The Awareness Toward Social Network

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Contents 1

1.Introduction: 2

1.Rationale: 2

1.The Purpose of the research: 3

2.The Objectives of the research: 3

3.LITERATURE REVIEW: 3

3.1.Definition of social network: 3

3.2.Definition of social network recruiting: 3

3.3.Social network tools: 4

3.3.1.LinkedIn: 4

3.3.2.Facebook: 4

3.3.3.Twitter: 5

3.3.4.YouTube: 5

3.4.Social network facts: 5

4.Benefits of social media in recruiting: 6

5.Who will benefit from the research? 7

5.1.Recruit a passive candidate 7

6.Why investigating it? 8

6.1.Social Network helps reduce unemployment: 8

7.Research Methodology: 8

7.1.Research Strategy: 8

7.1.1.Data analysis: 9

7.1.2.Validity and reliability of the research: 9

7.2.Sampling Strategy: 9

8.Research access: 9

9.Gantt Chart: 10

10.Conclusion: 11

11.References: 12

Research Proposal title:

The awareness toward social network as a recruitment tool in Morocco

Introduction:

The internet means to connect a computer with any other one anywhere in the world, this connection open a way for sharing texts, videos, pictures and computer programs. According to internet world states, on 31/11/2011, an estimation of 2,267,233,742 Internet users globally, which is almost 33% of the world population.

The internet is opening new ways of communication, coordination and collaboration between consumers, businesses and partners.

Using the internet as a method to recruit and select people is having a significant increase and growth, various research evidences show that using the internet for recruitment helps to save cost, time and increases candidate reach, there are many tools used in recruitment and one of them is social network.

The primary service offered by social network websites is to connect and share ideas, photos and even videos with families and friends. However, the use of the individuals allowed companies to use social network website effectively for other purposes such as advertising, recruiting, selling and so on.

Companies would not hesitate to pay lots of money to market their products using social networking websites and let users recognize their products and services.

Rationale:

The social network websites big growth has been noticed in these last years, they have changed the use of the internet entirely. Marketing has revolutionised because of the Social networking sites as it gives high value to the word of mouth promotion, these sites allows a content to be shared immediately around the globe with millions of people.

The Purpose of the research:

The Purpose of the research is to explore how well Moroccans use Social network sites for recruitment purpose.

The Objectives of the research:

The study is going to be focusing on answering these two questions:

- How often do recruiters in Morocco use social networking as a recruitment tool?

- To what extent are students in Morocco aware of the existence of social network recruitment?

LITERATURE REVIEW:

Definition of social network:

Social networks are online websites, this online websites represent a virtual community, and everybody can register to one of this websites to be a part of a virtual community, users can share information which everyone in their community receive it.

Social networks are internet based websites which allow users to be a part of a virtual community, these websites are used to make connections with family, friends, classmates, customers and clients, social network can be used for social and business purposes or even both.

Facebook and LinkedIn are examples of social network websites, twitter can also be considered as a social network tool because of the development of mobile phones technology, users can let their friends know what they are doing or thinking about at any moment they choose.

Definition of social network recruiting:

Social network is new. Businesses can use it as an opportunity to connect with candidates, this kind of connection totally differs from any previous ones. It opens a big gate in selecting better candidates faster. Every business from giants to locals is exploring social network initiatives. Social network recruiting is rapidly spreading around the world which means that it’s here to stay when there was no certainty about it before.

Social recruiting means engaging with users and using social network sites as tools to source and recruit talents, in other words, the use of Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and other social networks from companies and recruiters to source and hire candidates for employment.

Social network tools:

LinkedIn:

LinkedIn is a business social network website with full of experienced professionals around the world, users can find professionals to work with, to collaborate with them to accomplish their goals, or maybe to seek for a suitable job. In other words LinkedIn is a social network site for business industry professionals looking to make new business contacts or keep in touch with previous ones such as co-workers, affiliates, and clients.

According to 100 social media statistics (2011), LinkedIn has 70 million users worldwide with one user joining every 1 second. However, 95% of companies using social network as a recruiting tool are using LinkedIn.

Facebook:

Facebook is number one social network website on the net; Facebook allows users to create profiles, share pictures and videos and chat with friends, family and colleagues, Facebook has some features such as Marketplace, groups, events and pages.

Marketplace: is a feature used to allow users advertise their products and services, in addition allow other users to read and respond to this ads.

Groups: is a feature that allows members with a common interest to interact with each other as well as sharing their experiences using words, pictures and videos.

Events: is a feature for publicizing and organizing events and inviting guests.

Pages: are somehow like groups but it is more public and it is used to promote website pages, products or services or famous figures such as artists and singers and keep in touch with them and there news.

According to 100 social media statistics (2011), Users connecting to Facebook everyday are at least 250 million, with more than 700 billion minutes spent and more than 25 billion contents such as pictures, videos and texts shared each month, While 5.3 fan of Facebook pages that have purpose.

Twitter:

Twitter is an online instant messaging system which lets users share texts to a list of users called followers, Twitter is a social network which is designed to keep friends and colleagues updated. In other meaning Twitter is social network website designed to let users share what in their mind to friends and colleagues.

According to 100 social media statistics (2011), tweets or messages that are generated every day exceeds 65 million tweets, and 65 companies of the top hundred worldwide have a twitter account.

YouTube:

YouTube is the largest sharing video website in the net, users can watch, share or upload videos with high definition resolution.

YouTube has a feature of connecting with other online social network websites such as Facebook and Google+, which would help companies advertise their products or even people could advertise themselves using YouTube.

According to 100 social media statistics (2011), YouTube has Two billion views every day, with more than 25 quadrillion bytes streamed each month. In every minute the uploaded videos on YouTube do worth 24 hours of contents, and almost two years-worth of content each hour is watched on Facebook.

Social network facts:

Social network has many facts such as:

Social media content engages Millions of businesses everyday

Employers are increasingly using Social network sites as a tool for screening job applicants

"45% of companies in 2009 used Social network websites as a screening tool for job applicants" Careerbuilder.com (2010)

Social media is now the number one online activity

Twitter: More than 106 million users

Facebook: More than 500 million users

65 million tweets per day

3 out of 4 employees use social media technology

Two out of three of the internet population visits social networks

Job seekers use social media an average of 5 hours a week

"If Facebook were a country it would be the 4th largest country in the world" Davis, T. (2012)

Benefits of social media in recruiting:

There are many benefits from social network recruiting:

Social network has a social benefits, it helps increasing the visibility of a job opening as there are millions of people using Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, which assures that lots of qualified candidates will see the offer.

By using social network for recruiting will help attract people who are considered to be early adopters because of their use of social network, these people are considered highly demanded in the job market at the moment because they normally are more technically savvy and innovative.

Social network will not only increase the brand awareness of a company, but also let employees recognize that the company is with the trends of social networking.

Targeting workers in a dynamic way will help positioning the company’s brand.

By posting a job offer in the company’s social network platform will help inspire employees to spread the word.

No doubt social network has economic benefits as it would help reduce the cost of recruiting; the traditional ways are usually more costly because of the advertising cost.

Social network is a time saving method when it comes to recruiting, as it’s easy to send information to large number of people with no time.

Social network is a good tool in recruiting passive candidates.

Who will benefit from the research?

There are two types of people that will benefit from the research which are:

Job seekers: Students, unemployed people, people who are seeking for better jobs. All of them will benefit from the research because they need to recognize the future of recruiting and how it is the easier tool in finding the most suitable job for them.

Candidate seekers: Human Resources professionals, employers, businesses. Will benefit from the research. With millions of active users on social network sites, there is no doubt of finding the suitable candidates, fortunately, with less time and reduced cost.

Recruit a passive candidate

Traditionally organizations have relied on recruitment agencies and newspapers to advertise on their job offers to find new candidates, the operation is indeed effective but it’s extremely expansive, in some situation this traditional way can act as a barrier for a long term and prevent the company from recruiting the key candidates. 16% of the majority of the total workforce apply through the traditional way, in fact, 99% of active job seekers are looking for a new job because of the work environment or for being fired. Unfortunately, traditional way of recruiting is not enough to reach these candidates, and some of these candidates would become passive because of emotion reasons.

Passive candidates are employees who are seeking for new career challenge, career advancement or career change, despite of the reasons, these employees are usually retaining their work positions because they are valuable assets to their employers.

Companies desire passive candidates and social network is the key to get to recruit them, millions of users are allowed to be found without the need to do active searches.

In order to reach passive candidates, the company needs to be visible in social network websites, so when a passive candidate decides to take a new challenge and starts seeking for one, the company would be easily located indirectly.

Why investigating it?

With the advanced technology nowadays, especially with mobile phones, social network is becoming a way of life, people could express what is on their minds whenever and wherever they want to their families and friends.

Businesses are using social networks to market their products, the days of newspapers are gone, almost every information is digital now.

Statistics says that 80% of the companies worldwide are using social network as a recruitment tool and 50% of HR professionals are using social network websites to candidate the talents they need.

Social Network helps reduce unemployment:

Using social network as a recruitment tool is beneficial for small businesses which find traditional recruiting expansive and costly; these businesses are responsible for creating the majority of new jobs. For Fortune companies, social network would help them find more and better candidates.

Research Methodology:

A survey as a questionnaire will be created to explore the research objectives. The survey will be emailed and hand-distributed to a random sample of students in some universities. Another survey will be emailed and hand-distributed to a random sample of recruiting agencies. The focus would be on LinkedIn more than the other tools because of its professionalism upon the recruiting side.

Research Strategy:

The study has two objectives to be explored and both of them are inductive and qualitative.

Surveys will be created to test the objectives by using questionnaires; each objective will has its own questionnaire. The sampling technique will be random with two categories, the first one will be recruiters in recruiting agencies and the second one will be students in universities.

Data analysis:

The data entry collected from the questionnaires will be analysed using a computer program called SPSS.

Validity and reliability of the research:

The researcher will ensure the validity and reliability of the research by:

Using multiple sources

Giving clear questions

Aware the respondents of the confidentiality afforded to their answers

Using a computer program to analyse data

Sampling Strategy:

The sampling technique which is going to be used named random sampling; the technique will be used to help exploring the two objectives.

The first objective is to explore the use of social network as a recruitment tool in recruiting agencies, the sample will be 10 random recruiting agencies in Morocco, and each agency will receive questionnaire either handed out or received by e-mail.

The second objective is to explore the student awareness of the recruiting method within the social network sites, the sample will be 50 random students in Morocco, and each student will receive questionnaire either handed out or received by e-mail.

Research access:

The access in the first object is open as there is big number of university students in Morocco. However, the access for the second objective might be limited because of the information weight they are willing to give.

Gantt Chart:

Below is the Gantt chart of the base plan the researcher is going to follow to finish the research on time.

Task

Assigned Person

Dec

Jan

Feb

Mar

Apr

May

Jun

Jul

Finalize the research proposal

The researcher

Approve the research project

The researcher

Data entry

The researcher

Data cleaning and analysing

The researcher

Data analysis and report writing

The researcher

Finalize report

The researcher

Discuss for recommendations and changes

The researcher and The university sponsor

Presentation and hand in

The researcher

Conclusion:

In the research proposal, social network is discussed as a recruitment tool, giving some statistics and some famous websites such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, these tools are the greatest ones in selecting the best candidates in organizations and companies, including other features benefiting businesses.

The purpose of the study is the study is to explore the Moroccan awareness toward social network recruitment. Two objectives of the research are mentioned, one is concerning the recruitment agencies in Morocco and the other is concerning the Moroccan students.

The strategy of the research is discussed to clarify the way the research is going to be conducted. In addition, a brief Gantt chart is made as a plan to be followed showing the steps till the research hand in.