LinkedIn is changing the way we recruit
The influence of social media on global employment is already provoking dramatic changes in recruitment processes globally.
Membership of social platform LinkedIn has recently seen a dramatic rise. The number of profiles on this online curriculum vitae platform has almost trebled in the past three years to 313m.
According to LinkedIn’s Talent Trends 2014 report, around 25% of LinkedIn profiles belong to people who are actively seeking work. A further 60% belong to those who are not necessarily looking, but who might move if the right offer came along.
The site offers cost-cutting recruitment opportunities to firms, who can use the readily-available information about people's skills and work history to identify suitable candidates, instead of hiring head hunters.
Senior recruiter for software company Infosys Rajesh Ahuja said that, over the past two years alone, the number of open positions at his firm filled via external agencies has reduced from 70% to just 16%.
Similarly, pharmaceutical giant Novartis’ head of human resources Steven Baert has revealed that he hired at least 250 people through LinkedIn in 2013.
Many companies are now also using the site to aid internal recruitment and promotion. Telecommunications firm Orange has commissioned software which combines LinkedIn profiles with internal data, in a bid to identify key skills and talent.
Of course, the platform cannot cure global unemployment on its own, but richer data and greater access to it is likely to improve operations in certain labor markets. Though the platform can streamline the skill-searching process, it is unlikely to significantly affect issues such as aggregate demand which persist in Western economies.
IZA World of Labor’s Peter J. Kuhn has researched the role of the internet in labor matchmaking in detail. He identifies low costs and quick skills-matchmaking as key drivers for use of online platforms, commenting that such methods are shown to reduce unemployment durations on average.
Kuhn does note concerns that such easy access to job vacancy information will dramatically increase overall employee turnovers in firms, though recruiters have not yet identified a noteworthy change.
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The internet as a labor market matchmaker, by Peter J. Kuhn