Abstract
Social networking is an interconnected system through which alliances are formed, help is obtained, information is transmitted, and actions taken to achieve certain results. Although these days online networking seems to be quite popular, it has not proven yet the impact on its users. As an alternative to an attempt to use networking as a method for job hunting, career building, or even headhunting, this research leads to the recommendation that people make use of offline social networks instead. If businesses need to extend their possibilities in terms of possessing many more well-sorted candidates for their companies and should have a clear understanding on how to use offline social networking more effectively and probably efficiently.
This is an independent research to serve readers who are attempting to use networking as a tool for their own personal career development. This research shall review the rising use of social networking by people who are looking for jobs and for companies that are in need of talented and potential employees. In this particular research, I used the qualitative approach with the combination methods to describe the materials used in this research, explain how the information were gathered, analyzed and used for the purpose of explanation and prediction.
Introduction
With the experience gained during the time I participated as an intern in the department of Human Resources at BMW of San Francisco, I realized there is a tremendous need for jobs but there have been so many limits in ways to get a job for oneself. The commonly used approach to get job is from recruiter. The chances of getting a job interview seem to be out of control of a job searcher. A good resume can only presents itself in a vivid way only when it comes along and does not get stuck in whole bunch of other resumes sent through emails. An outstanding one, however, always appears appealing when being presented visually and lively by the applicant. I found myself passionate to learn to know how we should get a job in hand just through offline social networking channels. From the phase of assorting events/ meet ups to attend to the phase of getting a real interview or even a satisfying job offer right away, what steps should be taken into consideration? Besides, offline social networking is also a great way to get your company names and products to access potential buyers/investors. It could be used as a tool to advertise your company at a considerable low cost.
Having my idea of conducting a scientific research exposed to Executive Path, a non-profit academic and scientific organization in San Francisco. In this research, the key purpose is to hold as many meet ups around the city as possible and from there follow up the jobs opportunities offered and achieved in order to observe the efficiency of this job approaching method and at the same time note down if there is any step which should have been done in a different and better way.
Methodology
Phase 1: Collect opinions/ rating from randomly chosen people, those are looking for jobs in San Francisco to get raw data for compilation to get to discussion and conclusion. This will be carried out by the method of face-to-face and email surveying.
The questionnaire form is used for survey is a combination of 10 rating question on scale from 1 to 4 as the equivalent to the degrees of agreement to each statement on the questionnaire. Information collected is gathered and converted into the form of data and reflects on the chart.
Phase 2: Follow up with participants in each event ( companies and candidates) with a table of 5 questions to see how they evaluate themselves when making pitch/presenting resumes during the conversations with potential candidates/companies. Review the result from each event to get the rate of successful job recruitment after each event.
Phase 3: Obtain data and analyze the information
Results and discussion:
- The impact of social meet-ups on job seekers in San Francisco
There were 50 persons were asked regarding their opinion about the job opportunities on the internet and the effectiveness of using social networking as a tool to get in the business they want.
Statement 2: You found your job on a website
Statement 3: You found your job through social meet-ups
As shown on the chart, there is an significant correlation between jobs found online and offline. There are approximately 27 persons strongly agreeing that the jobs were found through social meet-ups event. While the numbers of jobs found through networking vary from study to study, one report from ABC News also shows that up to 80% of jobs are found through networking. Statistically proven, people understand quite thoroughly that personal networking couple with online networking with yield better results than spending the majority of their time on some common job websites such as Monster.com, Indeed.com. CareerBuilder.com and other job boards.
2. Demand for social Meet-up Events:
The chart below reflects the results collected and consolidated by asking people about their frequency of attendance in social meet-ups and how much important the convenience of a meet-up location would be.
Statement 7: You spend most of your spare time for social meetups during the weekends
Statement 8: For a meetup, convenient location is what concerns you the most
The chart explains how frequently people attend social meet-ups in their spare time. More than 60% of the people asked agree that they spend most of their spare time attending social meet-ups. This helps guarantee a moderate percentage of people attending if the meet up is held and prepared carefully.
When it comes to location and time, more than half of people interviewed reveal that they attend meet-ups during the weekends and a convenient location is one of their most concerns. Downtown San Francisco is an interconnected city in the Bay Area. It therefore has proven to be an ideal place for social events, business conferences and seminars.
(This research is currently in progress)
Independent Researcher: Nhung Tuyet
San Francisco, May 2016