Generation Y, or those born between 1980 and 2000 and for whom social media is a way of life, have emerged as prime targets for the growing trend of social recruitment. It is estimated that social recruiting (hiring through social networks) accounts for two per cent of all hiring in the country and is expected to touch 20 per cent in the future. Professional networking sites like LinkedIn, Monster.com’s social recruiting app BeKnown and new networking portals like BraveNewTalent, among others, are set to benefit from the same.
A Ma Foi Randstad Workmonitor survey estimates that nearly 87 per cent of Indian employees use the social media to find information on an organisation's work culture, 75 per cent track movements and events of their favourite companies to be up-to-date for job interviews, and 75 per cent are skeptical about joining a company, if their co-workers have given negative reviews about it.
New entrants in business networking, BraveNewTalent, a platform that provides recruitment networking service to professionals by building talent communities for employers using social media, is hoping to compete with LinkedIn, the leading professional networking site with an estimated 11 million members from India.
Founded by Lucian Tarnowski, the social recruiter, has created talent communities for employers like IBM, Tesco, L’Oreal and McAfee. In India, Tarnowski, also the CEO, has already roped in information technology majors like TCS and Infosys.
Leading jobs portal Monster.com, which has 27 million registered users in India, too, launched a social recruiting tool to capture the growing interest. Sanjay Modi, managing director, (India, West Asia and Southeast Asia) believes talent recruiting from sites like Facebook and Twitter will get stronger. In an earlier interview, he said, “BeKnown, a professional networking app for Facebook developed by Monster, is an attempt to address the social search needs of both job seekers and employers.”
Modi believes that by banking on the value of Facebook, while not as professional as LinkedIn, would bring success to them since the social network counts 800 million people as users globally.
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And yet, for recruiters, LinkedIn remains the most preferred social media site – an equation that new portals like BraveNewTalent are hoping to change.
A Jobvite survey reports that 87 per cent of the companies use LinkedIn for social recruiting (up from 78 per cent last year), more than 55 per cent use Facebook and 47 per cent use Twitter for recruitment purposes.
Presently, LinkedIn earns bulk of its revenues from professional recruitment (hiring) solutions that are used by employers, it also monetises through online ad banners and email direct marketing. However, premium individual subscription memberships remains a modest revenue earner for the business networking site.
On BraveNewTalent, job-seekers can register for free. The site offers premium profiles, too. Another paid service is Talent Words, where clients can build campaigns with social media marketing tools and build a community of prospective talent. “The clients specify who they wish to target (universities, people in certain courses, locations) and they build a community that meets their criteria,” informed Tarnowski.
Tarnowski claims his platform allows employers to build online communities where they can see and engage with people who are interested in working with them, before they actually apply. “Rather than the traditional model of employers going out into the market searching for talent, prospective employees interact directly with them and foster relationships with employers of their choice via BraveNewTalent,” he said.
Early this year, BraveNewTalent secured venture capital funding from Northzone Ventures and two experienced angels – Pierce Casey and Mike Bourne, and used the capital to fund its entry into the US and Indian markets.
BraveNewTalent claims it is different from sites like LinkedIn, as here the followers are segmented by the organisations, eventually facilitating private messaging with the right candidate. “It is a one-to-one network where the network belongs to the organisation than the service providers. The content can also be edited by the employers, as and when necessary,” said Tarnowski.
With plans to foray into the mobile segment, he said the platform is looking at partnerships with other social media companies. "Partnership opportunities in K12 education space and universities is also being worked out. Right now, our priority is not profit, but becoming scalable," he said.
With inputs from Priyanka Joshi