In an age of social media and the connected presence, it seems the hardcopy CV and trawling through job databases using keywords is old hat.
The Internet offers significant advantages when it comes to job hunting, and it appears the most creative and well connected stand a better chance of rising above the information cesspool to grab the attention of the head honchos at the world's best companies to work for.
A US start-up has taken note and is offering a service that aims to match jobseekers in the technology space with the perfect position, through a combination of skills, social media activity and personal preference measurement.
Path.To founder and VP Darren Bounds says the ultimate goal of the service is to gain a deeper understanding of jobseekers, including what is important to them both personally and professionally, as well as the job and organisation culture of the business in question. This information is used to generate what he calls the “Path.To score”.
“The Path.To score is basically a measure of compatibility, 0 through 99, of how compatible we feel your skill set, personality and current situation is for the particular role at a company, so we try to help you prioritise where you should apply, as opposed to having to search through a job database and try to find a job using a keyword,” explains Bounds.
The perfect score
To arrive at a score for a particular position, Path.To takes into account a jobseeker's personal situation, work experience and passions or interests.
“Your personal situation can deeply affect the type of job you're going for,” says Bounds, explaining that while two people could technically be the same on paper, their circumstances could result in very different approaches. Someone fresh out of college, for example, would be more willing to go after a potentially high-risk job at a start-up that does not offer much in the way of benefits, than someone who has just gotten married with a baby on the way. That person would typically prioritise job stability and benefits such as medical aid, he says.
“Next we look at their experience - where have they worked, how does that work relate to businesses or jobs that are on our system, what is their educational background?” says Bounds.
Finally, the system takes into account what jobseekers are passionate about - and this is where social engagement comes into play.
Path.To currently aggregates with six different social communities, the biggest of which are Facebook and Twitter, and gleans certain information from the user's public data. Once users sign up, the system will go back three to six months and try to identify what kinds of topics they have engaged in, and whom they have engaged with.
“We use that information to identify if there are businesses and jobs that have relevant positions to you based on your interests and experience. And, if there are, then we'll score those positions more highly under the theory that if you're a good technical match for a particular role, and you're also a good personal match for something the business does, then that position is going to be something you're maybe a little more interested in.”
Currently only operational in Bay Area, San Francisco, Bounds says there are plans to expand the service both nationally and internationally, depending on different countries' privacy legislation.
Mixed reception
Arthur Goldstuck, MD of World Wide Worx, says that if the algorithms used are powerful and intelligent enough, it would be a useful screening tool; however, he cautions against it being used as a selection tool.
“A critical element of successful recruitment is ensuring that the candidate would be a match with the culture of the company, and not only with the requirements for the job. Automating that role could be disastrous for companies. Technology must always be used in our service, not to control us, which is in effect the difference between screening and selecting in this case,” he says.
Melissa Attree, social media strategist at Cerebra, says while she's generally wary of services that rely heavily on automation, she points out that Path.To has smart algorithms.
“The appeal is that it sifts through irrelevant information and matches potential employees with suitable companies; a smarter, more targeted approach,” she says.
“In my experience, most people seem to find jobs through their own networks; more than likely, one usually finds a suitable candidate or job through a friend of a friend. The traditional CV has evolved; smart jobseekers are finding interesting ways of using social media to market their skills and interests.
“Many recruiters in SA are already trying to mine LinkedIn for potential candidates; not many, however, are using the network effectively, as they seem to be approaching it with a hit-and-miss approach. LinkedIn is a network that offers other benefits outside of the recruitment market, which means users are sometimes annoyed by eager recruiters. If Path.To were to become available in SA, I do feel it would be more effective as a dedicated job search niche network.”
You're always going to put the best things about you on your resume and most people lie on their resumes.
Darren Bounds, Path.To
According to MCI's latest HR Recruitment survey, 53% of respondents use social media to recruit candidates. LinkedIn produced the best results, at 64%, followed by Facebook (24%), Twitter (7%) and Google+ (5%). The survey also found that 64% of respondents use job portals to advertise positions.
Justin Spratt, CEO of marketing agency Quirk, however, does not think a service like Path.To will work in SA. “Linkedin does 80% of this job and there is no need to have another service. What is the compelling reason to move? Also, where are the degrees of separation, which Linkedin does very well? It's about people. The best candidate is usually someone who is within two degrees of separation to the person.”
Spratt does not discount the service entirely, however, saying the tool could be used as a supplemental service to his company's main talent-acquiring process.
Foolproof
Although Path.To only takes into account a user's public social media information, those concerned about privacy do not have to link their Facebook and Twitter accounts to their Path.To accounts. Bounds says one can still score well based on other information the system can collect.
For example, Path.To has reputation built into the site, so when a user highlights particular skills, friends and colleagues can endorse the user in those skills. “Every endorsement, unlike on LinkedIn, for example, is not equal inside of Path.To. We try to understand how well suited this person is to endorse you in that particular skill.
“For example, if my mother, who doesn't know anything about technology, came into the site and endorsed me as a software engineer, that will have very little technical value compared to if a colleague, who's a software engineer, endorses me in that particular role. These recommendations can also affect your score,” he says.
Bounds points out that it's not easy to fool the system. “You can write whatever you want on your resume. You're never going to share a recommendation that isn't glowing. You're always going to put the best things about you on your resume - and most people lie on their resumes.
“One thing you get out of analysis of social graphs and these online communities is it's much harder to fake it because you're going back further; it's engagement with real people, and it's much, much harder to fake that information than it is to fake something on your resume.”
Local services
It does not appear that South African jobs Web sites and recruitment services have yet embraced social media monitoring in their processes, but they all seem to highlight speed and simplicity as a means to entice jobseekers.
Technology must always be used in our service, not to control us.
Arthur Goldstuck, World Wide Worx.
Olivia Bosman, marketing manager for Jobs.co.za, explains the site's job seeking process: “The jobseeker clicks on the button 'Register CV', which prompts for basic information, and a .doc or .pdf version of the CV can be uploaded. At any stage after registration, jobseekers can update or modify their profiles.”
She adds that jobseekers can sync their profiles with their LinkedIn accounts, the benefit of which is that, as LinkedIn profiles tend to be up to date, they can pull data from their profiles, which automates the sign-up process to a large degree.
Jobseekers can also add their Twitter handles when signing up. Bosman says this allows them to use Twitter as a platform to discuss relevant topics and showcase thought leadership within their fields of expertise.
She notes, however, that jobseekers tend to prefer to use Facebook as a purely personal space, and as such, many opt to use LinkedIn to promote their careers and Facebook to maintain relationships.
Saleem Jaffer, director of Job Life, says the sign-up process at his company involves a static, one-page wizard, four fields to complete, and a content access time of around 30 seconds. As with Jobs.co.za, users can sign up by syncing their LinkedIn accounts.
While Job Life currently does not offer personalised services, Jaffer says plans are under way to offer new services to jobseekers. These include a CV-scanning function to match users with relevant jobs posted to the site; sending “well timed” job alerts to jobseekers about potential jobs they may qualify for; and allowing employers to headhunt candidates by alerting them when “good” CVs are uploaded - this service will be optional.
Neither Jobs.co.za nor Job Life offer social media matching.
The future of recruitment
As wary as some of us may be when it comes to opening up our personal lives to potential bosses, it seems this is the route recruitment is taking and early adopters are realising the potential social media networking holds when it comes to impressing.
The consensus, however, seems to be to keep personal and professional profiles separate, leaving the jobseeker in control of who gets to see what information, offering peace of mind for the jobseeker and a valuable resource to recruiters.
Click here for tips on using social media as a job-securing tool.
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