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New age networking: the power of social networks

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By BOB WEINSTEIN, Special Sections correspondent

Published: November 11, 2007

If you want to find out about hiring trends and how HR decision-makers are finding candidates, plug into the human resources Web sites.

Thanks to a strong and consistent job market, a talent war quietly rages to find top candidates. Predictably, IT talent is dead smack in the crosshairs of most headhunters' scopes. High on the list are CIOs, CTOs, senior project managers, developers, business analysts and database and networking specialists.

The HR guys always are looking for new and unusual ways to find talent. They may have found one in social networks, which have catapulted in popularity over the last few years. They're still using headhunters, job boards, job Web sites and blogs. But the social networks offer a new, growing and diverse talent universe. New ones are popping up every year, particularly networks targeted at attracting members interested in developing contacts in niche fields.

The obvious message is that if you haven't been paying attention to social networks, start now. And if you're part of one, get more involved — and consider participating in others. Keep in mind that smart recruiters hot on the heels of passive job-seekers (employed and not actively searching for a job) are weaving extensive social networking webs.

A recently posted story on HR site ERE Daily (www.ere.net), "The rise of the social networks: New goldmines of candidates are popping up on the Web" by Dave Lefkow, says that social networks may be the best tools at recruiters' disposal. Lefkow is CEO of IT consulting firm Talentspark.

An ongoing problem for recruiters is finding detailed, current information about candidates, according to Lefkow. Thanks to the unprecedented growth of social networks, that's rapidly changing. Recruiters can reap the benefits of this trend by tapping into the large, established social networks.

Internet marketing firm eMarketer estimated that social networks will attract 280 million in ad dollars this year, and online video-sharing sites will attract about $385 million. It estimates that $15.9 billion will be spent in online advertisements in the United States, this year. Together, social networks and video-sharing sites only attract about 1.8 percent to 2.5 percent of total online ad spending.

Many analysts questioned Google for spending a whopping $1.65 billion for video-sharing site YouTube. But Google's intuitive senior managers knew exactly what they were doing. They saw the future, an ability only a handful of entrepreneurs share. A MarketWatch.com analyst called the play when he said that YouTube is not only a video-sharing site but a social network. "Google's paying a small percent of its market cap for a space waiting to explode in advertising bucks," the online newsletter reported. As measured by page views, MySpace (www.myspace.com) is the second most popular general site, while Facebook (www.facebook.com) is tied with Amazon for first place.

Facebook has 24 million members (about half of whom are in college), and is adding about 150,000 a day. Neilsen/NetRatings counted 14 million unique U.S. Web visitors to Facebook in April, compared with 57 million at MySpace. However, Facebook is growing three times as fast. According to comScore Networks, MySpace and Facebook are the largest social networking sites on the Web.

Lefkow's story mentions a number of established and up-and-coming social networks. LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com), for example, boasts 9 million people, he says, and is considered a place to find experienced candidates for difficult-to-fill niche positions. Recruiters rate it as the "holy grail in recruiting," the place to find semi-active and passive candidates.

One of the new players to watch, says Lefkow, is Ning (www.ning.com), a niche social networking platform that allows you to build your own social network around a topic of interest.

But he makes an important point. If HR heavies and headhunters are paying attention to social networks, you should, too. But be patient. They're not going to produce fast results. If you hang back and join one or two that you think will yield beneficial career-building relationships, in time the payback could be sizable.

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