Summer Internship Program

Title
Role of Social Media in Recruitment and Selection at Adler Talent Solutions
Pvt. Ltd.

Submitted to:
Faculty of Management
In partial fulfillment of the requirement of the award for the degree of
Master of Business Administration
GLS University

Under the guidance of

Submitted by:
Ruchi Kashyap [201800620012886]

MBA Semester III

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Introduction :
Social media recruitment is the buzzword in recruitment circles. It essentially refers to using social media
channels to hire employees instead of more conventional ones. Advantages typically include a wider and
a more organic reach, direct contact with prospective candidates and lower costs.

So as a prospective job seeker, Social Media Recruitment is potentially beneficial to you. It allows you to
get in touch with organizations directly and let’s you find out about opportunities through your
connections if you leverage it properly – as many have. However at the end of the day – as long as you
eventually get the job you want, it doesn’t really matter how you got it – does it?
But the use of Social Media in Recruitment is a different ball game altogether. And this is one which
today does impact probably almost all job seekers and candidates. The difference in terminology may be
slight but it is one which permeates all levels and sources of hiring. More importantly, it is probably
something you as a job seeker can control. So what does the use of social media in recruitment broadly
encompass? It involves organizations – and that includes recruiters, managers and leaders – using social
media channels to:
 Understand better the candidates whom they will be interviewing, meeting and hiring.
 Attempt to validate various hypotheses formed during interviews and the hiring process.
 Do surreptitious background checks in a more convenient manner.

Background checks have been used by organizations as a pre-recruitment screening technique since ages.
Social Media has just made this much easier. While the nature may have changed from whispers in the ld
Boys’ Club to more formal consultants who’re paid to verify objective details of background – these
background checks have probably always existed in some form. A lot of jobs and educational
opportunities require you to formally share references whom they can call up and speak to – and these are
about as unbiased as a mother would be while talking up her kid. Most recruiters and managers ‘use their
networks’ i.e. call up people whom they know who would have worked previously with a prospective
candidate – and see absolutely nothing wrong in it. Also there is an inherent subjectivity in this exercise,
depending on whom you speak to the feedback you receive may be starkly different.

If you were hiring someone and had an alternative between picking someone who’d worked with
a friend and was strongly recommended, versus picking someone completely unknown – most of
us would side with the known one, which is pretty similar to this.
The only difference now is, that the modern recruiter doesn’t even need to speak to anyone and
can avoid any biases. A simple Google search can give you the information you need and let you
form your own opinions.

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Literature Review :
(Harris N. A., 2013) For an organization to attain advantage in market, it needs to retain and engage
human resource by meliorating access to the best human resource. In other words we can also say
that by engaging human resource informally, organizations grab the attention of interested groups
and individual to stay connected with the organization for opportunities and news, this strategy of
organization is carried out in contemporary world with the help of institutional advertising through
social media and networking sites. Organizational requirement to hire human resource and its
sources are variables of deep interest to accomplish the requisite of human resource for competitive
advantage. In the era of globalization, robust competition and paradigm shift in human resource
management strategies, companies have to adopt new strategies to evolve and develop constantly. In
this situation existing recruitment methods and techniques have been replaced by new methods and
sources including Job boards, Social media sites and the internet.

(Holm, 2014) The acquisition of human resource is an extensive process, it include identifying the
candidate (human capital) , communicating check candidates profile and screening by comparing
possessed skills to organizational need. Organizational strategies to hire human resource are of
paramount interest, a current technique to hire this human resource leads to use of different tools Social
media happens to be one of the sources which facilitated the need of organization to establish a
relationship with individual, groups and institutions. Organization has been implementing advertising
tactics include institutional awareness and job advertising with the help of websites, newspapers and
other media (Rachel W. Y. Yee, 2010). With the emergence of social sites a new media source is
adopted by the organizations to advertise job vacancies. Furthermore not only the social media sites
helps in advertising job positions but also find the needs and demands of prospective skills in various
industries by providing information about the history, culture and products of the companies
(Kumar,2008).

Recruitment-2022 a report on the effect of social media and recruitment prepared by Recruitment &
Employment Confederation in 2013, tell us about the future recruitment challenges and changing
processes of recruitment. The massage in this report assist us in understanding future demands of
human resource and argue that “ the talent will be selected on the proof that they will deliver the
required task, and automatic personality profiling by a screening and verification process”.
Furthermore the report also gives information about the sensitive of information on social media and
time invested by candidate to search a relevant job to his/her expertise will be a valuable fuel for
timely, accurate and transparent communication between job seekers and employers (REC, 2013).
Social media is paramount source of attracting masses around the world to make a personal profile to
connect with different people and groups. A survey done by Insight Series found that almost 74% of
professionals around the world are maintaining Facebook profile. Twitter and Instagram has also
played a huge role in controlling huge market share in social networking ranks. LinkedIn also has a
vast number of members including 85% of jobseekers taking part in searching for opportunities. On
the other hand 69% of professionals also have Social network feeds on LinkedIn. Survey also finds
that 9 out of 10 LinkedIn members are happy to communicate with employers and friends for jobs
and 80% of total members apply for relevant positions. The report suggest that only posting a job
advertisement is not enough on social media but employers must be able to provide information
about job descriptions, history of organization, culture, financial and non-financial rewards and
future plans (WALTERS, 2014).

Researchers have also questions about the credibility of information and legal issues related to social
media. The profiles on social media are typically made for social purposes there for the information
available on the social media could be unrelated to work performance. The attitude of candidate may

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become negative and might perceive as an invasion of privacy (Gibbs, 2015). Organization has mitigating
the privacy issue by creating their own job portal by creating relationships to their human resource
information system. Social media has been providing assistance in the form of hiring successful
employees and increasing brand awareness with providing effective channel of communication.
Melanthious et al. (2015) consider recruitment through social media to be a positive thing. That social
networking sites help companies to locate and attract aplicants while it enables them to run background
checks. However, they believe that many companies avoid the use of social media and that companies fail
to take advantage of the opportunities that social media offers to recruitment.
Compton et al. (2009) and Torrington et al. (2004) on the other hand say that companies are already
using social media effectively and that social media brings an advantage for companies in recruitment.
Recruiters can easily access both national and international applicants.
Plummer et al. (2009) think that social media recruitment is not just a positive thing for companies, but it
could also be helpful for jobseekers. It helps the recruitment process of the jobseeker by making it more
responsive or because jobseekers can access influential referees as well as information that may prepare
them better for the job screening process.
Others like Kilpatrick (2013) don’t think social media is effective in recruitment at all. Because none of
its tools and systems help recruiters develop their judgement or improve their assessment. Nor do they
offer ways to manage greater numbers of relationships with clients and candidates.
And some like Reiners & Alexander (2013) think that real success through social media in recruitment
can only be achieved when parties in all countries know and understand social rules that influence both
the content, style and use of their posted profiles.

Objective of Study :
The main objectives of conducting this research are as follows;

Primary Objective:
 To study Role of Social Media in Recruitment and Selection at Adler Talent Solution Pvt
Ltd.
 What are the advantages and disadvantages of e-recruitment and what are important criteria of for
recruitment via Social Networking Sites?
 Which Social Networking Sites are available and what are their particular qualities?
 Which qualities of Social Networking Sites lead to effective recruitment?

Secondary Objective:
 To study the factors considered by recruiters while recruitment.
 To determine various social platforms available for recruitment.
 To determine why social media is very important mean for recruitment than conventional
options present.

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Scope of the Study :
The fact that Social Networking Sites entered the business landscape, and in particular the recruitment
landscape leads to a demand for knowledge about recruitment trends regarding Social Networking Sites.
With this study the phenomena of Social Networking Sites in recruitment was explored. Knowledge was
acquired by making use of a survey, conducted in German companies. The following research question is
answered within this thesis: To what extent does the use of Social Networking Sites lead to effective
recruitment?

Need of Study :
This study helps in finding out the problem areas. Social media truly a pratical way of screening
and selecting new employees? Using social media might prove to be a potentially promising
source of applicants information, but it is also filled with potential risks, legal as well as ethical.
The latter is also the reason why there are conflicting views about using social media in
recruitment among employers and employees as well as legal systems.
Its also highlights the area they need to focus on Live Recruitment. It is one of the best options
that social media platforms give recruiters is the ability to live recruit new employees from
anywhere in the world by using social media to interview them live over the internet.

Research Design:
A quantative type of research was chosen. It was conducted by making use of a survey among Human
Resources (HR) departments of Adler Talent Solution Pvt. Ltd. To determine the perceptions and
experiences of the HR departments, a questionnaire based on the constructs that were derived from the
literature review was developed. Conducting a survey is a very successful approach for exploring the
perceptions of HR departments about Social Networking Sites in recruitment.

Sampling plan:
 Population- various recruiters and job seekers on different social platforms like facebook,
Linked-in etc.
 Sampling Unit – Divided between what recruiters want from social media and what job
seekers are looking from recruiters there.
 Sample size- The total sample size of the project is 50.
 Sampling method : Stratified Sampling.
 Sampling Frame - Adler Talent Solution Pvt. Ltd, Prahladnagar, Ahmedabad.

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Data Collection Sources :

 Primary Data is customized data that is made to fit the recruitors needs. Analysis of
individual perception can be done by this primary data analysis.

 Secondary data is based on information collected from the past studies performed by
agencies, various recruiters.

In this project we have undertaken a survey carried out through questionnaire with sample size of
around 50 individuals who are going thorough the process or are willing to

Limitations :
As the role of Social Networking Sites in recruitment is a relatively new topic for HR
departments, it is difficult to compare new findings with old ones. With the current study first
results were detected which explain to what extent the use of Social Networking Sites leads to
effective recruitment. It can be seen as an exploratory study, because there is a lack of studies
about Social Networking Sites and recruitment at the moment. As a consequence, further
research is recommended in order to see the long-term effect. A longitudinal research is
necessary to observe the possible changes over time.

Conclusions :
A combination of the theoretical background and the findings of the survey lead to the
conclusion that Social Networking Sites are an important and upcoming topic in HR
departments. Especially, the networking scope of the Social Networking Sites is the most
predicting factor for effective recruitment, in particular for the target group orientation.
Interestingly, recruitment costs are not affected by the qualities of Social Networking Sites. It
can be assumed that HR departments cannot observe a cost reduction caused by the usage of
Social Networking Sites because of the fact that they have recently started using them for
recruitment. A cost reduction might be experienced on the long-term. In conclusion, HR
departments enter a new terrain and gain their first experiences with Social Networking Sites in
combination with recruitment. The outcomes indicate a trend to use the sites for recruitment and
it became obvious this issue will gain importance in the future.