The Impact of Social Media in the Recruitment Process: An Employers’ Perspective

This research aims at identifying the current patterns regarding the use of social media by human resources professionals and hiring managers in the recruitment process, as well as the risks and challenges involved in making use of this practice for the companies that choose to do so, and the future expectations regarding the continuity of this practice in recruitment efforts in the future. An extensive literature review research was conducted in order to build the knowledge base necessary to ser as a foundation to the elaboration, conduction, and findings analysis of a survey responded by thirty-six human resources professionals and hiring managers in three different regions of the globe United States, Ireland, and Brazil. The results of this research show a continually growing adherence to the practice of using social media in the recruitment process, with great importance being give, in special, to the use of professional social networking websites, such as LinkedIn. The research also found that the reasons for which companies choose not to make use of this practice are normally correlated to the challenges faced by companies which have chosen to do so, such as the legal risks and the moral hazard involved in obtaining information these professionals would not have access to otherwise, and that can positively or negatively influence in their decision making process