Looking for a Job Online. An International Survey on Social Recruiting

The labor market and the recruiting process is increasingly mediated through technology. This paper examines the use of social network sites as a new channel of hiring and the implications this has on candidates and recruiters. The main questions are: what kind of candidates and firms use social media in the recruitment process? What is the effectiveness of social media in the matching between supply and demand in the labor market? How candidates represent themselves online and how digital reputation impacts on job search? What is the role of social capital (and digital ties) in social recruiting? What training is undertaken for the professional use of social media? To answer these questions, an online survey, conducted between March and June 2014, collected responses from 17.272 candidates (8.992 complete responses and 8.280 partial responses) and 1502 recruiters (873 complete responses and 628 partial responses), from 24 countries all over the world. Beyond the global data, the paper present a comparison between five geographical areas.