Survey Shows Underuse of Social Media Amongst Job Seekers

Early returns from the Arras People 2010 Project Management Benchmark Survey show that only four per cent of project management job seekers use social media to find new vacancies, a stark contrast to the number of employers using the new medium to cull candidate information.

The four per cent figure places job candidates at great odds with how employers are using social media sites to find future hires. A recent CareerBuilder study found that more than half (53 per cent) of all employers are using these sites to screen potential employees. In their press release, CareerBuilder encouraged job seekers to “leverage social media in advertising their skills and experience”. The importance could prove staggering to candidates – half of the employers surveyed by CareerBuilder “reported they have found content on social networking sites that caused them to hire the candidate.”

Whither the role of social media in the job hunting cause? The notion that a future boss is hipper than the job seeker might raise more than a few eyebrows. But clearly HR personnel and other hiring executives have figured out how these contraptions work and are proving savvy enough to use it as a solid job candidate screening tool. Therefore, if you’re using this media in any way that can compromise your professional appearance, you may be shooting your hireability in the foot. CareerBuilder’s survey also found that social media background searches of job candidates led to rejection of a candidate 43 per cent of the time. Reasons?

“Candidate lied about qualifications – 38 per cent”

“Candidate showed poor communication skills – 31 per cent”

“Candidate made discriminatory comments – 13 per cent”

“Candidate posted content about them drinking or using drugs – 10 per cent”

“Candidate posted provocative or inappropriate photographs or information – 9 per cent”

“Candidate bad-mouthed their previous employer, co-workers or clients – 9 per cent”

“Candidate shared confidential information from previous employer – 8 per cent”

Source: CareerBuilder press release,”Fifty-three Per Cent of Employers Use Social Networking Sites to Research Job Candidates, CareerBuilder.co.uk Survey Finds“, realwire.com, 14 January 2010

We’ve discussed the ways to make social media work to your marketing advantage before, including two-part introductions to tools such as Twitter. For now, there are a few prime lessons you should know about your social accounts and your self-marketing awareness:

• If you have a social account that you want to keep social, close off outside access to potential employers
• It might be worth opening a separate, professionally-based account for social networking sites like Facebook or MySpace, just to give employers something to look at that reaffirms what you say professionally through a CV
• If you do find a need to comment on a publicly divisive matter, at least have the self-awareness to be as professional in your statements as possible

The leading sources for new job opportunities are online job boards (53% of all participants), recruitment agencies (21%) and personal networking opportunities (20% ).

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