The FINANCIAL — Social media is becoming essential for recruiters in Georgia to announce job openings and find qualified candidates. Beside local social network MyCareer.ge HR professionals are actively using global networks like LinkedIn and Facebook.com. Online recruiting is helpful but sometimes harmful to job seekers, expert says.
Tea Rusitashvili, from HR department of Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development, MOESD told The FINANCIAL, Georgian legislation strictly defines the procedures of recruiting the candidates and it has President’s decree as well as MOESD about candidate info.
The conduct of recruitement takes the following form: announcement of vacancy – receipt of all necessary documents – defining relevant requirements for the candidate qualification – testing day – comission decison about the candidate – and the final – appointment.
“We announce the vanancies on many professional online networks such as Jobs.ge and others,” she says.
“According to the Georgian legislation there’s no exact article about collecting information from social networks, as we use the official documents presented by the candidate to the selection board. Although in case we come accross an interesting applicant we contact him/her but this’ll be notwithstanding the legislation of course” says Tea.
“Nevertheless, if applicant is regularly publishing/writing about problematic issues concerning the job type she/he has applied for, then of course it will be an asset during whole interview flow”, she adds.
“Most of the applicants don’t mention in their CVs what role/functions did they have on a previous job. In addition the selection comittee quite often notices about ad-lib interviews. Herein we strongly recommend all applicants to be motivated and come prepared for interviews,” says Tea Rusitashvili, from HR department of MOESD to The FINANCIAL.
As Mary Vashakidze, Head of Personnel Planning and Recruitment at Bank of Georgia told The FINANCIAL, they have already recruited dozens of candidates via LinkedIn which turned out to be successful for the bank.
Rusitashvili says that candidate information can be searched online via professional networks in case there is a need for a specific job.
As Anna Keshelashvili assistant professor at GIPA in mass communications says, online recruiting is very natural process, as internet/social networks via Google search engine/others has allowed recruiters generate most of the data stored online by regular internet users. And this is likely to become practice in the future as more and more people get connected through the internet.
Bank of Georgia which is actively head hunting via LinkedIn claims that they get additional information about candidates which they couldn’t be able to do so before selection processes.
“We are really thankful for those professional social networks. In the last couple of years applicants usually put some notes about their online social activities in CVs, such as having a blog and things like that. We do take it seriously. Especially when a certain job requires from the candidate to be an active online supporter or have strong writing skills thus to promote our bank, it’ll be an ace in the hole (at job interview)”, says Mary Vashakidze, Head of Personnel Planning and Recruitment at Bank of Georgia.
“We also put the vacancies on social networks, where possible candidates can review the job title and the specifics of it. We have recruited dozens of candidates with the help of LinkedIn already and hope to find them in the future too’.
“In Georgia, especially for the last period of time, there has been a tendency of improvement in CV/Resume writing skills, and also a progress in terms of interviewee behavior. But still we face challenges in the way candidates think about specifics of particular jobs. It’s very important for the candidates to realize what job he/she is applying for and clearly put what experience he has acquired. Herein an employer should be able to see what contribution/benefits they can bring for a company. The best resume is the one which has a crystal clear purpose and which is closest to the type/requirements of an announced vacancy,” says Vashakidze.
“As for the interviews part, which is also essential for selection process, I advice all of the applicants to get as much information about the company as possible due largely to the fact that employer is seeking for an employee who understands and bears in mind what company he is applying for and what is its mission. Hence prior preparation is needed for them.
In addition, not only we, as selection board at Bank of Georgia, should ask questions to the candidate but he/she is supposed to do the same by questioning us about the specifics of a job because an interview is the only opportunity for employer to get the answer whether why to choose this candidate and what he/she can bring best for the company,” Vashakidze said.
Anna Keshelashvili from GIPA asserts that it is all up to individuals – what they decide to keep in private and what they decide to reveal to the broader public.
“I think this is the most important point and threat that Internet users should be aware of, how do they keep their private information really private and do not publish without knowing what they are really doing,” says Ana.
‘Social networks can tell a lot, or nothing about a person and it all depends what is the position that HR is trying to fill in. For example, if a company is trying to hire a PR person, more social networks this person is found on – better. More active he/she is – even better, content/status updates are professional, interesting, generates comments – even better, also active on professional pages – great, but being fan of competing companies? Then HR needs to find out why. On the other hand, the position may require from a person to spend less time on social networks and be much quieter, then that's what the HR should be looking at. In other words, people use social networks for different purposes and again it's always good to be aware of social networks for job seekers, how and what networks they will be using, it depends on the company's needs and regulations on use of online services,” says Ana.
“If I were HR, I would read the reviews and add more to my impressions about a person. For instance Blog is published online, unless it's private, so it's open to the broader public and the writer should be aware that he or she is in charge of what's written on the blog. Who and how will use this information – is a different topic, it's more about what you write online is what stays there for very long time, so people should be aware of that,” Anna told to The FINANCIAL.
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