'Social network' recruiting: software and online services help recruiters mine their contacts for candidates and referrals

HR Magazine,  April, 2005  by Jennifer C. Berkshire

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"We were looking for connections between potential hires and our existing employees and our extended network," explains Girard. "Asking, 'Does anyone know someone?' isn't so easy to do once you get beyond your immediate network. Using Visible Path allowed us to find people in the candidates' previous employment positions that we had some connection to." Once the connections were identified, someone from Clickability then contacted those connected individuals about the candidate. "Everyone was happy to participate. This was a brokered introduction."

As for cost, Girard estimates that his company's deal with Visible Path costs approximately $100 per employee for its 24 employees, an investment that he believes will pay off with a single good hire.

Protecting Privacy

Use of these networking programs raises some privacy concerns. Even the most conscientious employee, for example, may feel reluctant to have his e-mail examined, even by a software program.

To encourage employees to participate in social networking searches, most platforms allow employees to exempt certain e-mail folders--say, those used for personal business--from the search. And Visible Path, for example, only looks at who is sending and receiving the e-mail; it pays no heed to the messages' content.

Online networking sites like LinkedIn have answered privacy concerns by making the network a fully "opt-in" system. "What's important is that each relationship is confirmed by each person," says Guericke, noting that while 65 million contacts have been uploaded into the LinkedIn universe, none can be exposed in a search until consent has been given.

David Carpe, a consultant and research expert in Lexington, Mass., says he's a big fan of LinkedIn, but acknowledges that HR professionals might get heartburn if they use the site to spy.

"HR people who are new to the site immediately think that it's great. Then they start looking for their own employees," says Carpe. "But just because your employees have profiles on LinkedIn doesn't mean that they're planning to leave. It's a great networking tool, but it has the potential to make a lot of HR professionals very paranoid."

Proceed With Caution

Lou Adler, president of the Adler Group, an Irvine, Calif.-based training and consulting firm that helps companies design recruiting technology, says he's tried all the new social networking technology and the verdict is still out on its usefulness. "Generating a name is a piece of cake," he explains. "But the real question is, how do you convert that name into a candidate?"

While Adler sees real potential in the new technology for good recruiters, and routinely uses it in his own recruiting efforts, he cautions HR professionals against thinking that virtual networking is a surefire way to access a deep pool of formerly unreachable passive candidates. The technology needs to be supported by highly trained recruiters. "If you don't organize your team properly, recruiting passive candidates will never happen."