It’s been said for
some time now that a key component of any job hunt is getting the social media
side of things done well. This includes making sure your LinkedIn profile is up
to date, writing a blog and generally getting your name out there online.
I still have my doubts
about how potent this approach is, especially for positions that job hunters
actively apply for. I suspect that when agents and recruiting managers have a
CV to consume they lack the time or inclination to do much research on their
interviewees via social media.
New research from
North Carolina State University reveals that social networking is incredibly
valuable at finding new jobs for people who aren’t necessarily looking for one,
which is referred to in the study as ‘informal recruitment’.
This study found that
over 1 in 4 of all jobs filled in the US were done so via this form of informal
recruitment. Perhaps the most interesting finding is that this ratio increases
significantly as the salary of the position rises. In other words, the higher
the salary is at stake, the more likely the position is to be filled
informally.
The researchers have
broken this down into a ratio. They found that the odds of a job being filled
by social networks increased by 2% for every dollar paid per hour for the
position being filled.
To put that into
perspective, a job paying $100,000 a year is 86% more likely to be filled
informally than a minimum wage job paying $14,500 a year.
Of course you will be
rightly saying that personal networks have always been valuable. After all, the
saying “it’s not what you know, but who you know” wasn’t coined at the dawn of
the social media age.
It does serve to
reinforce the importance of making sure that plenty of people are well aware of
your skills and experience, and networking online is a fantastic way of doing
that. So if you’re not currently building up your personal brand, be it offline
or online, there’s never been a better time to start than now.
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