Should Employers Consider Social Network Influence in Candidates
Assisting a client with some recruitment recently got me to thinking; should employers and recruiters consider candidates’ social network reach? Perhaps there are some questions around this that need to be asked during the recruitment processes – taken on a case by case basis of course. It’s easy enough to find out how many Twitter followers and LinkedIn contacts a candidate has, smart tools such as Klout could be used to asses a candidates online influence.
Of course, I’m not suggesting that employees should be mrequired to leverage their followers to help market their employers’ business. But perhaps, if a company has excellent culture, and their employees are passionate about the product/service being delivered, then their online influence might be a consideration.
What do you think?
Business networks have for a long been a valuable attribute that candidates bring to a new employer – and social networks now present a potentially easier avenue for candidates to broaden their sphere of influence and present a heightened employment proposition.
That said, the old rule of quality over quantity holds true, with quality defined as the relevance to the prospective employer. Additionally, candidates must be comfortable tapping into and leveraging this network for it to be of value.