Ska Google eller Facebook verkligen få fälla det sista avgörandet? : En kvalitativ studie om hur rekryterare inom mediebranschen ser på arbetssökandes användning av sociala medier

In this thesis recruiter’s attitudes and usage of social media within the media business has been examined. The purpose was to find out whether a certain type of behavior in social media could or could not lead to a future employment. How much weight is put on the virtual identity and what does recruiters look for when the look someone up on the internet. Personal interviews with recruiters were done in six different media companies in Stockholm to find out how they used social media when searching and employing new employers. The result from the interviews was analyzed with theories about identity and the public sphere. Erving Goffman and Jürgen Habermas was used as a the literature framework and newer literature from Nancy K Baym, John B Thompson and Sherry Turkle were used as well. The result of the study showed that recruiters do not put a lot of weight on the digital identity of a candidate as long as the person was suitable for the position. Several of the respondents used social media to look up potential candidates to get another insight to who the candidate are after the personal interview. In most cases the recruiters were understanding towards a candidate’s digital behavior as long as it did not go against democratically values or went against the values and policies that the company stood for. Keywords: Social media, recruitment, media, identity, public sphereFörord