Head-hunters stalk social networking sites

Social networking sites are proving a boon for job hunters and recruiters

Social networking sites such as LinkedIn, MySpace and Facebook are proving a boon for job hunters and recruiters alike, but hirers are being warned not to rely on technology to the detriment of human experience. 

The rise in popularity of social networking sites was highlighted this week with the announcement that MySpace had reached a milestone of 10 million users in the UK alone. 

This surge in uptake has made social networking sites a natural hunting ground for recruitment agencies, as the personal profiles provide ready-made CVs.

Social sites like Bebo and MySpace primarily help people to keep in contact with friends and family, leaving business contacts to the likes of LinkedIn. 

But the social sites have recently been adopted by head-hunters widening their nets in the search for talent.

"More formal business sites like LinkedIn have become useful platforms for job seeking and are a useful tool for recruiters to find new candidates," said Satnam Brar, managing director of ERP recruitment house Maximus. 

"Softer options such as MySpace are largely social and mostly used to keep in touch with friends, but it seems that they are being used more and more for recruitment as well."

Recruitment site Jobtonic launched Refer-o-Matic earlier this week, an add-on for Facebook that allows subscribers to view jobs and make referrals with the opportunity to be rewarded with up to £2,200. 

Refer-o-Matic uses subscribers' personal profiles to display positions in their geographical location.

"By embedding our job vacancies on [Facebook] we ensure that our users have more opportunities to refer jobs to friends and make money if their friends take the job," said Nick Goldstein, general manager of Jobtonic.

Ernst & Young has a Facebook group with over 8,000 members to attract potential candidates, and Accenture has even opened an 'office' in Second Life.

Brar maintained that social sites will play an increasing role in job hunting in the future, but warned recruiters to be careful in choosing the right platform to address their target audience.

"Facebook and its ilk tend to be more popular with younger workers, particularly recent graduates, whereas more experienced professionals tend to favour sites such LinkedIn and Ecademy," he said. 

However, increasing reliance on technology by HR departments is having a detrimental effect on the hiring process, according to Steve Carter, managing director of finance head-hunter Nigel Lynn. 

A recent report by consultancy KPMG suggested that large employers are reducing the need for recruitment agencies by hiring staff through their own websites. 

But an over-reliance on this method means that they are actually losing out on attracting the best talent, according to Carter.

"One of the major problems is the way applications are filtered through automated checking procedures," he said.

"You may have the ideal candidate with exactly the right experience for a senior position. But if there's no human being involved in that first CV filter then the company is going to lose out."

Carter cited the example of a senior tax specialist who was rejected by a major company for failing to include the phrase 'indirect taxation' on their CV. The candidate was snapped up by a competitor within hours.

"We are living through what is probably the biggest war for talent we can remember," said Carter. "Why make what should be a simple process more complicated?"