Social Networking Web Sites in Job Search and Employee Recruitment

The use of professionally and nonprofessionally oriented social networking Web sites (SNWs), such as LinkedIn and Facebook, has become widespread from both sides of the Atlantic. The current paper presents and discusses the results of two surveys conducted in Greece exploring the role of SNWs among employees–job seekers and recruiters–human resource professionals. The first study explores how SNWs are used during job search activities and the second how recruiters use them in the attraction recruitment and screening process. Special note is given in the relationship between SNWs and the more established Internet job boards. Our results showed that job seekers still seem to use job boards more extensively than SNWs. It is interesting to note that the association between LinkedIn usage and its effectiveness, on the one hand, and time spent on SNWs and LinkedIn effectiveness, on the other, is stronger for ‘passive’ candidates, demonstrating the important role of SNWs for attracting ‘passive’ candidates. HR professionals are more engaged in LinkedIn than Facebook and were considering the former as more effective than the latter in the recruitment process. The current study sheds more light in the use of SNWs, being one of the first studies conducted in a non-English speaking country.