at external organizations 26 4.2 Investigating the use of social media at Royal Boom Publishers 29
5. DISCUSSION 33 5.1 Discussion of results 33 5.2 Practical implications 35 5.3 Limitations 38 5.4 Future research 38 REFERENCES 40
1. INTRODUCTION
The number of users of social media websites such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn is rapidly growing every day and these growth rates are massive. Fisher and Reuber (2011) state that the number of users of Twitter expanded from 1.6 million in May 2008 to 32.1 million in May 2009. A lot of definitions of social media can be found in literature and on the internet. Social media website Wikipedia.com defines social media as “media for social interaction, using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques and web based technologies to transform and broadcast media monologues into social media dialogues”. According to Cain, Scott and Smith (2010) this has as a result that actions, attitudes and comments which previously were only shared with friends or close relatives, are now available to a significantly larger audience.
Organizations and entrepreneurs are nowadays seeing benefits and opportunities that the use of these social media can bring about for them. This can be seen by looking at the growing number of organizations that are becoming members of these social media. According to the research presented by HRfocus (2010) the social media application that is most commonly used by organizations is LinkedIn, 82.5% of the respondents of the research stated that they use LinkedIn at their HR department, or somewhere else within the organization. Among small organizations (with less than 50FTEs) Twitter was most commonly used, approximately 75% of the organizations uses this medium (HRfocus, 2010). However, little is known and investigated about the true benefits of social media and the purposes for which they can be effectively used. The few scholarly articles that have been investigating social media and the use of it for organizations usually look at social media as a marketing tool. But, according to Brennan (2010), social media can also be used for various other purposes as well. Brennan (2010) argues that social media can, for example, be used for bolstering customer connections, as a replacement for press releases, to keep tabs on competitors and for the recruitment of potential employees.
employees. Allen, Scotter and Otondo (2004) add that in order to persuade a prospective employee to consider joining the organization, it is very important to communicate information about jobs, values, climate and working conditions, especially in the early stages of the recruitment process. Allen, Scotter and Otondo (2004) explain that the higher the richness of the information that is communicated, the more persuasive it is. Richness of information depends on: opportunity for two-way communication, ability to convey a sense of personal focus, language variety and ability to convey a multiplicity of cues (Allen, Scotter, Otondo, 2004). Since the characteristics of social media are social interaction, social media dialogue, massive amounts of information, and the possible usage of many media (audio, text, video) we assume that social media can contribute in a positive way to recruitment processes.
To investigate this, we have formulated a research question:
“How can social media be used during recruitment processes?”
To answer this research question, two sub questions have been formulated as well. - What are the characteristics and applications of social media?
- What is the role social media can play during recruitment processes?
That recruitment is a changing and critical human resources function is also acknowledged by “Royal Boom Publishers” which is a multi-media publishing enterprise. Royal Boom Publishers is the provider of high quality national and regional information. Royal Boom Publishers is interested in updating their recruitment procedures and are especially interested in social media. To investigate whether or not social media could be used during their recruitment processes, the third sub question will be:
2. THEORY
In this section the research questions will be elaborated on, explained and justified by making use of different insights from literature. First, general literature on the topic of social media will be discussed. After this, the use of social media for organizations will be elaborated on. Hereafter, there will be a part about social media and its use for human resource
management. The last part of this section will focus on social media and its use during recruitment processes.
2.1 Social media
In the introduction a definition of social media was already given, but Cain, Scott and Smith (2010:1635) specify social media as “a connective technology that assists communication and information sharing in a mediated public setting, resulting in the voluntary sharing of massive amounts of personal information with the online public”.
Kaplan and Haenlein (2009) also provide a formal definition of Social media, but explain that one must take into account the distinction between related concepts as Web 2.0 and User Generated Content (which will be referred to from now on as USG). Web 2.0 refers to the mere technological side, it is a platform in which the content is not created by individuals only, but where instead it is continuously created and modified by all users in a collaborative way. According to Kaplan and Haenlein (2009) the sum of all ways in which users make use of social media is what we call “User Generated Content”. To be classified as USG, there are three conditions that need to be fulfilled. First, the content needs to be published on a publicly accessible website or a social network site that is accessible to a selected group. Second, the content needs to show an amount of creative effort. Third, the content must have been created outside the normal way of professional routines. Combining the above information, Kaplan and Haenlein (2009) provide their formal definition of social media as “a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0 and that allow the creation and exchange of User Generated Content.” To give further
impressions other people form of them, in any social interaction. Self-disclosure is defined as “the conscious or unconscious revelation of personal information” (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2009: 62). When these two dimensions are combined this leads to the classification given below in figure 1.
fig. 1 Social media classification (source: Kaplan and Haenlein, 2009)
Collaborative projects, according to Kaplan and Haenlein (2009) are the most democratic form of user generated content. These projects are characterized by many end users that create the content simultaneously and together. Kaplan and Haenlein (2009) describe that blogs can be found in many forms. Some can be seen as personal diaries, while others are specialized in information about one certain topic. Blogs usually are entries which are date-stamped, and these entries are displayed in reversed chronological order (OECD, 2007). Content communities are communities where users can share different media. These media can take on different forms, from text to videos (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2009). Social
networking sites enable users to make a personal profile, these profiles are used to connect to and invite friends and colleagues, they are also used to send e-mails and instant messages to other users or friends (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2009). According to Kaplan and Haenlein (2009) virtual worlds allow users to interact with each other in the same way as they would do in real life. They appear in the form of avatars, which can be personalized, and they appear in a three-dimensional environment. Virtual worlds can be found in two different forms, game worlds in which users have to conform to strict rules in het context of “a massively multiplayer online role-playing game” (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2009:64), and social worlds in which users can live a virtual life that is similar to their real life.
Pondres Social Marketing (2011) explains that the most used channels of social media in the Netherlands are Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Youtube. Figure 2 shows the familiarity with the different social media in column 1, the percentage of people having a profile in column 2, the usage in column 3, the amount of hours spend on the different websites in column 4, and the future prospects in column 5 (Multiscope, 2010). We can conclude that Youtube, Facebook, Hyves, LinkedIn and Twitter are the most relevant social media website to look at for the purpose of this research. A short description of each of these is given below.
Social media in the Netherlands (2010)
Familiarity Profile Usage Hours Future prospects Hyves 90% 60% 48% 13.912.000 -10% Youtube 87% 22% 44% 14.453.000 14% Twitter 76% 11% 9% 2.982.000 26% Facebook 76% 28% 19% 6.276.000 12% MySpace 50% 3% 2% 285.000 -10% LinkedIn 46% 23% 9% 1.222.000 33% Picasa 39% 7% 4% 557.000 4% Flickr 32% 3% 1% 211.000 15% Netlog 14% 2% 0% 63.000 -24% Google buzz 12% 2% 0% 18.000 18%
Fig. 2 Social media in the Netherlands in 2010 (adapted from: Multiscope, 2010)
Youtube. Youtube is a content community that allows users to explore, watch, share and
upload videos. Without registration it is possible to watch videos of other users. When registered, it is also possible to upload videos and react to videos posted by other members.
Facebook. Facebook is a social networking site that allows members to keep up with friends.
Members can upload photos and share links and videos. After registration, members can personalize their profile with information about themselves, so other people can read and meet them.
Hyves. Hyves is a social networking site. In essence it has the same functions as Facebook,
connecting with friends, keeping up with updates of activities of these friends, uploading and sharing photos and videos, sending instant messages and react to content of friends.
LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a social networking site. It has as a main objective to let members
information about education, occupational background and work experience. One can also join or start groups that are formed around, for example, a certain occupation or organization.
Twitter. Twitter is a content community. At Twitter, members can share messages of
maximum 140 characters. These are public (or only visible to followers) and anyone can read and/or react to them. It‟s main objective is not to connect with friends, but to share
information. However, people or friends can follow accounts of others so that information the others post will show up in their timeline. In this way they keep updated about the activities of the people they follow.
Different kinds of people are online on different kinds of social media. In figure 3 the reach numbers can be seen for the most popular Dutch social media, based on age categories.
Age category Facebook Hyves Twitter LinkedIn 15-24 39,5% 79,1% 17,3% 8,3%
25-34 44,7% 67,5% 16,8% 17,3%
35-44 36,6% 65,5% 18,2% 22,2%
45-54 32,7% 65,6% 19,6% 19,1%
55+ 28,2% 46,4% 15,7% 9%
Fig. 3 Reach numbers for Facebook, Hyves, Twitter and LinkedIn in the Netherlands based on age (adapted from: marketingfacts.nl, 2011)
As can be seen in figure 3, the different social media websites have different reach numbers per age category. It appears that when using Facebook, the biggest group that is reached will be between 25 and 34 years old. But when looking at LinkedIn, within this medium the highest reach numbers are among the category of people between 35 and 44 years old. So, when aiming for younger people (below 34) Facebook and Hyves have the highest reach numbers and when aiming for a medium with higher reach among older people (35 and up) Twitter and LinkedIn appear to be a better fit.
2.2 Social media for organizations
information in a rapid and cheap way. Nowadays the most common uses of social media for organizations are recruiting, public relations, branding, marketing and information sharing (HRfocus, 2010; Hunt, 2010). Brennan (2010) adds to this a couple of other uses, for example, increasing brand connection and transparency by answering questions on a site or enabling customers to comment. Other examples are, posting press releases in the form of social media updates, update and monitor customers and clients, or respond to public relation/customer service issues (Brennan, 2010). Brennan (2010) also states that social media can be used to create awareness around a certain product or the company as a whole. Hunt (2010) emphasizes that interaction is the main objective of social media. People don‟t come to the website to read, but they want to interact, responding to clients therefore is a very important thing to do as a company.
For organizations it can sometimes be hard to determine which social medium is used for which purposes. Dutta (2010) presents a model to help determine the right presence. The model can be found in figure 4.
Fig. 4 Finding the right presence (source: Dutta, 2010).
As Dutta (2010) states, there are two spheres of social media activity, personal and
professional. There are also two target audiences, private and public. Dutta (2010) explains, when you are in the box of personal and private, the aim must be to build stronger bonds with family and friends. According to Dutta (2010) even this limited presence, can help
recognition within the profession, broadcasting your competence and building networks (Dutta, 2010).
It is now apparent that the different social media can be used in different ways. Therefore we will continue with an elaboration on every social media website that were identified as most relevant for companies in the Netherlands.
Youtube
According to Moran (2007), Youtube is a good promotional tool for organizations. It can be used in various ways. When a company is present on Youtube and people are interested in watching the videos, this generates extra attention for the company. It is also possible to put a hyperlink in the description of the video, which can create extra visits to the company website (Moran, 2007). By posting videos on Youtube, customers or potential employees can learn about the culture of the company, and mentoring stories can be shared (Ramirez, 2010).
According to Bretz (2010), Facebook can be a platform through which to connect with many stakeholders such as employees and customers but also potential candidates. This can be done by making fan or group pages. People can become a member of these pages, and as the amount of members grows, so does the organization‟s network. The pages made on Facebook can be used to communicate different kinds of information, not only press releases or
corporate videos but also job openings or other topics that are important to potential talent pools and clients. They can be released in different formats as well, from videos to audio to text messages. Hunt (2010) adds that Facebook can also be used to communicate the
corporate culture and their message. HRfocus (2010) conducted a research in which different companies were asked about their usage of social media. Concerning Facebook, it became clear that there is a distinction between a profile and a fan page. In the case of a specific company, they explained that the profile is used mainly for HR and employee
direct and personal way for customers to connect with the company. Hunt (2010) adds that Facebook is optimal for engaging people.
Hyves
Hyves can be used by organizations in various ways. Organizations can make a Hyve or group page, not a profile (Hyves.nl, 2011). These pages can then be used to post different content on it, such as press releases, videos or gadgets. According to
Ondernemeneninternet.nl (2011) the Hyves page of a company can be used for different purposes. By being present in a network and collecting as many friends as possible, the company creates word of mouth attention. The company can also react to discussions, within their group or within other groups to express their opinions on certain aspects and again create attention. At their own page they can tell about their actions, events or products. It is also possible for companies to advertise through Hyves. Another possibility with Hyves is to sell products or services through it. There is a special page at which members can post what they sell or what services they provide and others can react to this. The last thing for which Hyves can be used is customer connection and bonding. By being present and making sure the customers always know where to find you, the company can build a reputation and relationship with the clients or customers.
According to Bretz (2010), LinkedIn can be used by organizations for professional networking. According to Hunt (2010) one of the largest advantages of LinkedIn for companies is that it is one big network. Some individual profiles can be seen and read as résumés, but there are also a lot of groups to join. Besides this, a company can also create their own profile. This page can then be used to connect to employees or attract new potential employees. Organizations who are members of LinkedIn and have their own profile can also create polls, ask questions and post documents or presentations. A specific company that was analyzed during the research of HRfocus (2010) explained that LinkedIn can be used by companies in two different ways. First, there is the opportunity to create a profile, which is used for recruiting purposes and connecting with employees. Second, there is also the opportunity to create a group, which can be used for both marketing and recruitment
of other industry groups and in this way a lot of job or company relevant information can be gathered.
Bretz (2010) explains that Twitter can be used for various purposes within organizations. Twitter can for example be used to communicate information, best practices, and it can be used to provide guidance to others. According to Bretz (2010), many organizations use Twitter to keep their followers updated on upcoming events or activities. Bretz (2010) further explains that Twitter can also be used to create a pool of talent. This can be done by
analyzing the followers of similar organizations and position qualifications. Hunt (2010) adds that Twitter is a tool that engages candidates. Hunt (2010) explains many companies use Twitter by simply posting their job openings, or links to their corporate websites. By searching for content in Tweets of others, such as competencies or activities as key words, talent can be found and direct messages can be send. Companies can also use Twitter to get attention from potential clients or customers by starting a conversation about their company or reacting to negative comments (Fisher and Reuber, 2010). Nowadays, many companies also use Twitter for customer service purposes. Members can ask questions about, for example, orders they placed or products they are interested in and the organization answers back by using Twitter.
2.3 Social media in HRM
appraisal, rewards, selection and recruitment. Even though recruitment is the main objective of this research, in this paragraph all the supply side-aspects will be treated shortly to give an insight in the various purposes of social media for HRM.
Training
According to Horgan and Mühlau (2006) training is a planned and systematic approach. The main objective of training is to modify or develop the knowledge, skills and attitudes of employees. This is done by learning experiences. These training activities can be either on the job or off the job, and formal or informal. One of the trends currently noticed in the field of training is the concept of E-learning (Oiry, 2009). E-learning is defined as: “a wide set of applications and processes, such as web-based learning, computer-based learning, virtual classrooms and digital collaboration” (Kaplan-Leiserson, 2011). According to Hamburg (2003) trainees learn better when they can communicate with other trainees, they need to talk about it in order to enhance their understanding and to help each other. When we look at the different kinds of social media that are taken into account for this research, it could be stated that not all are suitable for training or learning purposes. All the media are not suitable on their own, since there is no medium that gives both the opportunity of communicating with each other as trainees and communicating a (visual) message to be learned. For example, Youtube could be used to communicate a video to participants with the material to be learned. However, Youtube does not provide an opportunity to have a dialogue with each other. The social media could be used in a so called blended form, which according to Mantyla (2001) consists of using two or more methods to distribute and present course content and enhance learning experiences. In this case, Youtube could be used to provide course content, and the chat function at Hyves could be used to get in contact with other students to talk about it. Andriole (2010) states that many organizations use social media for training processes because social media is easy to use, has low costs and because of its participatory nature.
Appraisal
employee has on social networking sites, asses the information they request from other colleagues and how many people go to them for information, hereby determining the value of an employee. According to Silkroad (2011) this is an interactive way of giving feedback, but it must always be combined with traditional methods of evaluating performance. Another thing that could be thought of, by sound reasoning, with regards to using social media in performance appraisal systems, is that outstanding employees can be praised with use of social media. At Yammer, which is an enterprise social network, there is a functionality called the praise button. This gives colleagues the opportunity to give other employees a badge for good performance, which will appear on this employees‟ profile (Yammer.com, 2011). This kind of activity could also be done with the social media website that are used in this research. For example a tweet could be put online, mentioning “employee of the month” or the company can write a recommendation for this person and put it online on LinkedIn. However there are some ethical concerns when it comes to observing behavior of employees with help of social media, Brennan (2010) explains. One must remember that some activities are protected, and discharging or punishing employees based on such activities is in violation of public policies. These activities include whisteblowing, political opinion and free speech (Brennan, 2010).
Rewards
According to Noe, Hollenbeck, Gerhart and Wright (2006), the compensation of human resources can be divided into two parts. The first part is the pay structure, and the second part is employee benefits. Again, not much has been written about using social media in
Selection
According to Noe et. al (2006:219) personnel selection is “the process by which companies decide who will or will not be allowed into organizations”. Different selection methods are presented by Noe et. al (2006), for example interviews, references and biographical data. Noe et. al (2006) continues with more methods, such as: physical ability tests, cognitive ability tests, personality inventories, work samples and honesty tests. Of all these methods, only references and biographical data are suitable for the use of social media. Some, but not all, of these biographical data can be obtained/checked from looking at applicants‟ social media profiles (Brennan, 2010). But, once again, there are also legal and ethical concerns to consider here (Brennan, 2010). According to Wyatt and Smith (2010), organizations using social media for selection decisions, must be aware of disparate impact and disparate treatment. Disparate impact occurs when: “The hiring practices of an employer have the impact, whether directly or indirectly, of discriminating against applicant classes.” (Wyatt and Smith, 2010:4). They explain that this potential for disparate impact is greater when using social media for selection decisions, because certain groups of individuals are not proportionately represented at online social networks (Wyatt and Smith, 2010). Disparate treatment occurs when “The employer treats an individual applicant differently than other applicants due to a characteristics of the applicant that is not job-relevant.” (Wyatt and Smith, 2010:4). This can be the case when an employer decides to hire an applicant, but during a last minute check of this applicants‟ Facebook profile sees some religious claims, and therefore he decides not to hire the applicant after all. As a rule of thumb Brennan (2010: 9) states: “Understand that information that would be inappropriate to make hiring decisions had it been obtained by other means is still inappropriate if gleaned from Internet searches”.
Recruitment
someone who is already from within the organization (Noe et. al, 2006). More sources are available to companies, such as: advertisements, electronic recruiting and employment agencies. Social media can be used for various of these purposes for example as a way to enhance the use of referrals or to put advertisements online. In the next paragraph this will be elaborated on.
2.4 Social media and recruitment
When looking at social media and its use for recruitment purposes, Hunt (2010) points out that social media can best be used to fuel other recruitment strategies. According to Bretz (2010), it is important not to rely on one online channel but to combine various channels. Being online on LinkedIn is not enough, one must also be present on for example Facebook and Twitter to capture the benefits of social media (Bretz, 2010). Since one of the drawbacks of social media is, that not everybody is familiar with the use of it, it is important to keep using other channels as well (HRfocus, 2010). It is therefore important to use various social media channels in combination with traditional channels of recruitment.
The results of the research done by Stepstone (2010) make clear that 74% of the respondents use social media during their recruitment process to present a company profile. 61% Uses social media to search directly for new employees. 55% Uses social media to keep contact with candidates, and 42% for posting jobs. 41% Uses social media mainly for graduate recruitment, and 26% for telling a friend about a vacancy. Stepstone (2010) also presents results on how efficient the social media are, ranked by the participating organizations.
It appears that for jobs in marketing, sales, IT, and when searching for graduates, recruitment with use of social media is most efficient (Stepstone, 2010).
According to Risamasu (2011) 80% of all Dutch higher educated (HBO+) are represented on LinkedIn. A research done by Flowtown (2010) confirms the high amount of higher educated people on social media. They explain that the largest part of users of social media are people with “some degree” which, in Dutch terms, means HBO or WO level. They also explain that the lower the educational level, the more the users use friend networks such as Hyves and Facebook (Flowtown, 2010).
According to Hunt (2010), one of the main advantages of using social media is that
organizations can now give potential employees, with the use of pictures and videos, an idea of what it would look like if they would work at the company. She continues that another advantage is the scalability, and the ability to have a dialog. According to Brennan (2010), organizations can use social media tools for recruitment purposes because the employees and potential employees are familiar and comfortable with the tools. The tools not only enable companies to post job openings online, but they can also use them to investigate potential employees and for doing a background check. In the case of background checks it can be used to verify information that job candidates have put on their résumé. The organization can also use information that they find on social media to check whether the job candidate will fit with the job or company culture (Brennan, 2010).
According to Hunt (2010) Facebook can be used for recruitment purposes by promoting their employment brand, and make people excited for or interested in working at the company. Besides this, companies can also post their job openings on their Facebook pages. However, it is important to keep the updates coming and the content of the pages fresh, otherwise people will lose their interest quickly (Hunt, 2010).
exclusive recruitment package (Hunt, 2010). According to the research of Hunt (2010) it is important, when posting job openings on LinkedIn, to keep the job descriptions clear and accurate.
According to Hunt (2010), Twitter can be used for recruitment purposes by tweeting about job openings, or URLs of job openings. Again, Hunt (2010) states that it is important to be active and keep tweeting to earn traction, a simple post once in a while won‟t have an impact. It is also important to keep responding to questions or remarks (Hunt, 2010).
Hyves can be used for all the purposes Stepstone (2010) mentions in their research. It could be used to put a company profile online, search for employees, keep contact with candidates, post jobs online, doing graduate recruitment, and telling a friend about a job opening.
Youtube, however, is not suitable for all the purposes Stepstone (2010) mentions. Since Youtube is not suitable for sending (instant) messages or getting updates on statuses, Youtube is only suitable for putting a company profile online, and posting job openings online by making use of a video.
According to research done by zoekbijbaan.nl (2011) in the Netherlands social media is not used a lot among students looking for a part time job. Only 9,2 % of their respondents used or uses social media to find a part time job. More popular are: online vacancy sites and their own network of real life friends and family. Of the people who did use social media, it appeared that it is most used by students who are currently doing a HBO education.
Fig. 7 Education level of the people using social media to find a part time job, in % (adapted from: zoekbijbaan.nl)
When looking at the Randstad Werkmonitor (2011), 22% of the respondents reported that they only use social media when looking for a job. 40% Of the respondents use social media to find information about the potential new employer, as a way to prepare for a job interview. Randstad Werkmonitor also makes clear that when looking at the users of social media, young (aged between 18-30) and highly educated people are most active. Lower educated, older people (aged 46 and higher) are the least active on social media.
3. METHODS
In this chapter it will be explained how this research was conducted. It will be clarified how the necessary data was gathered and analyzed.
This study is inductive, exploratory and qualitative in nature. The main purpose of this research was to explore the concept of social media and to gain information about the use of social media during recruitment processes, especially in the case of Royal Boom Publishers.
3.1 Data Gathering
The main research question that was developed to explore the topic of this study was: “How can social media be used during recruitment processes?”
Information was gathered there from two guest speakers who spoke about the successful recruitment and the implementation of social media during recruitment processes. The third sub question, “What is the role social media can play during the recruitment processes of Royal Boom Publishers?”, was developed to investigate how social media can be used especially in the case of Royal Boom Publishers. Royal Boom Publishers is a multi-media publishing enterprise. Royal Boom Publishers is the provider of high quality national and regional information. To investigate the third sub question, three information sources were used. First of all, interviews were held with the team leaders of the different subsidiaries. These team leaders have the most information about all vacancies and the characteristics of these vacancies and the potential employees that are recruited. This information is necessary to investigate whether or not the vacancies of Royal Boom Publishers lend themselves for the use of social media. Second, interviews were held with the head of the HRM department at Royal Boom Publishers. She gave insights into the normal way of working with regards to recruitment and her opinions about social media. The third information source that was used is a variety of paper works. A handbook of HRM and a list of all newly recruited people of the last year are examples of this. The handbook was used to see whether social media could be fit into the current recruitment methods and processes. The list of all newly recruited people of the last year was used as a reminder for the interviewed team leaders, in case they had forgotten about the vacancies they had filled. The interviews that were held with the team leaders and HRM employees were also semi-structured, in order to generate a rich amount of information. Again, we made use of an interview guide for the same reasons as mentioned above. The interview guide of all interviews can be found in appendix 1. During the interviews we made sure to get a full record of the interview by taking notes and writing down everything that was said by the respondents. After the interviews the interview transcripts were made by rewriting the notes and formulating correct sentences. This was done not later than an hour after finishing the interview, to make sure everything was still fresh and remembered properly.
3.1.1 Measures
with the purpose of settling down both the interviewer and the interviewee. That is why the interviews all started with the question: “Can you introduce yourself shortly?”. To continue with some easy questions we followed up on this question with questions that were easy to answer because either they referred to their own use of social media or they referred to their current work activities. Only after a couple of these easy questions we started to ask about opinions and more in-depth knowledge, which could be perceived as more threatening. All interviews ended with a question concerning anonymity, whether or not their name and the company name could be put in the final thesis.
Interviews with external companies. These interviews had as a goal to get a rich amount of
data about the use of social media for HRM and especially recruitment purposes. The interview guide for the semi structured interviews was made up out of four parts. These four parts are comparable to the four paragraphs of chapter two. So the structure was as follows: general knowledge about social media, social media for the organization, social media for HRM purposes, and social media during recruitment processes. This has as an advantage that information from the paragraphs can be checked by practical information and/or complemented. The first part consisted of the warm up questions. But besides warming up, they also had the purpose to investigate the current knowledge and usage characteristics of social media of the interviewees. The second part was about the use of social media within the company. The first two questions were to check the information in paragraph 2.2, how to use it and what the (dis)advantages are. The other three questions were more practical oriented, how to measure success, who is responsible, and whether or not social media was the sole resource. In the third part it became even more specific, asking about the usage of social media during HRM processes. Again, the first two questions were to check the information given in paragraph 2.3, the others were more practical oriented, asking (among other things) about time, costs, and who is responsible for social media. These questions create a view on not only what‟s possible, but also highlight the practical considerations. The fourth part was the most important since it concerns social media during recruitment processes. The first six questions were about how and why to use it, the next seven questions are more practical: how to measure results, how much time it costs etc.. There were also 3 questions added to check the information in paragraph 2.4 about the characteristics of people using social media (who react on social media and which vacancies are best filled with social media).
Interviews with managers at Royal Boom publishers. This interview guide consists of three
characteristics of these vacancies and the potential employees that are recruited, and also information about the recruitment process. The first part must be the easiest one to warm up, these are questions about the existing recruitment procedures. The last question is to check whether the managers see a need for change. The second part is about social media, of which the first two questions are to investigate their knowledge and usage of social media. The last three questions are to determine if they see advantages in the use of social media in general by organizations, and for using it during recruitment processes. The last part is the part in which the interviewee was asked about the vacancies of the last year. This is to see, in combination with the information from paragraph 2.4, whether the vacancies are appropriate for the use of social media. So the same things were asked, age characteristics, education level, and functions. And also a last question was asked to see if they think social media could help them fulfill the vacancies better.
Interviews with the head of the HRM department. This interview consists of two parts, the
first about the recruitment process and the second about social media. This interview had as a goal to gather insights in the normal way of working with regards to recruitment and their opinions about social media. The first four questions are easy to warm up with, because they ask about the existing recruitment processes. The two questions hereafter ask about the level of satisfaction about the current recruitment processes, what improvements could be useful? The last question is to see once again, what vacancies are hard to fulfill. The second part, about social media, has questions aimed at determining her knowledge, seeing benefits in the use of social media for organizations, HRM and recruitment, and how she concretely sees the use of social media for recruitment processes.
3.1.2 Participants
was found and interviewed. In order to gather more information, we decided not only to look for publishing companies. To gather as many insights as possible on the use of social media for recruitment purposes and their accompanying (dis)advantages, we decided to look on the internet for companies which are using social media for recruitment purposes. A presentation was found of company X explaining their use of social media for recruitment purposes. They were emailed and asked to cooperate, and they responded that they were willing to do so. After this interview we asked if the interviewee knew any other companies or recruiters to interview and he gave us two names of people that might want to cooperate. Also, two things were agreed on. The person interviewed is a member of a recruiting group, in which members exchange views and information, and he would send them an email, composed by us, in which they would be asked to cooperate. Unfortunately there were no reactions on this email. Also, we would put a tweet online on Twitter asking for recruiters or companies to cooperate in our study about recruitment and social media. This tweet was retweeted by the person of the organization so his network could see this question as well. This resulted in two other companies and, in total, three persons that were willing to cooperate. One recruiter that was introduced to us by the employee of company X responded positively and wanted to cooperate. All persons interviewed were asked if they knew more people to interview, but after them posting our request on relevant groups at LinkedIn, and sending out more emails and telephone calls, the total group of participants remained at 6 persons from 5 different companies all in different sectors, which increased the variety of information and insights. The second group of interviews were with the team leaders of the different subsidiaries of Royal Boom publishers. These were chosen based on their knowledge of the vacancies and the accompanying characteristics. There were five respondents in this case. The third interview group was with the head of the HRM department, she was chosen based on her expert knowledge of HRM policies and processes within Royal Boom publishers.
3.2 Data analysis
4. RESULTS
In this chapter the results of the interviews will be presented. As mentioned in the methods section, three different kinds of interviews were held. They will be presented here in the same sequence as they were in the methods section.
4.1 How social media is used at external organizations
The purpose of these interviews was to gather as much information as possible about the use of social media for HRM, and especially, recruitment purposes.
When looking at the use of social media, it appears that all respondents use social media either for private purposes, business purposes (two out of six) or a combination of both (four out of six). There are no respondents that use all social media, of which they are a member, solely for private purposes. All respondents use LinkedIn and Twitter, which are thereby the most popular ones. Four out of six of our respondents use LinkedIn purely for business purposes, and two out of six use Twitter purely for business purposes. The rest uses them for both private and business purposes. The one social media website that is never mentioned, with regards to using it, is Youtube. Three out of five companies that have been participating, explained that there is an account on at least one of the social media websites that is solely made for recruitment purposes and often carries a name such as: workingat(companyname).
All respondents agree on the fact that social media usage by companies is a good thing. Three out of six explained that, in the current context, the use of social media can not be avoided. One respondent is more critical and explains that using it is a good thing, but that a social media plan or strategy is often lacking.
Concerning the various processes for which social media could be used, all respondents state that, within their company, social media is used for recruitment as well as marketing
purposes. Next in line of processes for which social media are often used are: webcare, giving information about products or services, and keeping in touch with the client or customer.
world and that it is hard to stand out from the crowd. But what is also said is that it is hard to formulate a good policy for using social media, and that it is often hard to determine the source and sincerity of the information on the social media pages. The last two disadvantages that were mentioned are that sometimes also bad reviews about your company can be put online, and the fact that not all people act decently and are sometimes rude. One respondent stated: “Fights on Twitter are trashy and ugly”.
When it comes to measuring the successes of using social media for these various processes, four out of the six respondents stated that they don‟t. Simply because this is to hard or they don‟t know how to do this. Two respondents stated that they do measure this, by looking at the amount of followers on their accounts, web statistics, media analysis and simply asking for feedback. However, one respondent mentioned: “I don’t believe in only doing things when you are sure it brings you something. When you do nothing you are surely not getting anything out of it”.
All respondents agree on that the recruiter by itself is responsible for the usage of social media. But they also explained that the marketing and sales department, internet department or in one case even a social media manager is appointed to be responsible. Another point all respondents agreed on, is that in general social media must always be used as a complement to other materials or resources.
Looking at social media usage for HRM purposes (besides recruitment), it became clear that only one respondent does this. He uses it for checking up on the non-competition clause. This is done by looking at, for example, LinkedIn profiles of ex-employees and see whether or not they work at a company that can be considered as a competitor.
Twitter (five out of six respondents) and LinkedIn (four out of six respondents) are most used as social media websites for recruitment purposes. Only one respondent mentioned using Facebook for recruitment purposes. Social media can be used in different ways, but most of the respondents report that they put a vacancy online at their own profile(s). Four respondents mentioned that they put a vacancy in their status update, and also four respondents stated that they place a vacancy in a group at LinkedIn. Two respondents ask their coworkers to spread a vacancy in their own online networks, and also two respondents use paid recruitment
advanced way. One respondent mentioned that they look at social media profiles of applicants to check the information they have given in a job interview or their application letters.
Besides the disadvantages of social media in general, none of the respondents mentioned any other disadvantages specifically related to using social media for recruitment purposes. When it comes to the advantages of using social media for recruitment, there were mentioned eight different advantages. Most of all respondents (three out of six) stated that the easiness with which the target could be reached is a advantage. The same amount of respondents mentioned that they get more qualitatively better reactions by using social media. Two respondents mentioned its simplicity, being able to interact with customers or potential applicants, lower costs, being easier to reach as a company and also attracting latent jobseekers as advantages. One responded stated that the fact that social media are free of charge is an advantage.
When it comes to the frequency of using social media for recruitment purposes, five respondents explain that they use it for all their vacancies. One respondent uses it only for permanent positions that need to be filled, and not for freelance or temporary positions.
Since all respondents agreed on not using social media as a sole device, they all mentioned other resources that are used during their recruitment processes. Four out of the six
respondents said they use jobboards and their own company website as well. The following resources were all once mentioned as well: internal messages mentioning a vacancy,
recruitment and selection companies, adwords, magazines, UWV and Vacaturebank.
When asked about the amount of time it takes to use social media for recruitment purposes, two respondents answered it takes them less than an hour, one answered that it takes
approximately one hour a day and two answered it takes one to two hours daily. One respondent answered that she uses it all day long.
When asked about the kind of vacancies (when looking at job categories) that are best filled with using social media, four respondents state that they don‟t measure it, so they don‟t know. One respondent answered that she can fill all vacancies with using social media, and one respondent answered that it are usually the marketing, commercial and communication ones that are best filled with using social media. Three out of the six respondents don‟t measure the results of using social media for recruitment purposes. Three respondents that do measure this, do this by looking at the traffic that goes to their application website (three out of six) and by looking at response rates (one out of six).
The reactions that are given to the respondents by clients, customers and applicants are always positive (four out of six respondents), two respondents stated that they never get reactions about using social media.
4.2 Investigating the possibility of using social media at Royal Boom Publishers
The interviews with managers at Royal Boom Publishers were held in order to get
information about the most common vacancies and the characteristics of the people they want to recruit. Also, their opinions about social media were to be gathered.
All respondents explained that the recruitment processes varies each time a vacancy is developed. Two respondents stated that the department of HRM is responsible for the recruitment process, three respondents mentioned that the manager is responsible. The final choice, regarding which applicant to hire, in three cases is made by the director, in one case depends on the kind of vacancy, and in one case it is the manager who makes the final decision.
When asked about the kind of recruitment method that is used all respondents stated that they put their vacancy online at their own corporate website. Three respondents noted that they put the vacancy in their own media (which are regional newspapers) and three stated that they use internal recruiting. Other answers were, jobboards, old interns, own network, temporary work agencies, the “Nederlandse uitgeverij bond”, Boekblad, advertising at a sector specific website and recruitment and selection companies.
Looking at the use of social media, it can be seen that three respondents use social media for both business and private purposes. One respondent uses it only for private purposes, and one only for business purposes. Most popular are Twitter and LinkedIn, which are used by three out of the five respondents. Next in line come Youtube and Hyves which are both used by one respondent. Within the company there is also social media usage, two respondents stated that within their company Twitter is used and also two respondents stated LinkedIn is used. Facebook, Hyves and Youtube were all once mentioned as being used within the company.
When asked about their opinion about social media usage by organizations in general, four respondents were positive, and one respondent stated that his opinion varies, sometimes positive and sometimes negative. The respondents were asked: “If your company would use social media, who should be responsible for this?”. Three respondents answered this question with: everyone who uses it is responsible, one respondent thinks the internet and ICT
coordinator should be responsible, and one respondent thinks web and salesservices should be responsible. Three respondents state that they think it is necessary to have a social media policy, describing rules and regulations for employees to abide too. One respondent thinks this is not necessary, and one had no opinion.
The respondents were also asked about their opinion of social media for recruitment purposes in general, and they were all positive. When asked about using social media for recruitment processes within their own company, four were positive. One respondent did not see the need to use social media within his part of the organization. He states: “The people who work in this sector use social media in a different way”.
chauffeur redactie coordinator marketeer medewerker lezersreizen magazijn medewerkers binnendienst medewerkers verkoper binnendienst fondsredacteur accountmanager acquirerend fondsredacteur projectbegeleiders redacteur
marketing en sales medewerker webgroep & projectleider
Table 1 Vacancies at Royal Boom Publishers
The characteristics of these vacancies were diverse. Most of the times it was stated that the search was for young people, aged between 25 en 35. Of the 14 vacancies listed above, five of them were for highly educated people (WO +), four were HBO, one was MBO/HBO, two were MBO and two were lower than MBO.
Challenges faced when looking at recruitment were also mentioned. Three people saw looking for young people as a challenge, one stated that looking for people with the right network is a challenge. Also, one respondent stated that finding people with the right expertise is a challenge. Finally, one person sees it as a challenge to investigate with what kind of social media the target group is reached best.
Further information to investigate the possibility of using social media at Royal Boom Publishers was gathered by interviewing the head of HRM. She explained that the current recruitment processes differ per subsidiary and per vacancy. As recruitment methods she mentions: own network, “Boekblad”, regional newspapers, national newspapers, recruitment and selection companies, “Cultuursite” and “nationale vacaturebank” (which is a jobboard).
This respondent is also represented on different social media websites, such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. She uses these for both business and private purposes. In general she is positive about organizations using social media, and within this company she thinks the departments of marketing and HRM should be responsible. To the question: “Is there a need for a social media policy?” she answered; yes, and she is positive about using social media for recruitment processes both in general and within this company.
She also mentions some conditions she thinks apply to using social media and those are: you have to be really active with social media, don‟t only take knowledge but also give
5. DISCUSSION
5.1 Discussion of results
The purpose of this research was to answer the research question: “How can social media be
used during recruitment processes?” To answer this research question, two sub questions
have been formulated as well. These sub questions are: What are the characteristics and applications of social media? And, what is the role social media can play during recruitment processes? The characteristics and applications of social media appear to be diverse. There are many kinds of social media and many distinguishable features as well. Characteristics that distinguish social media from other sorts of media are Web 2.0 and User generated content (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2009). Kaplan and Haenlein (2009) explain that social media can differ based on two dimensions, which are self presentation/self disclosure and social presence/media richness. By looking at social media in this way there are six kinds of social media: blogs, social networking sites, virtual social world, collaborative projects, content communities and virtual game worlds. In the Netherlands the most used social media websites are Hyves, Youtube, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn (Multiscope, 2010). In this research it became clear that the most used social media website within our group of respondents were Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Of the five most used social media websites, three of them (LinkedIn, Facebook and Hyves) are social networking sites and two of them (Twitter and Youtube) are content communities. The content communities allow the members to share and react to content of other members. Within the social networking sites there are more possibilities; sharing content, reacting and connecting with other people are important characteristics. Concerning the applications of social media, there are many. Communicating your brand, engaging with customers, learning and gathering information in a rapid and cheap way are just a few of the many application forms of social media (Dutta, 2010). The most common uses of social media for organizations appear to be recruiting, public relations, branding, marketing and information sharing (HRfocus, 2010; Hunt, 2010). Other examples of applications of social media are: increasing brand connection and
customer services. How this can be done by using the different social media websites, differs per medium. Youtube is a content community and according to Moran (2007) especially a good promotional tool. Companies can put videos online, and this generates extra attention. By watching the videos, customers and clients learn about a company and its culture.
Facebook is a social networking site and is ideal for connecting with stakeholders. Facebook can also be used to communicate the corporate culture, post pictures from company events and post job openings (Brennan, 2010; Bretz, 2010). Facebook is optimal for engaging people (Hunt, 2010). The age category that has the highest reach on Facebook is 25-34. Hyves is also a social networking site, and the age category that has the highest reach is 15-24. Hyves can be used to creating word of mouth attention by collecting many friends. At their own page, companies can tell about actions, events or products and also advertising via Hyves is a possibility. Customer connection is an advantage of using Hyves. LinkedIn is a social
networking site, and according to Bretz (2010) it can be best used as a professional
networking tool. Some individual profiles can be seen and read as résumés. Job openings can be posted, but also discussions can be started. This is to keep the brand alive among users (HRfocus, 2010). The age category with the highest reach at LinkedIn is 34-44. Twitter is a content community that can be used to communicate information, best practices and keep your followers updated on upcoming events and activities (Bretz, 2010). Twitter is also used for customer service purposes, reacting on complaints and answering questions (Fisher and Reuber, 2010). The age category with the highest reach at Twitter is 45-54. Besides using social media in these general ways, it can also be used for recruitment purposes. One thing that has become clear is that, as Bretz (2010) points out, this should always be done in combination with other recruitment channels. Social media is best used to fuel other strategies (Hunt, 2010). This was also found in our research, all respondents explained that they use social media in combination with other resources and materials. Even though Stepstone (2010) presents several opportunities for organizations to use social media for recruitment purposes, only one of them is used by all the respondents in our research,
which Brennan (2010) states social media can be used, is by checking whether the candidate will fit with the job or company culture, but this is also mentioned only once by our
respondents. When looking at roles that are best filled with social media recruitment, Stepstone (2010) explains that these are the roles in marketing, sales, IT and graduate
recruitment. Most of our respondents could not explain whether or not this is the case at their company, since they don‟t measure these results. This is not done because this is found either to hard or they do not know how to do it. One respondent said, even though they don‟t measure it, she thinks it are the jobs in marketing, commerce and communication that are filled best. Three of our respondents reported that they think the most people that react on job openings at social media websites are higher educated people, HBO or WO level. This is confirmed by the research done by Flowtown (2010). Besides this they also state that the lower the education level, the more use is made of friend networks such as Hyves and Facebook. Concerning recruitment by making use of social media, the different social media websites have different features. Facebook can be best used for promoting the employment brand and making people excited for or interested in working at the company (Hunt, 2010). LinkedIn is best used by focusing on finding candidates and networking (Hunt, 2010). Twitter can be used to tweet about job openings, or URLs to job openings (Hunt, 2010). Hyves can be used for a variety of things such as searching for employees, keeping in contact with candidates and telling a friend about a job opening. The use of Youtube is more limited, since it lacks a feature to send (instant) messages or keeping updated on statuses, but it is suitable for putting online a company profile or job openings. Youtube can be seen as a complement to the other four websites, since it is not used on its own. One can post a video online, but always has to use another medium to spread the URL of the video so that people will watch it. One of the main advantages of using social media for recruitment purposes is that organizations can give potential employees, with the use of pictures and videos, an idea of what it would look like if they would work at the company (Hunt, 2010). This advantage is not acknowledged by our respondents, since they don‟t use social media in this way. They do mention other advantages that are also mentioned by Hunt (2010), such as the scalability and the ability to have a dialog. Our respondents also noticed additional advantages such as the low cost of social media, reaching latent job seekers, and qualitatively better reactions.
5.2 Practical implications
LinkedIn are the best media. The lower the education level, the more friend networks are used such as Hyves and Facebook. Also different age categories are present on different social media websites. Hyves and Facebook are most popular among younger people (aged 15-34) and Twitter and LinkedIn attract more people aged 35-54. What is also found by investigating literature and the interviews, is that for jobs in marketing, IT, sales and communication social media is most efficient in filling the vacancies. For jobs in
administration, legal and logistics it appears to be less efficient. So while it is possible to find out what target group is available on which social media website, none of our respondents claimed to do this, without a concrete reason. It is assumed that this comes forward from the lack of a policy or social media strategy. Five out of six respondents explain that all the vacancies are spread by making use of social media, and the results are hardly ever measured. Therefore it is not clear whether or not, besides the advantages they mention, they reap real benefits from using social media. When the companies would make a plan or strategy of how to use social media, they could think about other opportunities that are now not used. For example in the case of recruitment, now almost all respondents do one thing, and that is posting their job openings online via their social media channels. They could also be using it to search directly for new employees, see if candidates fit within the company culture, or keep contact with candidates. Another possibility is to use pictures and videos and give potential employees an idea of what it would look like if they would work at the company, Youtube could be of great importance for this. What is learned is that you have to keep your content fresh and of value for your followers to keep being interesting to them (Hunt, 2010). This is not done by only posting a job opening once in a while. To keep your account
interesting, one can for example post press releases or update followers with new information about the business. This is one thing to keep in mind, especially, when working with an account only focused on recruitment, the workingat(companyname) accounts. These could work, only when they are of interest to the followers, so it is important to post, for example, other interesting facts (about the business or industry) or press releases as well. In this way also latent job seekers will be interested in those accounts, which is an advantage because these are usually hard to reach.
The third sub question: “What is the role social media can play during the recruitment
using social media at the company and for recruitment purposes. When looking at the handbook for HRM, there are possibilities to use another recruitment source, such as social media. As was pointed out before by Bretz (2010), one must always use social media in combination with other recruitment channels. So it is important for Royal Boom Publishers, if they use social media, that they also use other channels. Most of the vacancies that appear regularly at Royal Boom Publishers, seem to be appropriate for the use of social media. The biggest part of the job openings (9 out of 13) at Royal Boom Publishers required highly educated applicants, which are proven to be present on social media and then especially at Twitter and LinkedIn. The other four job openings were for lower educated persons, which can be found more on friend networks such as Hyves and Facebook. When looking at age categories, it becomes apparent that the jobs that require highly educated people, are also the jobs that require people with more experience and therefore people who are a little bit older. These are also represented on Twitter and LinkedIn. Other jobs for which they search for younger people, are best helped with Hyves and Facebook. When talking to
managers/directors at Royal Boom Publishers it became apparent some vacancies are always hard to fill. These are the vacancies where the person that is searched for must have a certain combination of knowledge or expertise (in a specific field), the person must be highly
the biggest available group on Twitter and LinkedIn, does not have to be a problem, since, in general, young and highly educated people are most active on social media (WDM
Interactive, 2010; Randstad Werkmonitor, 2010) those will be attracted to these accounts as well. However, as stated before, as an organization it is important to the social media accounts interesting for all followers and the people the organization wants to reach. It is therefore important to post not only job openings, but also information about the branch, industry, products, and for example press releases as well.
5.3 Limitations
This study is qualitative and besides the advantages that this gives us, like being able to gather new insights and information, this can also be found to be a limitation. The findings of this study are not tested statistically to see whether they are significant or due to chance. This means they can not be extended to a wider population as would be the case with quantitative analyses, with the same degree of certainty. However, the respondents are chosen in such a way that we do think the results can be generalized and be of use for the company under study; Royal Boom Publishers. We have chosen to use respondents from different companies and different sectors to gather as much insights as possible. The respondents agreed on a lot of the questions and the findings don‟t appear to be sector specific, the choice of whether or not to use social media depends on age, education level and function (role), therefore we think our results can be generalized. Another limitation is the small amount of respondents that we found to be willing to cooperate with the interviews. A greater impact of our results would have been possible when more respondents would have been willing to cooperate. However, even though the results will not provide statistically definitive and significant conclusions, they do provide enough information to establish a firm basis for decision making, which was one of the goals of this research.
5.4 Directions for future research
talent by raising this employer branding and influencing the way the company is seen by current and potential employees.
Besides this, also in a more practical way future research could provide benefits for
