Deepak D, a business head at an IT infrastructure solutions provider, began to feel the pinch as clients started tightening their purse strings at the height of the recession in 2009. He thought of shifting jobs. However, with declining business, job opportunities were few. It was at this point that Deepak was approached by a Bangalore-based Energy Consulting Firm through LinkedIn. He was not only offered a senior position but now leads a team with annual revenue targets of around Rs 250 crore.

“Unlike a consultant who would call me whenever I received leads from other job portals like Naukri or Monster, what surprised me the most was that the call I received was from the HR department,” recalls Deepak.

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Take the instance of Bangalore-based MphasiS, an HP-EDS company, which hired as many as 30-35 mid-management managers last year through sites like LinkedIn. “I believe social networking sites give you a channel that was not available earlier. They also give an access to people who are not actively looking for job but could be high-performers,” says Elango R, Head HR at MphasiS. The company has been actively using such platforms for hiring since last two years. MphasiS also has a page on Facebook called the ‘Great MphasiS Treasure Hunt’ for hiring freshers. In February this year 7,000 people walked in for interviews across cities like Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai and others. The page received a total of 20,000-25,000 hits.

According to a survey by Jobvite, social networks lead other recruiting channels for planned investment by employers as the economy recovers. About 46 per cent of respondents plan to spend more on social recruiting in 2010 than 2009. For instance, global consulting firm Accenture plans to hire around 40 per cent of its employees around the world from sites like LinkedIn.

The shift towards tapping social networking sites also emanates, as more and more people are getting to such sites to be connected with like-minded people and share the latest trends in their sector. Deepak D, for instance, joined LinkedIn in 2006. “Frankly, till then it was just one of the many email ids I had. But later I realised that whenever I went to conferences, industry people would insist on catching up on such sites. The same happened when a senior manager left the organisation,” he says.

Accenture India Human Resources Head Prithvi Shergill believes social media is fast emerging as one of the most efficient and engaging ways of personal or community interactions. “I also see tremendous value in leveraging this media just because of its tremendous potential to multiply connections, create viral networks, reach talent faster, and at the same time serve as a great platform to communicate our value proposition as an employer quite effectively,” he adds.

Accenture India started to leverage social networking as a talent sourcing channel in 2007 to reach out to certain niche management consulting and technology leaders. “Since then, portals such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook have proved to be extremely valuable to us to reach out to passive job seekers with niche skills and senior people. Today, we use these sites as a platform to disseminate information to active and passive job seekers,” adds Shergill.

Wipro, too, has been using professional networking sites for recruitment for more than a year now. With an employee base of 100,000, the percentage hired from social networking sites is still not significant. However, Wipro believes that the channel will yield a good percentage of hiring in the coming years.

Pradeep Bahirwani, vice-president (talent acquisition), Wipro Technologies, says: “Social networking platforms have become a potent tool for people interested in networking, associations, career growth and co-sharing and learning. At Wipro, we find relevancy in these various social networks, primarily Linkedin. Also these interfaces have become a place where we can engage our prospective employee base.”

Jessie Paul, chief executive office at PaulWriter (earlier the chief marketing office at Wipro Technologies) feels that professional networking sites are the best places for like-minded people to meet and hence become a database for potential employers. For instance, CMO round table started by Paul has 266 members from the marketing profession with 10 years and above experience. “This not to scout for job its just about networking and discussing,” she adds. “I think people have a better chance of getting selected if they go through references or have referrals. Because the moment you reveal that you have come from a Monster or a Naukri site, it shows you are in need for a job and your value goes down,” says Paul.

Firms also say it is not just about hiring but creating a community for themselves in the fast changing internet world. “We use the forums to point aspiring candidates to open positions (globally) and share information in the form of videos, photos and blog-post relevant to the open positions. Our efforts on professional social networks are more to do with building an integrated community with prospective talent and serving as a sounding board for questions about our company culture,” says a Google spokesperson.

While the company did not give a break-up about their different hiring sources, job listings on corporate sites, internal employee referrals and campus are primary methods of hiring at Google.

Even HR consultancies are realising the need to tap these sites. “There are many people who are passive job seekers. Social media allows us to get in touch with such people and it is on us to convince them about a shift. In our case, we have seen 72-80 per cent of passive job seekers becoming active or approaching us. We have also seen that when we take a profile of a candidate, firms ask if this person is on certain platforms or not and they want to see what kind of person they are dealing with,” says Manmohan R, chief executive officer, SaiCoreS, an HR staffing firm. In the last three years, almost 28 per cent of the total placement the company has done has been through social media recruitment.

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