I confess, in late 2002 I joined Friendster at the behest of a friend and in 2003 I was wooed away from Friendster and introduced to Myspace by the man I will marry in four months. So when Facebook opened their membership to the general public, I put my foot down and declared a ‘social networking profile creation’ moratorium. My resolve lasted about five weeks when in the dark of the night I found myself once again typing ‘The God Father I and II’ under ‘favorite movies’ in my new Facebook profile.
No, I'm not a shameless narcissist who has to be everywhere. My sole motivation was to keep in touch with family and friends on the three sites. (Actually two since nobody I know uses Friendster anymore). At first, I logged on nightly to update my page and to also look at everyone else’s. Then the novelty faded and now I check them occasionally to see if anything new iss happening with friends and family.
Anyway, the media has covered the issue of employers using Facebook to ‘get to know’ potential candidates and rescinding offers as a result of these fact finding missions. There has also been a lot of press coverage about Gen Y’s feelings about employers intruding on what used to be their turf and their turf only.
So, I was surprised when I read a story in the New York Times that reported how people are using Facebook as a means to find a job. Say what? Since when?
Everyone I know uses Facebook and MySpace to post photos with clever captions, maybe make plans, but most of the time just kill an hour voyeuristically perusing the pages of people they don’t know (the latter is not possible on Facebook, just MySpace).
No, I'm not a shameless narcissist who has to be everywhere. My sole motivation was to keep in touch with family and friends on the three sites. (Actually two since nobody I know uses Friendster anymore). At first, I logged on nightly to update my page and to also look at everyone else’s. Then the novelty faded and now I check them occasionally to see if anything new iss happening with friends and family.
Anyway, the media has covered the issue of employers using Facebook to ‘get to know’ potential candidates and rescinding offers as a result of these fact finding missions. There has also been a lot of press coverage about Gen Y’s feelings about employers intruding on what used to be their turf and their turf only.
So, I was surprised when I read a story in the New York Times that reported how people are using Facebook as a means to find a job. Say what? Since when?
Everyone I know uses Facebook and MySpace to post photos with clever captions, maybe make plans, but most of the time just kill an hour voyeuristically perusing the pages of people they don’t know (the latter is not possible on Facebook, just MySpace).
Well, when you get to heart of the story it's revealed that people are finding the ‘connections’ necessary to find a job, but not the actual jobs on social networks. I’ll give them credit for taking a ‘by any means necessary’ approach to networking, but it seems like an odd choice given that social networks have people from age 10-100 whose primary purpose for logging in is to ‘socialize’ which is a very different from of networking in my book.
Furthermore, there are many alternatives like Linked In (or our own Experience Connections if I might shamelessly plug it) that offer the same networking opportunities in a professional environment (and where the sole objective is professional networking). I mean would you go to the Mall of America to buy a new toothbrush? It just seems like a convoluted strategy for job hunting when there are so many other options that are not only more direct but have a proven record of connecting candidates to employers.
Maybe I’m just an old Gen Xer, but I don’t believe that ‘finding employment on Facebook’ is a trend now and I don’t believe it ever will be.
2 comments:
I realize this is an older post, but I'm curious if you've got any information on the efficacy of networking on sites like LinkedIn? Are those more effective than facebook networking at finding new jobs and new employees?
Great question, anonymous. I don't have any hard data from LinkedIn, just anecdotal data from friends and colleagues. I'll post anything I come across.
Post a Comment