Also these interfaces have become a place where we can engage our prospective employee base.”

Jessie Paul, chief executive office at PaulWriter (earlier the chief marketing office at Wipro Technologies) feels that professional networking sites are the best places for like-minded people to meet and hence become a database for potential employers. For instance, CMO round table started by Paul has 266 members from the marketing profession with 10 years and above experience. “This not to scout for job its just about networking and discussing,” she adds. “I think people have a better chance of getting selected if they go through references or have referrals. Because the moment you reveal that you have come from a Monster or a Naukri site, it shows you are in need for a job and your value goes down,” says Paul.

Firms also say it is not just about hiring but creating a community for themselves in the fast changing internet world. “We use the forums to point aspiring candidates to open positions (globally) and share information in the form of videos, photos and blog-post relevant to the open positions. Our efforts on professional social networks are more to do with building an integrated community with prospective talent and serving as a sounding board for questions about our company culture,” says a Google spokesperson.

While the company did not give a break-up about their different hiring sources, job listings on corporate sites, internal employee referrals and campus are primary methods of hiring at Google.

Even HR consultancies are realising the need to tap these sites. “There are many people who are passive job seekers. Social media allows us to get in touch with such people and it is on us to convince them about a shift. In our case, we have seen 72-80 per cent of passive job seekers becoming active or approaching us. We have also seen that when we take a profile of a candidate, firms ask if this person is on certain platforms or not and they want to see what kind of person they are dealing with,” says Manmohan R, chief executive officer, SaiCoreS, an HR staffing firm. In the last three years, almost 28 per cent of the total placement the company has done has been through social media recruitment.

Source: Business Standard