Employer Attractiveness through Social Media

Discussion

The findings of the current study provide valuable insights into how the social media involvements by the employing organizations are being perceived by the young and potential job seekers. From all the emerged themes in the study, it is evident that organizations which make use of social media and invest time and resources for taking advantage of the available mediums are perceived positively by the job seekers. According to the young job seekers, going online through social media and reaching a larger mass of potential applicants can help the organizations in forming a virtual image of a favorable employer. Also, these social media platforms are perceived to be extensively used by the organizations for recruitment and screening purposes. However, in order to take the maximum advantage of social media for attracting potential applicants, it is necessary for the HR managers to make sure that what they promise and propose as an employer is valid and long-lasting. Nevertheless, employers should also take a note of applicants' negative reactions on social media usage for screening and selecting the job applicants. Moreover, such steps also violate the privacy norms associated with these websites and further leads to damaging the image of an employer. Consequently, the employers are required to ensure transparency and promote fairness in the screening and selection process. Therefore, findings of the present study posit to assist the HR managers in formulating recruitment and selection strategies with respect to social media and cater to the pre-employment information needs of the potential applicants in an effective manner; so as to create a virtual image of an attractive employer in the competitive job market.

Limitations and Direction for Future Research

Sample of the present study includes final year job seeking students only, and does not capture the perception of other potential candidates. In the future research, it would be interesting to see how the employed and unemployed job seekers perceive about the role of social media in recruitment and selection process. The study can also be taken forward by collecting data from the HR managers of different organizations, who make use of social media as a tool for recruiting and screening the desired candidates. Such study will provide a clear understanding of the opportunities and threats of using social media as a part of recruitment and selection process by the organizations. Furthermore, quantitative studies can be conducted to understand the influence of perceived privacy risk and fairness perception on employer attractiveness in the social media recruitment and selection realm. Future studies can also take up a scale construction exercise to measure the attitude and perception of job seekers towards different social media usage by the employers. Additionally, employer attractiveness is not restricted to attracting the potential employees only, retaining the existing pool of talented employees is equally important for every organization. Resultantly, another direction for future research could be investigating the effectiveness of social media as a tool for workplace learning in talent management context.