Social networking platforms – A new era for job seekers

Social networking platforms have grown to become the most popular websites on the Internet,and are the most widely used tool for job seeking nowadays. In this study the researchersinvestigate the job seekers perspective on what they perceive as the benefits of using socialnetworking platforms when used as a job seeking method. The benefits are how socialnetworking platforms are superior to traditional job seeking methods. The researchers refer totraditional job seeking methods as methods used before the popularization of social media,such as handing in paper resumes to employers and also the Internet before social media.Although the major focus is on the Internet which can nowadays be seen as the newtraditional method, before people started using social networking sites. This study thereforefocus on the transition from the Internet into Web 2.0 with social networking platforms andhow the labor market and job seeking methods has changed with this new informationtechnology. This study is a qualitative research study that is based on a hermeneuticperspective, an inductive approach and a cross-sectional research design. To be able to findanswers for this study’s purpose and research question, a utilization of in-depth semistructuredinterviews on five respondents have been conducted. What was found in the studywas that job seekers indeed perceive that there are benefits to using social networkingplatforms for job seeking, over traditional methods. What was also found was that the jobseeking process has not changed that much, although it has become more effective by beingavailable online and on social networking platforms. The perceived benefits that wereconcluded based on the analysis and discussion of the theoretical and empirical data were:globalization, more effective, easier networking, increased personal visibility and the accessto social networking platforms niched for specific professions