Do More Friends on Facebook Improve Job Prospects? (Poll)
Here’s one to consider: Does having more friends on Facebook or contacts on LinkedIn make for a more valuable employee?
The founder of legal outsourcer Total Attorneys, Ed Scanlan, tells Business Week that it makes sense to hire people with big online social networks.
In addition to more recruits and fresh ideas, the socially connected who hook up with Total Attorneys through such referrals fit in better and stay longer.
Business Week notes that Total Attorneys employs 227 people and many of them are under 30 and have more than 1,000 friends on Facebook.
“Now look at the collective pool of talented people,” Scanlan says, noting that these staffers have tens of thousands of friends (including a good number that they know and trust).
In a New York Times piece last month, Scanlan put it this way, “Friends of our employees are more likely to have the same characteristics our employees do—hardworking, smart—so they’ve gone through a natural filter.”
Scanlan’s embrace of social media recruiting led him to urge employees to use the online recruiting platform Jobvite. And, putting his money where his mouth it, he’s offered a $2,000 referral fee for those who bring in new recruits that way.
