Recent research by The American Society for Training & Development states that Social Networking Sites (henceforward ‘SNS’) like LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook have officially surpassed the online job boards as the preferred way of acquiring talent. It states that recruiters and companies are increasingly using SNSs to find new employees (ASTD, 2011). Another study done by Jobvite among more than 800 HR professionals concludes that almost 60% plan to increase their budgets for social recruiting while only 16% plan to spend more on job boards (Jobvite, 2011). Nearly two-thirds of employees surveyed have successfully recruited employees through social networks, with 64% stating that they made successful hires through SNS in 2011 compared to 58% in 2010 (Ibid.). According to Dan Finnigan (the CEO of Jobvite) the fastest growing companies increasingly use the publicly available profiles on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter to develop valuable talent pools for new hires (Jobvite, 2011). Furthermore, according to Shelley Gorman (director of career management at the UNC-Kenan-Flager Business School) using social media for recruiting purposes is very effective for a number of reasons: it expands the applicant pool, allows employers to reach international candidates, and the technology is extremely cost-effective (Gorman, 2011). Based on these figures and statements it seems to be of utmost importance to raise one’s profile on the Internet as well as proactively manage and promote it when looking for a new position.
Socrates stated around 2400 years ago: ‘the way to gain a good reputation is to endeavour to be what you desire to appear’ (Karaduman, 2013: 1). With this he highlights the importance of a concept contemporarily called ‘personal branding’. This is the process whereby people in general are marked as brands; these personal brands are different from for instance their reputation and impression (Karaduman, 2013; Seidman, 2012; Labrecque, 2011.). Every single person is unique in its own way, each with its own physical characteristics, skills, experiences and education thus every single person may use these properties to create his own unique personal brand. However, a brand is only of use if it is visible to others; making the brand known through decent and proactive management and an effective promotion is therefore essential (Karaduman, 2013; Dutta, 2010.). Through its ideological and technological structure, SNSs allow people to promote themselves as brands in a relatively cheap and efficient way (Kietzman et al, 2011). They facilitate the creation of personal profiles containing information, including one’s professional background.
According to the literature, credibility plays a crucial role in corporate branding; this may also be the case with personal branding (Erdem & Swait, 2004; Baek et. al., 2010). It positively affects the purchase intention of the consumer through a higher perceived quality, a saving of information costs and a reduction of perceived risk (Erdem & Swait, 1998; Baek et. al., 2010).
Traditionally, mainly professional knowledge workers such as publishers, editors, reviewers, news reporters and librarians have maintained the credibility of information (Rieh & Danielson, 2007). Nowadays, the online web 2.0 era offers a vast amount of information assessed through a wide variety of systems and resources, this information has a high chance of being incomplete, out of date, inaccurate or simply poorly organized (Janes & Rosenfeld, 1996). With the emergence of the Internet, web credibility is becoming increasingly important (Flanagin & Metzger, 2000; Fog et. al., 2001). Although a research field has been developed on online credibility on the corporate level, there has been very limited research on how credibility of personal online social media profiles affects the screening process in recruitment, while it is well possible that credibility plays a major role when recruiters are screening social media profiles. Thus, the challenge offered by the use of these profiles is to establish how well they provide trustworthy and valid, job-relevant information. Screening information of a potential candidate’s online personal brand is becoming an issue for recruiters as the information displayed has a high chance of being less credible. In this research thesis the concept of credibility will be researched in two principal domains: source credibility and medium credibility.
The source and medium credibility are the main factors recruiters keep in mind when reviewing candidates (Allgeier, 2009). In conclusion this thesis will focus on how recruiters screen the background of potential jobseekers through social media, considering that companies are using social media as the main source for the screening procedure to an even greater extend (Davison, 2011; Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010; Wright 2011). As a result the research aims to address the following research question:
How does online personal credibility influence the screening process in recruitment and what factors contribute to this credibility?
To answer the research question four sub-questions were established.
Research has shown that in many situations a credible source is much more effective than a less credible source in gaining attention and enhancing recall (Sternthal et al, 1978). Thus, people and companies often spend considerable time or resources to create the most positive and powerful impact on the effectiveness of their brand message therefore the second sub-question will focus on:
a) How does online source credibility influence the screening process?
Furthermore, A web-users’ first task is to rate the credibility of the medium based on surface characteristics such as usability, appearance, organization of information, interface design (Wathen & Burkell, 2002), so the first sub question is:
b) How does online medium credibility influence the screening process?
Third, all information online is not necessarily of equal value, in many cases certain information is thought to be more trustworthy or better than other information (Hilligoss & Rieh, 2008). The challenge that recruiters face is how to judge which information is credible and which is not:
c) What criteria do recruiters employ to assess the credibility of recruiter’s online information?
Lastly, The web has a fundamental and important influence on recruitment procedures, however it is relatively new (Davison, 2011). Offline procedures are definitely not out-dated (Ibid.), therefore it is important to research the differences between online and offline procedures:
d) How do these criteria differ from offline criteria?
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 describes the different aspects we need to understand in order to answer the research questions. Previous research will be used that has been implemented on: social media, screening processes in recruitment, challenges of using social networking sites in recruitment, communication and credibility, source credibility and medium credibility. Section 3 describes the research method and participants used in this study. In section 4, an extensive analysis of the evidence found. Section 5 concludes and contains propositions. In section 6 the practical and theoretical contributions are outlined and section 7 contains any limitations of the study, which lead to further research recommendations.
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2. Literature review
2.1 Social Media
The Internet has become the most essential component in the navigation of everyday normal life (Amichai-Hamburger & Vinitzky, 2010). Internet influences all aspects of human behaviour from the way people interact or spend their leisure time to the way in which corporations operate. (Hughes, 2012). Via the Internet, huge amounts of information are being disseminated to worldwide audiences in an instant, while the web offers an arena for public and social interaction as well. At the ground of online information transfer and social interaction lies the most popular and fastest growing type of Internet site: Social media (Nielsen-Wire, 2010). Social media is defined as collaborative online applications and technologies that enable connectivity, participation, sharing of information, user-generated content, and collaboration amongst community of users (Henderson & Bowley, 2010). These include social networking sites, wikis, blogs, podcasts, vidcasts, vlogs, mashups, folksonomies and online virtual worlds (Henderson & Bowley, 2010).
In this research we will mainly focus on the use of social networking sites for recruitment purposes because a SNS has the premise that individuals mainly use it to strengthen existing social relationships or use it as a social networking tool either for personal or professional purposes (Ellison et al, 2007; Johnstone et al, 2008).
2.2 Social Networking Sites
SNSs can be defined as a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). They are virtual collections of user-profiles, which may be shared with other people. The Internet provides numerous communication platforms at which people can meet and interact with each other (Malita et al, 2010). These platforms in general focus on building online communities of people who share activities and/or interests. These services consist of the representation of a user, often in the form of a profile (ibid.) and offer various ways for users to interact over the Internet through text, photo or video messaging (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). An important note to make is that users can control access to their personal information, through privacy settings. However research done by Dwyer et al (2007) shows that users are not exercising their right to privacy, with 100 % of participants to a survey reveal their real name on Facebook online.
The social networking tool refers to the possibility of connections between strangers as well as those who already have had a relationship with each other and allows SNS to be defined specifically as sites for networking and connecting with people (Beer, 2008).
With the rise of SNSs, the amount of personal data such as employment history, interests and education are online available for all to see. This gives recruiters a greater insight into the candidate’s skills and personality and many potential employees may find themselves being contacted proactively through SNSs for job opportunities they were not aware of because their profile matched a recruiter’s search on a SNS (Doherty, 2010). This way SNSs are becoming an essential tool for companies that try to interact with passive candidates, who are employed not actively looking for a new opportunity (ibid.). It might be the case that these prospective employees do not have an updated CV because they have been working for the same company for several years, however they do have extensive information stored on SNSs that can be found and used for human resource purposes.
According to the research done by Stepstone.com SNSs are used in the full recruitment process in many ways, but they are mostly used for: attracting potential applicants by creating and displaying the employer brand, finding suitable potential employees through direct search, searching for more background information on prospective employees, and posting jobs in social network communities (Stepstone, 2013). Another research stated that the most important usages of social media in the recruitment process were applicants researching organizations by searching their social media pages, locating job postings on SNS and the search on SNS by HR professionals to gather information about applicants (Davison, 2011).
2.3 Prospective employees and Social Media
In this study the screening process refers to all existing profiles of job seeking candidates that have been uncovered during either online or offline searches and that fit the position to be filled with regard to experience, education, background etcetera. After all it is the recruiter’s task to screen the background of the potential candidates and establish his or her fit for the position and company.
During the recruitment process, organizations might request references from the job seeker (Foote & Robinson, 1999). However with the existence of SNS, people’s lives and professional profiles are publicly available and more easily accessible. Employers or recruiters that check applicants’ profiles gain different information than they collect from offline information like CVs (Breaugh & Stark, 2000). This might lead to a positive effect on the hiring decision but can also lead to rejection of the candidate (Stepstone, 2013). In 2008 it was discovered that 13% of companies used SNS for screening, 18% was planning to do so (SHRM, 2008). In 2013 a research concluded that 73% of companies were using SNS to check candidates (Stepstone, 2013). A survey done by Jobvite (2012) found that for organisations engaged in the practice of using social media to screen job applicants the most important factor for using SNS was obtaining information beyond what was stated in a cover letter or CV (70% of participants of survey). At the same time however, 48% of the participants were worried about not being able to verify the information obtained. Davison et al. (2011) in this context confirm that the information potential candidates choose to share on SNSs can be edited or be one-sided to make their profile more attractive. This means that it may not be possible to verify if the information obtained is accurate.
Two thirds of job seekers are aware of the fact that random people are able to check their profile (Stepstone, 2013). These job seekers know that the information on their profile(s) can have an impact on their hiring chances, and a third of the job seekers modify their profile to raise their chances. Whether social media profiles improve the chances to be hired of the applicants to be hired remains to be seen. The survey revealed that the information retrieved from social media profiles had a positive influence on the hiring decision in almost half of the cases (Stepstone, 2013). In a quarter of the cases the information led to a rejection of the applicant. The same survey concluded that the most positive influence of social media information on the hiring decision was that the profile supported professional qualifications. The publication of inappropriate pictures was found to be the most negative influence. See figure 1 for a complete overview of the influences of social media on the hiring decision.
Figure 1, influence of social media on hiring decisions (Stepstone, 2013)
Using SNS for HR decisions has become a common practice (Davison et. al., 2011). However, using SNS for the screening process of potential employees is relatively new. A study in 2008 revealed that 34% of organizations were using SNS to recruit or contact potential applicants and 19% were planning to use them (SHRM, 2008). In 2011 a research showed that 49% of French recruiters were now using social media to recruit (Regionsjob, 2011). Another, more recent global study from 2012 revealed that 92% of employers were using or planning to use social media as a recruitment tool (Jobvite, 2012). Despite a fast rise, the candidate volume generated by social media is lower than other channels such as job boards, agencies, print media, and internal sources (TNS, 2013).
Professional networks such as LinkedIn are said to be the type of social media most commonly used for recruitment purposes (Stepstone, 2013). In 2013, 64% of companies were using LinkedIn to find new talent, making it the most popular SNS for recruitment purposes (Stepstone, 2013; Broughton & Foley, 2013). 41% uses Facebook and 29% are using Twitter for finding future employees. Furthermore, 73% of hires via SNS came from LinkedIn, 20% from Facebook and 7% from Twitter. See figure 2 for the application volumes per recruitment channel and the satisfaction rate.
Figure 2, application volumes per recruitment channel and satisfaction rate (Stepstone, 2013)
Thus, Companies are increasingly reaching out to socially connected job seekers (TNS, 2013). Social media presents an opportunity for extra reach for both the organization as well as the job seeker. Whenever there is a job opening, it’s most effective to use as many channels as possible to make the most out of the recruitment campaign (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). Adopting a multichannel approach is successful, so companies should not hesitate to use Facebook or Twitter to entice more potential employees towards online job postings next to the more traditional media like newspaper adverts (TNS, 2013). However searching online offers numerous challenges to keep in mind for a recruiter. In the next part we will go deeper into this issue.
2.4 Challenges in recruitment through social media
While there are many advantages of the concept of recruitment using SNSs, it is also important to consider the challenges. The recruitment specialist may want to develop and use various tools and instruments to screen different potential candidates for a vacancy. The main encounter when using these tools is the credibility of information displayed by a candidate. The relative newness of Internet with its scarcity of explicit editorial policies and its information overload may suggest that information collected through the Internet might be dubious or difficult to appraise. We will go deeper into this issue later on in the research.
Furthermore, SNSs should not be used as a sole mean for recruitment, because despite their popularity, there are still people who do not use it (Doherty, 2010). Recruiters should therefore be careful in neglecting these people and having the risk of missing out on great talent. In addition, SNSs have transformed how we communicate and as these tools become regular for professional purposes, the boundaries between private and professional information are blurred, raising moral and ethical questions (ibid.). Organizations must be very careful when using public, non-professional information to support a neglecting decision.
Since the arrival of SNSs many organizations have treated them with suspicion and often made it the responsibility of the human resource department to police its use internally (Doherty, 2010). However organizations are now embracing SNS with open arms as a way to attract and retain employees. As said before, this leads to a lot of organizations creating presences on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facbook in order to engage with candidates and give them the opportunity to interact with them on a more informal basis. The use of SNSs in recruitment is a very active and fast-moving domain. Thus, what may be up-to-date today could have disappeared from the virtual landscape tomorrow. Therefore it is crucial for recruitment firms to create a set of guidelines that can be applied to any form of SNS in the recruitment or screening process.
Currently there are maybe hundreds of different Social Media applications including new ones appearing every single day (Kaeplan & Haenlein, 2010). As a recruitment agency it is simply impossible to participate in all of them. Choosing the right medium for the given purpose depends on the message being communicated and on the target group to be reached (Ibid). Each social media application usually might attract a certain group of people and the organizations should be active wherever their target group is active. For instance, if the main target of recruiter for a certain vacancy is a maritime specialist in Germany, it is most effective to use the SNS that offers these specialists.
Another challenge in using SNSs for recruitment purposes is relying on different applications in order to create the most complete picture of a candidate (Kapenlan & Haenlein, 2010). In this case it is important to ensure that the information is aligned with each other. A recruiter might use different SNSs to create an extensive profile. This may seem as a worthwhile and profitable strategy, but the goal of recruitment is the resolution of ambiguity and reduction of uncertainty (ibid.), and contradicting messages may create confusion.
2.5 Personal branding
As stated before, although primarily designed for socialising with friends and family, Social Networking Sites are increasingly recognized as an important professional tool, particularly in the field of recruitment (Girard et al, 2014; Karaduman, 2013). They seem to serve two main purposes. Firstly, they function as a marketing instrument (Sivertzen et al, 2013). Jobseekers use these networks to market themselves to potential employers and vice versa. Secondly, they serve as a screening mechanism for employers; the latter may use information available on the web to cheaply and easily gain a more detailed image of a potential employee than is available through traditional recruitment methods (Labrecque, 2010). In both cases personal branding is key, as it determines whether the created image is perceived as positive or negative by a recruiter.
Personal branding is a new marketing concept related to a marketing strategy that a person adopts in order to promote him or herself in a market. Personal branding has achieved huge popularity in the last decade due to the rising number of books, web sites, magazines, training programs and specialized literature about how exactly to brand oneself for success in the business world (Montoya, 2002; Arruda & Dixson, 2007). The key premise of personal branding is that anyone can be considered as a brand, and everyone has a personal brand regardless of its age, position or industry he or she works in (Peters, 1997). Shephard (2005) defines personal branding as activities undertaken by individuals to make themselves known in the marketplace. Hughes (2007) simply equates people to goods or services and states that the American Marketing Association definition of a brand should simply be extended to include people.
Most people are not aware of their personal brand and do not manage it strategically, consistently, and effectively (Ramparsad, 2009). However personal branding becomes a very important marketing tool for people and it has accelerated in SNSs (Shepherd, 2005). The rise of SNS has formed a need for a deeper analysis of building personal brands not just for social but as well as for professional purposes. The emergence of the web 2.0 with social media such as Google, Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter made it virtually impossible for anyone to keep from creating a personal brand, whether they give permission or not (Vaselou & Joinson, 2009; Labrecque et al, 2011). Individuals not aware in the discipline of marketing might often participate in the act of marketing (either positive or negative) without them knowing to do so.
Establishing a unique personal brand by developing an active communication of one’s brand and by evaluating its impact on ones image and reputation to fulfil professional objectives is what we discuss in this research paper. This process involves three phases just like any other (corporate) brand, the first phase is to establish a brand identity, the second is to develop the brand’s positioning and the third is to evaluate the brand’s image (Khedher, 2014).
Personal brand identity starts with establishing an inventory of attributes, beliefs, motives, values, and experiences in terms of which people define themselves in a role (Mcnally & Speak, 2002). People creating personal brands should differentiate themselves to stand out from a crowd while fitting expectations and needs of their target market (ibid.) this especially is a crucial part in this study as differentiating your personal brand in the employment market is crucial to get hired by an employer.
Personal brand positioning refers to the active marketing communications of a brand identity to a specific target market. People should use brand positioning to highlight their best attributes that are value to their target audience while differentiating themselves from other people in the same marketplace (Khedher, 2014). In other words the positioning occurs through the self presentation, nonverbal cues, verbal disclosures, and actions to shape the perception of others’ about your competence, character and ability to meet the standards (Roberts, 2005).
Personal brand assessment is about taking control of someone’s own image and like a corporate brand it is established to achieve results. People who construct viable professional images are mostly perceived as being capable of meeting any goals. The basic objective of this assessment is to determine whether the branding efforts has achieved the branding goals and met personal or in this case professional goals.
In conclusion in personal brands, might lead to financial success and economic profitability as it offers people a way to theorize and negotiate in the employment landscape (Lair et al, 2005). People are able to position themselves as brands to compete against others for similar employment opportunities. Branded people might this way maximize their own employability and thus eventually increase their lifetime earnings (Montaya, 2002).
The business world is gradually recognizing the importance of controlling personal brands and offering strategic advice about how one can project a desired brand identity through the use of different social media (Labercque et al. 2011; Safko & Brake 2009; Schwabel 2009). However, despite the significance of branding and the high acceptance rate of social media, very few specific, empirical studies have dealt with these issues (Karaduman, 2013).
Using SNSs for screening purposes is usually not a formal aspect of the recruitment process (Davison, 2011). Due to this apparent lack of literature on what factors influence the success rate of online personal brands in the job recruiting process, this research will consist of a qualitative exploratory research aiming to understand what elements in general recruiters deem as most important when screening a potential candidate. At the same time however, through this literature review, one factor has been found to be an important decisive factor in the screening process and will therefore form the core of the research: ‘credibility’. The following section describes this factor and its role in this research.
2.6 Credibility and Message Communication
To explain the concept of credibility we first need to understand how messages are being created. Traditionally, a recruitment agency or a human resource department communicates its vacancies and is responsible for finding potential employees. This communication process consists of three main concepts: the source, the message and the receiver. In this research the source is referred to as the online personal profile of a potential candidate, and the receiver is referred to as the recruiter.
Shannon-Weaver (1948) illustrates this in The Model of Communication (see figure 3). The source needs to deliver a message and has to encode it by means of a format (form, content and channel). When reached by a receiver, the message will be decoded and interpreted. Whether the interpreted message is the same as the message sent by the source, depends on how the message is encoded and decoded (Shannon-Weaver, 1948).
Figure 3, Model of Communication (Shannon-Weaver, 1948)
A medium must be chosen to fit the message that is sent. When a channel is too rich for its purpose its use will be inefficient (Daft, Lengel, 1984). According to Kaplan and Haenlein (2010) SNSs can be seen as medium rich channels in terms of the Media Richness Theory. In conclusion, it is not needed and moreover not possible to use a rich medium for every message, but a medium should be chosen that fits the message. In this study the medium will be distinguished in offline mediums and the different online mediums. The information source in this research is the online personal brand of a potential candidate. The channel is either an online or offline medium. And the receiver is the recruiter. We will focus on the perceived credibility of the information sent from sender to receiver and what contributes to this credibility. In the following part credibility will be explained thoroughly.
2.6.1 Credibility
Credibility has been defined as trust, believability, reliability, accuracy, objectivity, fairness, and many other concepts (Self, 1996). It also has been defined in terms of features of persuasive sources, characteristics of the message structure and content, and perceptions of media (Metzger et al, 2003). Despite the fact that communication researchers have been concerned with source credibility since the 1950s, there is still no clear definition of credibility. The main view across definitions is believability (Fogg et al, 2001; Hilligoss & Rieh, 2007). Credible people are believable people, and credible information is believable information (Tseng & Fogg, 1999). Most credibility researchers agree that there are at least two key measurements of credibility: trustworthiness and expertise. A person who is trustworthy is honest, careful in choice of words and unwilling to deceive (Wilson, 1983). Information is trustworthy when it seems to be reliable, unbiased and fair. Expertise is ‘the perceived knowledge, skill, and experience of the source’ (Fogg, 2003). When people find that sources have expertise, they are likely to judge that the information is trustworthy and thus, in the case of a recruiting process, an organization is more likely to accept a potential candidate to fill a vacancy.
The concept of credibility has been discussed at least since Aristotle’s examination of ethos and his opinions of speakers’ relative skills to persuade listeners (Rieh, 2007). Disciplinary approaches to investigate credibility systematically developed in the last century, starting in the field of (offline) communication. The influence of various characteristics of a source on a recipient’s message acceptance is an important topic among the study of credibility (Hovland et al, 1953; Rimmer & Weaver, 1987). Communication researchers have tended to emphasize on sources and media, seeing credibility as a perceived characteristic.
Credibility has received considerable attention since the last twenty years when the Internet started providing a new information interaction environment that allowed users to seek for information and communicate with others in ways never possible before (Kiousis, 2009). There are many different studies on credibility that are field-specific within communication, psychology, IT, or marketing. Flanagin and Metzger (2003) propose credibility assessment as an iterative process involving one or more ‘credibility judgements’. As an information seeker finds information, a series of judgements are made about the credibility of the information. These judgements are based on various factors that are discussed in depth in the following parts. In summary, the judgements comprise the credibility assessment, which leads to the decision to accept or reject information.
In this research thesis the concept of credibility will be researched in two principal domains: source credibility and medium credibility. Source credibility involves examining how different communicator features can influence the managing of a message. The communicator in this study is defined as the individual that portrays its information in online (personal) profiles. Medium credibility on the other hand focuses more on the channel through which content is delivered rather than the dispatcher of that content.
2.6.2 Source credibility
Marketing researchers have found out that the concept of source credibility is a very powerful facility for influencing consumers (Eisend, 2004). Whenever a consumer perceives a source as having the highest credibility compared to other sources, the consumer is much more receptive to messages and is more likely to be persuaded and thus has a higher chance to consume. However whereas the concept of source credibility hasn’t changed over time, consumers and consumption behaviour did change during the last decades. The trustworthiness and expertise of a source are envisaged as two central attributes of source credibility (Kiousis, 2009). The source is typically defined as an individual that communicates information to the receiver (Kiousis, 2009). Perceived source credibility has also been defined as ‘the judgements made by the perceiver’concerning the believability of a communicator’ (O’Keefe, 1990). Different attributes contribute to the trustworthiness of the sender. For instance expertise, authority or professionalism are indicators for an receiver to establish the credibility of the message. In addition to these communicator variables the message variables are also found to shape source credibility (Chartprasert, 1993). Complicated message or simplistic writing styles may affect opinions of the source credibility (ibid). Credibility appears to be a variable that is studied within the context of the sender (or communicator), the channel or message itself. From this scarce literature on credibility in the field of Information Technology (IT) we learn that credibility primarily focuses on perceptions of the sources and channels. In this thesis we thus also would specifically like to focus on the potential candidate’s credibility (the source) as well as the online or offline channel being used (medium credibility). The receiver in this case is the recruiter.
The perceived source credibility becomes a crucial variable in social media to examine the information available. This because with the ever growing amount of information available through thousands of new channels, the gatekeeping function seems to shift away from away from the producers of content and it goes onto the consumers of the content (Haas & Waerden, 2003). Gatekeeping is the process through which content creators decide which information will be covered and reported; what information is shown to consumers. Formally the information would be screened by gatekeepers, including journalists and editors (Shoemaker & Vos, 2009). These gatekeepers are seen as an important part in the process of ensuring credibility and they are likely to be doing so (Reese & Ballinger, 2001). However the growth of new (online) media means that information consumers are now less beholden of what passes through these gatekeepers, therefore consumers of this information must become more responsible for making decisions about the credibility of the information online (Westerman, 2010). Therefore in the new media environments and thus in the field of recruitment the gates are now located not only with the information providers, in this research the potential candidates, but also with information consumers, in this study the recruiters, who in the new media environment are acting as gatekeepers (Kovach & Rosenstiel, 1999). This shift has forced the information receivers to keep a constant eye at the information and pass and use the information that seems relevant and useful. This can be seen in the environments of SNSs where information is published it is reviewed by other users of the site and may be commented or shared according to its credibility (Westerman, 2010). This is the hallmark of SNSs in general. According to Sundar (2008): ‘the lack of assurance of any uniformity in content quality, which necessitates a continual monitoring of credibility on the part of users. It is crucial to keep in my mind that credibility is a perception, and thus is not a quality inherent within a channel or source itself, therefore many aspects might impact the perceived credibility of online materials (Fogg & Tseng, 1999). In this study we will thus elaborate these aspects of credibility of online personal brands and its influence on the screening process of recruiters consequently on the potential hiring decision.
Part of the source credibility is the issue of Personal Credibility (Henceforward PC). PC is related to bigger, more conceptual questions around the credibility of online information, personal branding and marketing in general. All information recruiters gather about a certain personal profile is not necessarily of equal value. In many cases, certain info seems to be better, or trustworthier, than other information (Rieh & Hilligoss 2007). According to Allgeier (2009) getting people’s confidence that you will do the right thing is not about creating a ‘slick’ personal brand, however it is about being believable, trustworthy and credible (Baek et al, 2010; Erdem, 2004; Balester, 2011). PC is what we do, in addition to how we do it, that causes people to trust, respect, and believe in us (Allgeier, 2009). Online personal credibility is closely related to the online credibility of corporate brands, as they are both defined as the believability of the product or personal profile information embedded in the brand, depending on the consumers’ or recruiter’s perceptions of whether the brand or profile has the ability and willingness to continuously deliver what has been promised (Erdem & Swait, 2008; Allgeier, 2009). Subsequently, besides the question of how job seekers can create a credible online profile, recruiters face the challenge of judging which information is more credible. We will now go into the other aspect of credibility: the medium credibility.
2.6.3 Medium credibility
Medium credibility focuses on the medium through which the message is delivered e.g. newspaper compared to television (Golan, 2010). The reliance on a medium is positively related to perceptions of its credibility (Stavrositu & Sundar, 2007). Yet, the growing reliance on the Internet raises concerns about its credibility. Several studies suggest that Internet users are indulging in content verification behaviours and are becoming much more vigilant and selective (Flanagin & Metzger, 2001). An explanation could be that the general lack of gatekeeping on information on the Internet forces frequent users to engage in constant credibility verification (Stavrositu & Sundar, 2007). It predicts that the reliance and use of traditional media (print and television), would predict more accurately the credibility of the Internet (Johnson, 2000).
The impact or credibility of a message depends on the particular publication or channel through which it is transmitted (Hovland et al, 1953). Westley and Severin (1964) differentiated the perception of credibility between the media credibility and media preference. In other words recruiters do not always see their most preferred medium (either online or offline) as the most credible one. For them it is more on the channel through which the content is delivered rather than the sender of that content (Abel & Wirth, 1977; Gantz, 1981; Newhagen, 1997). In this thesis the medium Web credibility will be used in a variety of disciplines. This form of credibility needs to be discussed independently from other types of credibility because the conventional methods for assessing credibility may not be feasible on the Web due to its speed, complex features and link structure it also is the main medium we use for the research as the study focuses on online personal branding.
Humans increasingly rely on the Internet and web-based information despite a lot of evidence that it may potentially be inaccurate and biased (Flanagin & Metzger, 2000). However the Internet differs from other technologies used for information retrieval that may affect the credibility of an information source. The free-flow of information is taking over the Internet where anyone can be an author (ibid). This introduces an increased potential for error or exploitation (Westley & Severin, 2004). Editorial review is much less or non-existent in Internet publication compared to printed counterparts. Media consumers, in this case recruiters, learn to distinguish through the various sources of online information through the experiences of using them (Flanagin & Metzger 2000). Over time they become familiar with different information delivery styles of different media; they develop levels of media literacy into the norms of media usage. Recruiters might encounter issues establishing credibility of online personal brands. In this research we will try to establish the forms of credibility assessment a recruiter has when screening personal profiles. Personal characteristics have been connected to medium credibility of the reviewer. Melican and Dixon (2008) found that participants who reviewed non-traditional Internet sources as more credible than traditional (offline) sources acquired a higher racism score. The scientists argued that non-traditional Web media offer individuals the opportunity to seek out information that is in line with their own ideologies. Furthermore, research shows that age affects credibility attitudes. Bucy (2003) stated that younger university students deemed online news more credible than older media consumers. And it suggested that the perceived skill of for instance a journalist is a strong indicator of credibility of the message.
Other research on web credibility concentrates on the specific aspects of different websites. Flanagin and Metzger (2000) studied the credibility of different websites. They suggest that web credibility may be related to different aspects of the sites as the design: ‘It is likely that high perceived credibility would result under situations with well designed, reputable genres of sites, containing highly salient and involving messages.’ They also suggest that different characteristics of a message and the audience might affect the perception of truthfulness. Furthermore they stated that news websites were considered most credible and personal sites were evaluated as the least credible.
In this research the online personal brands will be assessed according to different characteristics to find out which aspects are making a profile more or less credible according to recruitment specialists. In summary the research distinguishes credibility in source or (online) personal credibility and medium credibility and how this perceived credibility affects the screening process and thus eventually the hiring decision.
In summary, the modern information technology is beginning to have a significant effect on credibility research, because it highpoints the need to re-examine what constitutes a perceived source and blurring the line between traditional concepts such as message, source, receiver and medium (Kiousis, 2009). Credibility is often attached to objects of assessment as in message credibility, media credibility and source credibility, reflecting the fact that these objects differ (Rieh, 2007). At the same time, however, credibility evaluations of sources and messages are primarily interlinked and influence one another (Slater, Rouner, 1996). As result a theoretical framework is established; see figure 4.
Figure 4, theoretical framework
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3. Research methodology
Due to a lack of existing literature on factors that measure credibility when screening personal profiles, it is impossible and undesirable to ‘test’ certain hypotheses through quantitative research methods (Saunders & Lewis, 2012). Instead the research aims to be explorative so as to gain a detailed understanding of the elements that generate credibility from the perspective of recruitment agents. Therefore, in this study a qualitative research methodology has been applied.
By using a qualitative analysis method with in-depth interviews of recruitment specialists this allows the use of a more narrow scope rather than when using a survey design research, which can reach a more broad population. This might be a limitation of the research, nevertheless in this study a qualitative research suits better as the factors of credibility in recruiting are relatively unknown and the factors will need to be revealed and uncovered by the insights of human resource specialists. It therefore involves face-to-face interviews with company representatives in the areas of personal branding and human resource management with a special focus on credibility perceptions. Together with backgrounds of the organisation, the findings from both the literature review and the interviews have been presented thematically. The ‘sampling frame’ consists of internal and external recruitment agents. Internal recruitment specialists usually do their candidate searches on behalf of the company that employs them, while external experts work for an independent recruitment agency that recruits people for an outside organization. The ‘sampling size’ consists of ten participants, five of which internal recruiters and five external recruiters. Furthermore, participants have been evaluated on the base of a diverse scope of fields they recruit for. Refer to Appendix 1 for an overview of interview questions.
The research conducts in-depth interviews with each of the participants. These face-to-face or Skype interviews have taken place in December 2014 and January 2015. The interviews were semi-structured, meaning that a loosely framework of questions is followed, that allows the conversation to be largely directed by the participant, while remaining within the area of the research interest. Participants have been asked about their organisation’s use of social media when screening staff with regard to the extent and types of social media, their view on effective personal branding strategies as well as their rationale for credibility of information on personal brands.
Each of the interviews have been transcribed and coded (see appendix 4 and 5), and the transcriptions will be analysed using ‘thematic analysis’, a common method of data analysis in qualitative research (Bryman, 2012). The purpose of this method is to create a catalogue of the central themes that then helps the researcher to structure the data and extract meaningful insights on which theory is based.
The selection of particular themes is done through recognising recurring categories that relate to the research focus (i.e. the research question). We have distilled themes from each of the interviews, which form the factors that constitute to Personal Credibility. Subsequently, we will compare the different interviews and extract ‘meta’ themes that will answer the research question. Finally, based on these conclusions we have formulated propositions as to how job seekers can ‘improve’ their PC in order to be more attractive to recruiters, how recruiters can enhance their screening procedures according to credibility and how SNS’s can improve their sites in order to become more popular for both recruiters and jobseekers.
3.1 Interview procedure
The interviews were focused on the recruitment procedure of different recruiters. Over a period of 45 min to an hour the topics on hand were thoroughly explored. While the structure of these interviews varied somewhat according to the answers the interviewee gave, generally the interviews revolved around the following items and questions.
First of all the participants were asked about their professional background and the current recruitment agency they are working regarding its size expressed in the number of employees. Then we would ask about their recruitment procedure from the point of a vacancy to an eventual hiring. Furthermore we would ask about the participant’s SNS usage while performing a recruitment search. Also we were interested in the important factors or characteristics they would screen in order to test the suitability of a potential candidate. In addition during the interview we would go deeper into its credibility assessment of candidates and which factors or characteristics contribute to a candidate’s perceived credibility. Lastly we would ask the participant to give advice on creating a credible online personal brand.
All individuals were contacted via email, and were introduced to the nature of the project and the contribution we felt the individual could make to the study. Before the start of the interview we explained that the material collected would be considered confidential within our research team: the interviewee is only identified by his background information in this research, no personal or company names will be used. Most individuals that were approached were delighted to contribute to the project, many suggesting it to be an important area that needs more investigation and can be very useful for both jobseekers and recruiters. All the interviews were tape recorded and eventually transcribed for the analysis. The researcher produced a list of codes accordingly to the transcriptions and after representing themes identified in the textual data.
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4. Analysis
4.1 Participants
A total of ten individuals participated in the interview. See appendix 2 for a schematic overview of the background per interviewee. In summary the participants ranged from 26 ‘ 63 years old with a minimum of three years relevant recruitment experience and one participant having 17 years of experience. 60% of participants were male with six working at a large organization (more then 51 employees), two working at a medium organization (16-50 employees) and two working at a small organization (less then 15 employees). As said before we interviewed five internal recruiters and five external recruiters with a large diversity of levels of recruitment activities on behalf of various industries including NGO’s, IT, commercial, finance, marketing, logistics, industrial, and fashion retail. Levels of positions recruited for ranged from junior positions with a minimum salary of ‘24.000 per year to senior executive positions with a maximum salary of ‘220.000 per year. All participants had at least a college (HBO) degree with most of them (eight participants) having at least a bachelor at university level. The participants showed a large variety concerning their judgement of how credulous the presented information of candidates is, with females being more credulous about candidates whereas males were less trusting to the information received.
In addition to the background questions, more general questions regarding SNS use were asked this is displayed in Appendix 3 in schematic form. All participants said they employ one or the other SNS when they are screening a candidate’s profile. Ranging from one to even ten different SNS’s per candidate. Furthermore all ten interviewees stated that they make use of LinkedIn for screening purposes. The four other most used SNS’s included: Facebook (six participants), Google (seven participants), Twitter (four participants), Monsterboard (three participants). Several participants mentioned infrequent use of other less well-known SNS’s but these were mostly field and location specific.
4.2 Themes
Several common themes emerged from the analysis of the participant’s answers concerning their expertise on recruiting and screening candidates on credibility. These themes can be differentiated between 1) source and 2) medium credibility:
The themes that submerged within source credibility are: references, the verification of information and the identification of profile characteristics. The themes that submerged within medium credibility are: Online medium features and character, medium utilization and online and offline differences.
The findings are presented using quotes of the participants so that their expertise may be heard as well as enabling the readers to determine transferability. See appendix 4 for the schematic overview of the codes and themes.
Theme 1: References
References or recommendations are the testimonials of (ex-) employers or (ex-) colleagues that say something about the potential candidate. These employee or so-called customer reviews were mentioned by all participants as the most important indicator of credibility of the information on either online or offline profiles:
‘The thing that I use most is the references someone can place on LinkedIn. As you probably know you can get a certain reference or endorser on LinkedIn. For me that is rather important because that shows how a person has worked for or together with another person. That is rather credible for me. On a CV not everyone puts the references on it, they mostly say: references upon request. But on their LinkedIn profile you can see it instantly.’ (Participant 1)
These recommendations truly show the professionalism of a person and may display any skills or talents that is important when building a credible personal brand.
However, according to the participants in this research’, merely focusing on what is said in these references is not enough. They stated that the relationship between the candidate and referral is of high importance as well. The authority the referral has or had over the employee is crucial. A ‘simple’ colleague, friend, or acquaintance does not always indicate truthful information because it could have been a friendly deed to write something kind about the person in question. Yet, a person with authority or a status creates a more credible opinion on the information:
‘Most important is the relation between the referral and the potential candidate. Did they work together and what is the authority of this other person.’ (Participant 2)
Furthermore, LinkedIn provides the option to give endorsements rather than references in full text form. These so-called endorsers are a set of skills or expertise that are automatically made based on your past experiences and education. Other people in your network may provide these endorsers to you just by clicking on the skills. These will then be displayed on your profile for everyone to see. According to four participants these endorsements (participant 2, 4, 5, 7) do not count as heavy as the recommendations as it is much less personal and anyone can give you these skills just by a mouse click without even having to know you:
‘Endorsements are not very important to me, because I get endorsed by people who I did not even speak to. So these to me are not good indicators to assess a person.’ (Participant 4)
Lastly, all participants in this study stated that they usually check on references by calling a former company or school either with or without the candidate’s consent. Company policies of two of the participants demand that recruiters need an ‘OK’ from the candidate in order to contact a former employer, other participants’ policies are less demanding with the recruiters being allowed to contact whoever they want. Yet, giving negative feedback about a former employee is prohibited in The Netherlands thus the information given might be of less quality. Still all participants stated they could easily find out if a candidate has something to hide about his former employment:
‘We are not allowed to find references and contact them ourselves, we need approval of the candidate. The company cannot give me negative feedback about the candidate but on the other side if I ask if he or she would hire the same person again and the reference says no, I know enough.’ (Participant 7)
Theme 2: Verification of information
Apart from the various activities involved in the identification of jobseekers and thus attracting potential candidates, the screening of the background of a jobseeker on the different information mediums is the most important task of a recruiter. Other than education, working experiences, certain skills or expertise that need to match with a job-position, the credibility of the information supplied is an important indicator to establish suitability of a candidate. One of the most frequent mentioned returning statements specified by the participants is the verification of a candidate’s information by asking face-to-face (or through phone) about their background valuations, rather then only examining through a (online) profile. With this approach the recruiter can immediately establish if the candidate is detailed enough about its sincerity of the information provided. In some cases candidates do not show an adequate online information picture, thus by asking the candidate it may be clarified:
‘I ask very detailed questions face-to-face where I need examples of everything a person did.’ (Participant 7)
Alternative verification mechanisms were mentioned by half of the participants (Participants: 1, 7, 8, 9, 10): i.e. comparing between online and offline information as well as checking offline information against different other online mediums. Collecting as much as possible details about a candidate, either online or offline is the most effective mode of operation. By comparing all this information, the recruiter may establish its degree of truthfulness; if certain parts do not match this may create suspicion that may lead to further checking and possibly the candidate’s rejection:
‘In my opinion the online and offline information should be combined as thorough as possible to create a complete profile of a candidate.’ (Participant 1)
The online screening procedure of a candidate is usually initiated by typing a person’s name into the Google search bar (Participants: 1, 5, 6, 9):
‘I do always type in their name into Google. To see what pops up.’ (Participant 5)
Theme 3: Identification of profile characteristics
The third theme that emerged from the interviews is the process of creating a synopsis of a candidate’s online profile. Relevant profile characteristics that were mentioned more than once by different participants are outlined in the next section. Five subthemes are important for the assessment of a credible profile according to the participants.
Subtheme 1: Expertise of a candidate
Firstly, the candidate’s expertise is of crucial importance for establishing the suitability of a candidate for a particular position. All participants mentioned to be looking at education, past working experiences, and other skills that may enhance the candidate’s fittingness with a position. One participant (participant: 9) indicated that the more expertise a person has in a certain field, the more credible its profile is perceived:
‘In addition, candidates that are incredibly experienced in their field usually are more credible about the information they give; it is not worth to them to be untruthful about certain experiences.’ (Participant 9)
Subtheme 2: Physical image of a candidate
As said before, all information displayed in a profile is highly relevant to recruiters in order to get a realistic idea of whom they are dealing with. To this purpose any source can be worthwhile, whether online or offline. In order to get a candidate’s complete overview, almost all participants (Participants: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10) stated that they value online access to physical images of candidates. However this is not necessarily an indication that presentation of a natural and sincere picture leads to a higher perceived credibility of the person. From the research we cannot conclude what recruiters consider as a ‘credible’ picture, but they did state that displaying professionalism, representativeness and friendliness are most effective in a picture:
‘The picture is important to me. For instance for one of our brands’ the image of a person is very important. Someone needs to look representative for the company. He or she needs to look well taken care of as this is one of the job specifications in the store.’ (Participant 7)
Subtheme 3: Size of a candidate’s network and connections
Several participants (Participants: 3, 4, 5, 6, 8) mentioned the relevance of the amount of connections and network size, this being an important characteristic to look for. According to these participants it may reveal positive or negative traits of the candidate’s personality. Having lots of connections may imply you are dealing with a sociable person or somebody who is highly valued in his (professional) environment. One participant stated however that having an excessive amount of connections (say, one thousand or more) might indicate untruthfulness because it is hard to believe that someone can know so many people. Nonetheless, all participants stated they would never only base their opinion on the sole characteristic of a network size or an amount of connections. Still, two participants (participants: 3, 4) did state that having a lot of connections (say, more than 500) does indicate a higher credibility of the information presented. After all, all of these relations might be accessible sources for the verification of the information posted. So, this can be a barrier for a candidate to post untruthful material:
‘What I forgot to mention before in online profiles is the amount of connections, the more connections someone has the more credible the information displayed seems to be. Because these connections can verify the information posted online. If something is not right I assume someone will make a note of that.’ (Participant 5)
Subtheme 4: Candidate’s online participation of groups and associations
This item follows the findings of the foregoing subtheme: the majority of the participating recruiters (Participants: 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9) stated to wanting to know what online groups the candidate is associated with. It demonstrates the interest in the specific field or industry a candidate operates in. According to two participants (Participant: 5, 7), presenting online interest in a particular field by participating and associating with a group in this field, is an important indicator of information credibility:
‘I do always have a quick look to the groups or companies a candidate likes. Because this shows how serious you take your field or industry.’ (Participant 5)
Subtheme 5: Detailed and thorough profile
All participants attach great importance to the applicant presenting an immaculate, complete, correct and detailed profile whether online or offline. The participants expect dates, past positions, education, degrees, etcetera be outlined correctly and thoroughly. Any flaws, mistakes or omissions may lead to suspicion and consequently to a rejection. Therefore the applicant should always make sure the information is very detailed and well taken care off to avoid any mistrust:
‘Undetailed information is a main indicator of less credible information. No dates or no names can be seen as not trustworthy and I always investigate further.’ (Participant: 7)
In order to improve its chances to enter the screening process of a potential employer, or in this study a recruiter, the applicant is to present himself as if selling its own, personal brand. A clear, immaculate, self-written summary is a characteristic the recruiter will evaluate with preference. It expresses how the candidate sees himself and it may indicate professionalism and likeability, which will contribute to the credibility of the information posted. Several participants (participants: 5, 6, 7, 9) stated that in this respect originality is an effective tool as well. Recruitment experts review dozens of profiles each day and therefore a more creative and inventive presentation may attract special attention. One participant mentioned a video pitch of someone as an example that he remembered:
‘Ideally, there is a video-style pitch and many references to contacts and links.’ (Participant 9)
Furthermore, some participants (Participants: 2, 3, 4, 10) liked to see precise details of the candidate’s past working experiences. They mentioned achievements, successes or certain (e.g. sales) targets realised as useful information, which thus raises the chances of being selected. Such detailed information contributes to a higher perception of credibility of the presented info as well:
‘Picture is very important, a summary of themselves what they do. What I also really like is the job description of the previous employer in a summary and shows the things you achieved so for instance the targets and accomplishments someone made with these projects. It gives a better insight in a person.’ (Participant 4)
4.2.2 Medium credibility
Theme 1: Character of medium, personal / professional
Social Networking Sites differ in the information displayed and serve different purposes. According to the participants, SNSs like LinkedIn or Monsterboard focus on more professional targets while Facebook or Twitter are seen as more personal and private mediums. Thus, the various online media differ in their goals and are used accordingly by candidates as well as recruiters.
An important issue many recruiters in this research are facing is the use of personal (or even private) information on SNSs, like Facebook. Its use might be considered to be unethical or even morally improper. LinkedIn is meant for professional purposes, like job opportunities or widening your professional network while Facebook is more informal meant for connecting to friends and family and sharing daily-life information. With the easily accessible and ever growing (private) information available on online networks this has become a useful instrument for a recruiter to screen a candidate on a more private scale. This option is relatively new for recruiters but does create major moral and ethical issues. Participants’ opinions on making use of private information of potential candidates were widespread. Three participants (Participants: 2, 5, 6) stated that using private information for creating a more complete image of a candidate is definitely not an honest or morally correct way of recruiting. They said that such practices should be avoided. A candidate’s private information should remain untouched:
‘Facebook is really private and stuff you put on there should not be used in any recruitment company. I don’t care what people do in their private life. It is not some hint that is related to their job, the things that you really need you can find on CV or other professional networks that are made for recruitment possibilities, Here you can read things about their professional career or their voluntary work, internships or work and travel etc. What you see on Facebook is absolutely not related to their job. And whatever is not related to the job is not important.’ (Participant 2)
In one case the participant (Participant: 2) pointed at the juridical aspects of using private information for the purpose of deciding the suitability of a candidate. He remarked that it is illegal to employ this kind of info, such as photographs, pictures and online private conversations:
‘You are a very bad recruiter if you do that, because it is even illegal when you are looking at this or even taking this kind of information in consideration. It’s public in the sense you can look into that, but it is very unprofessional using this information for recruitment purposes. As a candidate you can go to the court and request the reasons why you are not recruited, if the company does not have sufficient reasons for rejecting a candidate it may cause problems for the company.’ (Participant 2)
However, other participants (Participants: 1, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10) in this study did indicate the great importance of using info posted on the more private social networks. In their opinion this allows them to get a more reliable overall picture of a candidate and therefore it contributes to the process of creating credible candidate profiles
One participant mentioned the emergence of a saturated job market causing enormous competition among jobseekers. Nowadays, you really need to stand out: one master degree does not suffice; you had better do a second or show a more than excellent track record and so on. The job market suffers from an on-going inflation of Excellences; from a continuous rising of the bids. Therefore, looking further than the traditional information given by candidates, recruitment decisions become more reliable when also based on the more personal background material:
‘It is important to combine the CV with the personal background of a person in order to get the best idea of a potential employee. Hard skills are easy to find, you have them on your resume and sum them up. But it is much more important for a company to see what kind of person they are bringing in. They are interested in the personality of someone. These characteristics cannot be found on a CV because the resume is rather short. Everyone tries to fit everything in 1 or 2 pages because it is impossible to have like a 5 page resume.’ (Participant 1)
Theme 2: Medium utilization
Screening features or search options offered by various mediums differ a lot. All participants stated LinkedIn as the user-friendliest tool for searching and screening purposes. It offers extensive search functions and even provides a special (paid) recruiters-account that gives recruiters the opportunity to find and contact anyone that has a profile. With the nonpaid LinkedIn profile it is not possible to locate everyone; this only offers the possibility to send messages to people in your own network. Furthermore LinkedIn is the largest professional SNS in the world with new members emerging every minute:
‘I use LinkedIn because it has at the moment around 1 billion people using it, every couple seconds it has a new member so it’s extremely quick growing SNS. LinkedIn has groups of the different fields, positions etc. You can put up positions to such a big pole of people. You can target search with Boolean searching with extensive options. There is LinkedIn.com and LinkedIn.com/recruiter. Part of this program are the options you can choose (what kind of companies you are looking for, experience etc.) are very extensive and great for recruitment direct searching.’ (Participant 4)
Other mediums like for instance internal and branch oriented recruitment databases or Monsterboard are considered to be out-dated and/or not user friendly, as mentioned by several of the participants (Participants: 4, 5, 7, 8). Often, jobseekers forget about their online presence in these less popular databases and therefore neglect to keep them updated. However, two participants (Participants: 4, 7) said these databases often do offer private contact details, like a personal phone number or email address, which of course is very useful for a quick and immediate contact with a potential candidate. LinkedIn usually does not offer this kind of info and therefore is a drawback if one wants a rapid response of a particulate candidate:
‘So what I do is that I search for candidates through LinkedIn and whenever I found a potential candidate I look for contact details like email or telephone number which are usually not displayed on LinkedIn profile so I would go to Monsterboard where this information is more often displayed.’ (Participant 4)
One of the participants (participant: 1) in this study stated that in seven years of experience in recruitment he has come across two people that did not have a profile on LinkedIn:
‘In my case I came across twice people that did not have a LinkedIn profile and I found out that they did not want to display their information for the whole world to see.’ (Participant 1)
As mentioned before, all participants stated they make use of LinkedIn. This demonstrates the great popularity of LinkedIn in social networking for professional purposes. In this respect, one participant considers the fact of not having an online profile a negative signal. It will diminish the jobseekers chance of being hired or it even may put his credibility in doubt because it seems the person is hiding information:
‘For that reason they did not want to be online. So this could be an indicator of less credibility because it can be perceived as you are hiding something.'(Participant 1)
Therefore, if you are seeking a job, having online presence is of crucial importance to not only to being found and contacted but also to avoid jeopardizing the quality of your personal brand or even your credibility.
The popularity of the online social network strongly relates to the perceived credibility on the information of candidates and job positions, according to several participants. In highly popular mediums, like LinkedIn, the presented information may easier be verified by the easily accessible connections. When something is untrue it may have been commented on. Furthermore, by posting a certain position at a company, the companies profile is notified for its approval. This, however does not apply to any company, only those that are registered with an official LinkedIn profile:
‘On LinkedIn it is difficult to create big lies because if I say I worked at a certain company, the company gets an email asking if its true that I worked there.’ (Participant 7)
Theme 3: Online / offline information
Almost all participants (Participants: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 10) indicated the existence of small, but not negligible differences between online and offline recruiting information. Offline information usually is information that is not publicly available for everyone to read. This information can be gathered from an internal database, a CV sent by the candidate itself or any information the candidate gives face to face. Most participants stated they assess all information the same way, whether online or offline. Yet, as said in the foregoing paragraph, online information seems to be more credible because it may be verified by its connections in the network. Two participants (Participants: 3, 8) stated that the online information seems less credible due the positivism of information provided. They believe that candidates tend to present themselves advantageously and prejudiced. They feel that most people try to upgrade their personal brand to the public as much as possible, thus trying to make them appear better than they actually are:
‘I assess an online profile different because from experience I know people tend to put only the positive information online, to create a successful image to the world and people they know.’ (Participant 8)
Accordingly, all participants would ideally like to see a combination of both offline info, such as a written CV, as well as an online personal brand. This way, in the opinion of recruiters, one can establish the best possible overview of a candidate’s background. Furthermore, combining both types of information can also be used as a credibility check; to assess if all available information corresponds across the different mediums:
‘When we approach and attract candidates we monitor behaviour and look for confirmation of the data presented in their CV, interviews and also on his social network profiles. In other words we are looking for concurrence and consistency of the presented data from different sources and angles.’ (Participant 3)
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5. Conclusion and Propositions
The aim of this thesis is to understand what mechanisms underlie the online recruitment process in order to give recommendations on how one might be more successful on the online job market and how recruiters may assemble a complete and truthful profile of a potential candidate through the use of online screening processes. A thematic analysis of the interview transcripts describing the experiences of the participants on how online personal credibility influences the screening process identified six themes, divided in source and medium credibility. In this section, these themes will be discussed in regard to the literature bases concerning the themes of ‘references’, ‘verification’, ‘identification of profile characteristics’, ‘character and features of mediums’, ‘medium utilization” and ‘differences between online and offline information’ and this is done with regard to the new understanding that this study contributes. Furthermore a set of propositions has been made following each theme.
Source credibility
The first theme, ‘references’, suggest that written reviews are the most important factor for establishing source credibility. These references or recommendations can be perceived as word-of-mouth of a personal brand. A consumer’s word-of-mouth has been commonly cited as the single most important factor that determines the long-term success of experience goods (De Vany & Walls, 1996). Other literature also suggests the importance of product reviews as a marketing tool to improve reliability of a product or service and thus increases sales (Chevalier & Mayzlin, 2006; Dellarocas et al, 2007; Duan & Whinston, 2007). This is in line with what the participants mentioned as the most frequent code for indicating credibility.
According to Pollach (2006), the examination of the authors of product reviews or in this case the writers of recommendations can be examined in light of Aristotle’s classic credibility appeals of ethos this being an intrinsic value of the character of the speaker. These arguments seek to persuade a reader by calling to the character of the writer by displaying expertise, experience or authority. This again is in line with the findings of the research as most participants stated the relation of the writer of a recommendation to the candidate is of great importance to establish the effectiveness of the recommendation. Ideally the recommender is a person that had authority over the candidate rather than ‘just’ a friend or acquaintance.
Proposition 1: In order to enhance source credibility of an online personal brand it is crucial to collect as many positive references as possible from people who have or had authority over a candidate.
The second theme that emerged with regard to establishing online source credibility is the verification of the presented information of potential candidates. A common method used in verification is done through online screening. Therefore it is also the preferred technique of recruiters to establish credibility of the information displayed. The outcome of such a verification process may also serve as an important indicator of the credibility of the screened info, that is whether there exists concurrence of the info from various sources, either online and offline. Such verifications are often done through e.g. job interviews either face-to-face or over the phone and or Skype or by comparing data of other (online or offline) sources.
Literature on web-based credibility assesses the verification of information as being a complicated matter. As to Flanagin & Metzger (2003), several characteristics of web-based information stimulate concerns about its credibility. Moreover, given the newness and complexity of these concerns, the assessment of information and verification has largely become the responsibility of the media consumer. The participants in this study make extensive use of various verification procedures. For instance, participants undertake specific measures to verify information by sourcing on different online mediums. By checking the information on one platform, the information on another can be verified. The online search is mostly done by Google name searches.
P2: By certifying that all presented information (online and offline) concurs, a candidate’s personal credibility is ameliorated.
The third theme that has emerged from this study is the importance of identifying typical profile characteristics. Within this theme, five sub-themes appeared from the interviews.
Sub-theme number one deals with the expertise of a candidate. As stated in the foregoing literature review, research directed at the topic of credibility concludes that there are at least two key criteria for the assessment of credibility: expertise and trustworthiness. Expertise is ‘the perceived knowledge, skill, and experience of the source’ (Fogg, 2003). When people find that sources have expertise, they are likely to judge that the information is trustworthy and thus, in the case of a recruiting process, an organization is more likely to accept a potential candidate to fill a vacancy. This is in line with the participants’ view on expertise of candidates.
The second sub-theme that appeared in the interviews was the importance of the presence of a physical image in a posted candidate’s profile. Although an attractive and friendly, though professional photo, does not have a direct relation to the credibility of the source, the participants did indicate that adding to your profile a decent picture or even better a video raises the chances of being hired. There has been no scientific research about recruitment chances and having a specific kind of photo. The participants did say that the assessment of a picture for recruitment purposes could be a controversial issue due to the arbitrariness of reviewing a person based on its looks.
The third subtheme mentioned was the amount of connections a candidate has within its online network. Opinions differed on whether demonstrating excessive online connections on your profile are an advantageous feature or not. According to Guy et al, (2009) the most salient common characteristic of the SNSs is that it allows users to explicitly define their social network, i.e. the list of people to whom they are connected (friends, colleagues, family members, etc). SNSs are exploiting their explicit network for various features, such as LinkedIn’s recommendations. Therefore, for SNSs it is highly important to encourage its users to connect to more people and reach a more comprehensive social network. For the participants in this study the main opinion was that having many connections means more credible information because these connections may verify the information displayed on the profile. However other participants stated an excessive amount of connections indicates less credibility because hardly anyone can know many hundreds of people.
The fourth sub-theme that materialized from this study is how a personal brand or profile relates to the persons participation in groups and associations. An active participation may show engagement in the areas that have a special value to a potential employer. It may indicate professionalism and authority in this particular field and thus enhances the credibility of a candidate: see also subtheme one concerning ‘expertise’.
The fifth subtheme is ‘thoroughness of a profile’. Providing correct details of e.g. dates, positions, career, achievements, etcetera indicate credibility. This sub-theme is pretty straightforward and relates to the assessment of detailed information on credibility, which shows that the more thorough and complete the information is, the higher the perceived credibility (Kaplan, 1971).
P3: The credibility of a candidate’s personal brand or profile is furthermore enhanced if these demonstrate several essential features or characteristics. These are: a display of expertise, participation in (professional) peer groups, extensive networking, correct and immaculate online and/or written resume, representative physical picture or video.
Medium credibility
As far as medium credibility is concerned returning themes in the interviews were: the nature and style of the SNS’s, their utilizations and the differences in information content between on the one hand online medium sources and on the other offline mediums.
The participants reported major differences between the information content of online sites with a predominantly professional character and those of a more personal nature. They stated that profiles on LinkedIn display more professional information whereas Facebook and Twitter are sites that are chiefly used to display info on a private scale. In recruitment these two SNS styles serve different purposes: see the discussion under 4.2.2, theme 1. The study shows that info derived from different SNS’s has a crucial influence on the recruitment process and hence this also has an impact on its credibility.
Because of its relatively newness there is almost no literature on the use of private information in screening processes. However, due to its sensitivity to base a HR decision on personal material found online it is a hot topic among the specialists interviewed and it is a crucial finding in this study. As far as this study is concerned, there were no guidelines found and it seems that it depends on the nature of the company and personal beliefs and values of the recruiter.
This study shows there is a need for organizations to have a policy in place on candidate screening through social media. Also, recruitment companies and HR departments should consider potential legal issues, especially those surrounding data protection and privacy. Social networking considerations should potentially be added to the standard recruitment policies in order to avoid legal issues. It might be advisable to set up best practice guidelines for the use of SNSs and align and integrate these within the organization’s existing recruitment processes. This would avoid differences in candidate experience when applying for a job, no matter how they submit their application, either via email, post, company website or social media.
P4: In recruitment, the screening of social networks with a different nature contributes to credibility. But considering the sensitivity of handling personal data displayed on some of these networks this should be done with great care.
The second theme that surfaced in the medium credibility category is the utilization of the medium. From the interviews one can conclude that the greater the amount of users of a particular network the higher the chance of finding credible information since a multitude of users may acknowledge or deny this information. This conclusion corresponds with the findings in existing literature where a general lack of gatekeeping on information on the Internet forces frequent users to engage in constant credibility verification (Stavrositu & Sundar, 2007). Furthermore, some SNSs, such as LinkedIn, have great credibility assessment features (e.g. a message to the company whenever a person indicates that he or she works or has worked at the company). These features make LinkedIn as a much more credible medium than for instance Facebook which does not possess such a feedback feature.
Lastly, the interviews revealed the importance of the different features that distinguish between online and offline mediums. . Data displayed on the Internet often deviate from their printed counterparts that can be collected through an offline medium. As pointed out in the literature review, media consumers – in this case recruiters – have learned to distinguish between the various sources of online information through the experiences of using them (Flanagin & Metzger 2000). By developing extensive experience in screening data of candidates they have become familiar with different information delivery styles of different mediums; they have developed levels of media literacy into the norms of media use. However, this study also indicates that the combination of all online and offline information available gives recruiters the best possible chance of screening a candidate on the credibility of information supplied. Whenever recruiters access potential candidate’s social networking sites, it should be clear in mind that the information may not be accurate. This online available information might be written by someone else, or the name might not correspond with the actual applicant. Therefore if employers decide to use the information on SNSs for screening purposes it is advisable to inform the candidates beforehand and to treat them in this respect uniformly.
In the procedure of recruitment, accruing data on social networks will never be able to entirely replace face-to-face contact. Thus, verifying data displayed on the Internet by asking face-to-face will continue to be a necessary instrument for the assessment of credibility. Combining the screening of SNSs with other, more traditional, forms of recruitment contributes to accessing the widest possible range of potential candidates. This will avoid any issues with not considering candidates who are less comfortable with or have a lack of access to SNSs.
P5: Recruiters should always seek to verify the information on a candidate’s SNSs through other means.
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6. Contributions
The impact of social networking sites on recruitment processes has been studied many times before. However, the credibility of the information a candidate has and how this impacts the screening process has never been studied before. The effects of credibility seem to be relevant. The practical and theoretical contributions are discussed below.
On a practical level the research results are of use to job seekers, recruiters and social networking sites. The research gives recommendations as to how the first group can improve their personal credibility, thereby improving their personal brand and thus have a higher chance of being considered for job opportunities. The second group, recruiters, will benefit from the research because the outcomes intend to give guidelines as to how one might assess credibility of online profiles. Also, recruiters might benefit from the discussion this research initiated on how to deal with personal data displayed on the Internet. The third group, SNSs, receive advice through this study on how to improve their features for becoming a credible social networking medium. With this knowledge it may expand its target group by adding tools in order to improve credibility assessments.
This research will contribute to the theoretical field of (online) credibility by applying the before-mentioned parameters of credibility to the screening process in job recruitment. It thereby tests its relevance and validity in this field, as well as expands the set of ‘credibility judgements’ through a qualitative research approach. On a theoretical level, this research intends to contribute to the field of online information credibility in general and draws some conclusions in relation to the discipline of marketing and more especially to the subject of personal branding. It contributes to the screening procedure of recruiters and shows the different criteria recruiters use to assess the hiring decision.
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7. Further research and Limitations
Despite the fascinating insights in source and medium credibility in regard to the screening process for recruiters, the results of this study should be interpreted with respect to its limitations. These limitations result in suggestions for further research.
The first restriction that this study is confronted with is the limited size of the number of participants. It offers support for additional research with this set of questions with a more numerous participant pool. Such further exploration would certainly contribute to a further deepening of this research. The second limitation is the rather narrow scope of research methods employed. Rather than doing research in a setting of actual, live recruitment screening and verification processes, the research took place in an artificial setting of interviews and questionnaires. The data thus accrued were so to speak ‘second hand’ while, due to the ethical sensitivity when it comes to screening candidates, the participants might not have been completely open about their operating methods and decision-making processes. Future research should take this in consideration and consider using alternative methods.
Thirdly, because the current study relies on participants of recruitment professionals with an academic background, the external generalization of the findings could be constrained. . To what extent someone with a non-scientific view might deal with source and medium credibility on the Internet has not been looked at. Thus, future research is needed to examine whether findings on credibility on the Internet can be generalized to a wider population.
Essay: Social networking and recruitment
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