You Manage It! 1: Technology/Social Media Hiring Who You Know as a Threat to Diversity
While recommending a friend for a job has always been a natural way of recruiting employees, it might present a major barrier to diversity because employees tend to recommend people like themselves. The social media may compound this problem as more and more companies rely on social media as a source of internal referrals and thus save time and money in their recruitment efforts. For example, both Ernst & Young and Deloitte now hire about half of their employees from these internal referral sources, combing employee networks such as LinkedIn and Facebook to identify potential candidates. These social sites allow companies to trace connections between job candidates and their employees, facilitating the generation of internal referrals and thus avoiding the use of cumbersome job-search sites such as Monster.Com. In fact, prospective candidates using those open-ended job search sites now suffer from negative stereotypes. Some corporate recruiters refer to applicants from Internet job sites as “Homers,” referring to the lazy, doughnut-eating character Homer Simpson, and they refer to Monster.Com as “Monster.Ugly.” Social sites such as LinkedIn do not carry a stigma for potential applicants because the company can trace the connection between a potential job candidate and current employees, and this removes much of the information uncertainty surrounding other potential candidates who are not part of the network.
Critical Thinking Questions
-
4-12. Do you really think that social sites may inadvertently reinforce “segmented communication channels” as discussed in this chapter? Explain.
-
4-13. If you were an HR executive in a company that relies on internal referrals using the social media, what steps would you take to prevent this practice from engendering a more homogeneous workforce and thus blocking the firm from meeting its diversity objectives? Explain.
-
4-14. Some companies now use incentives for current employees when new hires are socially linked to them and thus their social sites served as a source of internal referrals. What are the pros and cons of this practice? Explain.
Team Exercise
-
4-15. The director of HR has appointed you to a committee responsible for investigating allegations that reliance on internal referrals through social sites undermines the diversity efforts of the firm. The class is divided into groups of five students, each of which is asked to develop a set of procedures to investigate such allegations.
Experiential Exercise: Team
-
4-16. In a role-playing exercise, one of the students is asked to take the position in favor of heavy reliance on internal referrals, in particular by combing social sites. Another student is asked to defend the opposite view, arguing that such a practice eliminates equal opportunity for employees outside the network who are more likely to utilize job sites such as [no longer online] Monster.com. Students will debate in small groups for approximately 15 minutes, to be followed by a class discussion of the issues raised to be mediated by the instructor.
Experiential Exercise: Individual
-
4-17. Research social sites that may be used for internal referrals and those job sites that are open to any potential candidate. Based on this research, do you think that the social sites may promote more segregated employee networks, reducing the firm’s access to a more diverse set of candidates? Explain.