BUS301: Human Resource Management

Researchers' Background

We would like to present our background so as to enable the readers to build a perspective for making inferences about our findings. The first author of this paper is a doctoral scholar in the area of Human Resource Management in a business school in South India, where she is actively conducting research work in the areas of e-recruitment and job search from last 4 years. The second author of this paper is an associate professor and was formerly working with the same business school in the Department of Human Resource. He has successfully guided PhD students in the areas of e-recruitment sources and employer branding. The third author of this paper is a doctoral scholar in Department of Finance and has been trained in conducting focus group interviews. All the authors have previously published articles using qualitative research methods.

Participant Selection

Purposive opportunistic sampling was used with an objective to find the appropriate sample to address the research question of the present study. Smith and Osborn (2007) have also recommended purposive sampling for IPA studies so as to find a more closely defined group of participants for whom the research question will be significant. The target samples, therefore, were the final year job seeking students from some of the renowned educational institutions located across two major cities in India namely; New Delhi and Hyderabad. Selection of the cities was based on the ease of accessibility to a large student population, representing different parts of the country.

Data Collection

After seeking permission from the institutional review board, comprised of senior faculty members at our university, and deans of the other educational institutes identified for data collection, first and third authors conducted a total of 4 focus group interviews consisting of 8 students in each group. Out of the total number of participants, 13 were females and 19 were males. Focus groups are identified as the 2nd most extensively used method of data collection in IPA studies, after semi-structured interviews. Selection of participants was based on a two-fold exercise. We first asked all the final year students across different disciplines about their average social media usage per day and whoever found to be spending more than two hours a day were then asked about their usage of social media for the purpose of job search. Finally, we approached the respondents who reported to be spending at least 30 minutes a day on social media for job hunting and requested them to participate in the focus group interviews. We briefed the participants about the purpose of this study and assured them about the confidentiality of their responses. All the focus group interviews were subject to be audio-recorded for the purpose of further analysis and we obtained participants' consent for the same. The time duration for each focus group was approximately 40 minutes. As theoretical saturation was evidenced after 4th focus group, the data collection exercise was called off. The demographic details of the focus groups are presented in Table 1. 

Table-1: Focus Group Demographics

Data Analysis

We used Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) to explore the perception of selected participants regarding recruitment and selection through social media and how they perceive about the employers making use of different social media tools for the same. IPA involves detailed examination of the participant's personal perception regarding an event or an object. Accordingly, IPA is a suitable approach when one is trying to find out how individuals are perceiving the particular situations they are facing and how they are making sense of their personal and social world. Research questions in IPA projects are usually framed broadly and openly and the aim of the study is to say something in detail about the perceptions and experiences of the participants under study. The analysis of present study was based on the guidelines by Smith and Osborn. First and second authors transcribed each focus group interviews and generated significant statements from the same. We removed similar statements after extracting all significant statements from the four transcriptions. Subsequently, we derived meanings out of the significant statements by reading the transcription again and again. These were further organized into clusters of themes which emerged from the participants' discussions and were common to all the focus groups. The step- wise task description of data analysis is presented in Table 2. 

Table-2: Step-Wise Detail of Data Analysis