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Networking for the Passive Job Hunter: Has the Word Spread too Far?

By Editorial for CEOWORLD Magazine Updated:April 30, 2009

In 2004, when an article in Workforce Magazine by Douglas Wolk drew attention to social networking sites such as LinkedIn and Ryze being a good resource for finding passive job searchers, he wondered whether they were the recruiter’s secret weapon.

A few years ago, it seemed that was the case as success stories piled up about CEOs that had approached people on social networking sites who were not actively looking for a new job and found the candidate that they needed. However, last month in Business Communication Quarterly, a new study has thrown some doubt on whether such sites actually link job recruiters with “passive” job seekers.

The study looked at the contact field for a sampling of 200 LinkedIn members and found over 94% of the selected members chose career opportunities, consulting offers, job inquiries, or business deals as a reason to be contacted. Only 5% chose one of the two reasons passive job seekers normally put down, either expertise requests or to stay in touch.

Of course, more studies and on a larger scale will have to be done before anything is proved conclusively, and the fact that social networking sites are not the secret link to the passive job seeker does not mean they cannot be used as a recruiting resource.

The presence of people actively seeking new career opportunities and job inquiries certainly makes them a viable option for recruiters. Perhaps after four years of being touted as the market for passive job seekers, social networking sites received the reputation of being just that, not only among CEOs and recruiters, but also among potential job seekers as well. Consequently, it’s just a case of the word being spread too far. With unemployment rates set to reach 9% by mid-year, it doesn’t appear that the trend is going to change. If anything, social networking sites can expect their ranks to swell with active job seekers.

Whether this is good news or bad for companies actively searching for job candidates depends on how ready they are to meet the new wave of job marketing. A change of tactics and a new game plan in the human resource department may be high on the list of reforms for companies that are faced with wading through a job market saturated with active job seekers in an effort to find the one that serves their needs.

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Editorial Staff: By Cara S. Hogan (news@ceoworld.biz)

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