Are your best candidates on MySpace?

February 18, 2009 by
Filed under: In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views, Online recruiting 

It’s not quite widespread yet, but more companies are starting to use Web sites like Facebook and MySpace to recruit employees.

Only 9% of HR pros frequently use those sites to recruit, according to a recent survey by the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM). But that’s a big jump from the 2% that did so in 2006.

Also, 56% said they never go to the sites. In 2006, more than three quarters of the respondents gave the same answer.

With so few employers using the sites regularly, it could give your HR department a chance to get a leg up on the competition.

The pros

What are the benefits of recruiting through Facebook, MySpace and other social networking sites? The most common reasons HR pros gave for using them were the abilities to:

  • reach candidates who aren’t actively looking for a job (69%)
  • target a specific level of experience (40%)
  • find someone with specific skills (38%), and
  • increase employer brand recognition (35%).

The cons

The biggest reason employers have for avoiding those sites: concerns about legality.

By looking at a candidate’s online profile, hiring managers may inadvertently learn about someone’s membership in a protected class. Therefore, making a decision based on online information could leave the company open to bias claims.

Other reasons employers have for not using social networking sites to recruit:

  • don’t have enough HR staff to try new recruiting methods (49%)
  • not sure everything users post about themselves is true (42%), and
  • most information on the sites is not work-related or useful (36%).

What about your company? Have you tried recruiting candidates on Facebook, MySpace or related sites? Has it been successful?

Let us know by leaving a comment below.

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Comments

5 Comments on Are your best candidates on MySpace?

  1. J on Wed, 18th Feb 2009 9:29 am

    2. I think the move is away from MySpace and more towards Facebook. At this time, MySpace pretty much has a reputation of being a bunch of teenagers and spam profiles designed to get you off-site. Facebook is a bit more controlled of an environment and there are better ways to target and interface with selected audiences.

    But the legal ramifications have opened an entire new field of law for enterprising law students to lay the groundwork on.

  2. John Hyatt on Tue, 24th Feb 2009 1:46 pm

    3. We have used MYSPACE in the past to confirm details an employment agency gives us about a candidate’s credentials –sometimes MYSPACE is a lot more revealing — but then we walk a fine line with EEOC claims.

  3. Ross on Tue, 24th Feb 2009 2:09 pm

    4. Well, I think looking at these could be helpful at learning about the candidates character. If you’re trying to find the right person to mix with your staff and one that won’t be a disturbance, you can learn a lot from these sites, so long as the candidates actually post quite a few things. Even the pictures on their of them, especially profile pictures, say a lot, especially people stupid enough to put up pictures of themselves drinking as their profile pics.

    I see the legal side, too. To learn that someone is gay and then not hire them, for whatever reason, could easily lead to a discrimination suit if the candidate finds out the employer viewed their profile, regardless of if he or she had legitimate reasons to think that.

  4. Mary on Tue, 24th Feb 2009 2:53 pm

    5. The only networking site we have used for recruiting is LinkedIn, which has a professional verus social networking focus. I don’t see us using sites like MySpace and Facebook for this purpose for many of the reasons articulated above.

  5. J on Tue, 24th Feb 2009 4:27 pm

    6. I think the legal issues might be a little over-worried about.

    Even if you did look at applicants’ profiles, they’d have to have some kind of evidence of actual discrimination for them not getting the job. There’d have to be some kind of comment by hiring managers, made before third parties or in some print fashion. If that was the case, the hiring manager would get him/herself into trouble with or without Facebook or MySpace.

    I think anyone would have a hard time winning a discrimination suit based on “well, I applied for the job, and I didn’t get it because I said on my Facebook page I’m gay.” Even a bad lawyer would ask, “how do you know they looked at your profile?” and “how do you know that was the reason they didn’t hire you?” If they can clear those two hurdles of evidence then, again, your hiring manager would have or already did commit an error regardless of its venue.