On Thursday, professional social network LinkedIn announced its partnership with Graylink, a Web and mobile recruiting software solutions provider, to launch a South African presence.
The deal sees Graylink, which is based in Cape Town and has offices in the UK, become the first official LinkedIn Talent Solutions partner in SA, as part of the social network's global expansion plan.
Graylink provides recruiting solutions to companies such as Absa, Capitec, Coca-Cola, Discovery, Medi-Clinic, Mercedes-Benz, Pfizer, Shoprite, Sasol, Telkom, and Woolworths, as well as the Department of Trade and Industry.
LinkedIn passed the 200 million user mark at the beginning of the year, with the network's footprint spanning over 200 countries. According to the latest figures from World Wide Worx, in SA, LinkedIn has approximately 1.93 million users, and is recording strong growth.
Commenting on the partnership, Mike Wronski, founder and CEO of Fuseware, a provider of social media business intelligence, says it is a natural step for both companies. "LinkedIn is the world's largest database of professional individuals and Graylink provides a recruitment engine that can manage the talent sourcing process of these professionals."
With LinkedIn's active expansion into emerging markets, Wronski says local partnerships are an absolute necessity to drive its revenue model forward. "I believe corporates will increasingly utilise LinkedIn for finding the right candidates, and it is in the best interest of all SA professionals to have an updated and keyword-optimised profile on the network."
Same but better
The partnership has again emphasised the use of social media as a recruitment tool and how business or social interactions help to build a stronger professional presence. According to Wronski, this is not much different to the old-fashioned referrals people relied on to get the job.
"Social media is basically word of mouth on steroids. Basic human psychology remains the same, but when facilitated by the enabler of technology, we have streamlined and optimised many processes - recruitment being one of them."
Social power
According to a survey by recruiting software maker Jobvite, recruiters leveraging social media to reach candidates attained an all-time high of 92%, in 2012.
LinkedIn was cited as the most popular network for recruiting, at 93%, followed by Facebook, at 66%, and Twitter in a close third, with 54%. It also found 73% of recruiters successfully hired a candidate who was introduced through a social network.
In November last year, Facebook also launched a social jobs app that collects more than 1.7 million job listings from other sites and allows members to share them with their friends.
Earlier this week, UK job search engine Adzuna also branched out to SA, launching its Web site with a social layer.
Adzuna co-founder Andrew Hunter believes leveraging a network of friends and professional connections is the future of job hunting. "The more we learn about our users, the better search results we can provide."
He adds that Adzuna is one of the few job sites to unite social networking with search. "Adzuna Connect allows users to connect with their LinkedIn or Facebook profile, and then shows all the available vacancies that they are connected to through their first and second degree connections. This is very powerful when it comes to requesting a referral."
Targeted recruitment
Crowdsourcing has also largely taken off, with local start-up Hiring Bounty formalising the process to find the right person for the job. Individuals get paid for referring a friend or contact who successfully applies for a position listed on the site. Companies list jobs for free, and decide on a "bounty" to offer for finding the right candidate.
Speaking to ITWeb last year, founder and MD of Hiring Bounty Greg Schneider said referral recruitment and the use of social networks for recruitment have become common practice.
"As soon as we become friends or colleagues and get to know each other, there's a bit of a contract between us. It means we share information and are looking out for each other's best interests. What will ultimately happen is that I will know that, for example, John is looking for a job. So from the outset I know he's willing to move. I'm not going to suggest he apply for a job when I know he's happy where he is," said Schneider.
Wronski adds that the regular job search is still important, as it provides a catch-all for almost any kind of job sector, type and experience level. But LinkedIn's attraction simply can't be ignored.
"Directors, CEOs, business owners and managers collectively form a major part of the network. Finance and IT are the most popular industries on LinkedIn in SA. For experienced professionals, LinkedIn is one of the best ways to expose yourself to the market."
From a local perspective, Wronski says recruiters are actively using social media to expand their footprints and reduce their costs of candidate acquisition, with LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook actively used across the board by SA's top recruiters.
"Job forums, which have a large chunk of business from recruiters, are now offering social media services alongside their advertising packages, such as posting jobs to each of their social media presences. Local start-ups, such as Hiring Bounty, have cropped up that challenge the traditional recruitment model by crowdsourcing the right candidates via social media."
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