THE USE OF XING AND LINKEDIN FOR RECRUITMENT IN ENTERPRISES - Project 1 / FHNW Master of Science in Business Information Systems
←
→
Transkription von Seiteninhalten
Wenn Ihr Browser die Seite nicht korrekt rendert, bitte, lesen Sie den Inhalt der Seite unten
THE USE OF XING
AND LINKEDIN FOR
RECRUITMENT IN 22nd June 2012
ENTERPRISES Carlo Colicchio
Iso Demirkaya
Alex Hächler
Project 1 / FHNW
Master of Science in Business Information Systems
Introduction
Title: The Use of XING and LinkedIn for Recruitment in Enterprises
Authors: Carlo Colicchio
carlo.colicchio@students.fhnw.ch
Iso Demirkaya
iso.demirkaya@students.fhnw.ch
Alex Hächler
alex.haechler@students.fhnw.ch
Adviser: Prof. Martina Dalla Vecchia
FHNW Olten – School of Business
Riggenbachstrasse 16
4600 Olten
martina.dallavecchia@fhnw.ch
Study: Business Information Systems
Module: Project 1
Start date: February, 2012
End date: June, 2012
Place: Olten
Copyright: © 2012 by FHNW Olten – School of Business
Carlo Colicchio, Iso Demirkaya, Alex Hächler 2/72
Introduction Abstract XING and LinkedIn are nowadays well-known social business networks for business people. They are used by employers, recruiters, employees and job seekers. Social business networks help companies in marketing and recruiting activities. This research paper focuses on recruitment processes for enterprises that use XING and LinkedIn. The reader gets theoretical insights about social media, social networks and social media recruitment. The characteristics, functionalities, mobile apps and the price models of XING and LinkedIn are illustrated to set up a comparison. Recruitment processes compared with eRecruitment supported processes are a part of this research paper as well. The analysis based on interviews is executed through the research team with CEO’s, HR managers and recruiters. The topic is supported by trend report statistics about effectiveness and efficiency of recruiting channels. The experiences of the interviewees with social business networks are summarized to give recommendations for enterprises. A set of functionalities, memberships and services of XING and LinkedIn are compared in interest of giving enterprises a basis for their choice of tools. Finally the research paper makes recommendations for companies that intend to use one of these two social business networks. In summary, social business networks are only a part of the whole recruitment process and therefore cannot cover all activities efficiently in a recruitment process. The efficiency of social business networks can be increased under certain circumstances e.g. media-mix strategies, recruitment strategies or the combined use with an applicant tracking system. Furthermore the advanced search functionalities of XING and LinkedIn make it possible for companies to actively search for candidates and find them easier within a shorter time period. The hypothesis that XING and LinkedIn are more efficient than other recruiting channels can be qualitatively proved. Carlo Colicchio, Iso Demirkaya, Alex Hächler 3/72
Introduction Table of content 1 Introduction.............................................................................................................5 1.1 Hypothesis ............................................................................................................... 5 1.2 Research questions ................................................................................................. 5 1.3 Boundary ................................................................................................................. 7 1.4 Research methodology and techniques ................................................................... 8 2 Literature review ...................................................................................................11 2.1 Social media ...........................................................................................................11 2.2 Social network ........................................................................................................12 2.3 The use of social business networks in enterprises ................................................13 2.4 Users of social networks .........................................................................................14 2.5 Social media recruitment ........................................................................................15 3 XING.......................................................................................................................17 3.1 Characteristics / functionalities................................................................................17 3.1.1 Web platform ..........................................................................................................19 3.1.2 Mobile apps ............................................................................................................21 3.2 Price models and benefits.......................................................................................22 4 LinkedIn.................................................................................................................24 4.1 Characteristics / functionalities................................................................................24 4.1.1 Web platform ..........................................................................................................26 4.1.2 Mobile apps ............................................................................................................28 4.2 Price models and benefits.......................................................................................29 5 Recruitment in social business networks ...........................................................32 5.1 Use case for adaption in business area ..................................................................32 5.2 Effectiveness and efficiency statistics .....................................................................36 5.3 Experiences of enterprises with social business networks ......................................38 6 Comparison XING versus LinkedIn .....................................................................43 7 Conclusion and recommendation .......................................................................48 8 List of literature and references ..........................................................................51 9 List of figures and tables .....................................................................................54 10 Appendix ...............................................................................................................56 Carlo Colicchio, Iso Demirkaya, Alex Hächler 4/72
Introduction
1 Introduction
The purpose of this research project is to compare the two social business networks XING
and LinkedIn. Nowadays “Social Media” is one of the most mentioned topics all over the
world, based on the fact that social networks like Facebook, Twitter, etc. are an extremely
successful business. According to this fact, even companies need to consider the use of
these social media platforms to maintain their relationships with (potential) customers and
employees. Especially for enterprises, the on-going development and popularity of social
business networks like XING and LinkedIn are a matter of fact and therefore a need of action
is required.
The findings of the research paper should provide further information how both social
business platform can be used by companies to generate benefits and which of the two
networks would fit best with the different requirements of companies.
1.1 Hypothesis
The main aim of this research paper is to give an answer to the following hypothesis:
Social business networks like XING and LinkedIn allow companies to recruit
employees in a more efficient way than over other recruiting channels (job
employment agencies, corporate website, print media, etc.).
The above mentioned hypothesis should help companies to find out if they should include
XING and LinkedIn in their processes or not. For companies, it is important to know whether
and where they will be more or less efficient by applying these social business networks. .
That will enable them to decide where it makes sense to make use of them or not. They
therefore also have to be compared with the classical communication channels companies’
choose to fulfil their business needs. More efficient means a shorter cycle time with lower
costs compared to the classical communication channels.
1.2 Research questions
The research questions have been derived from the hypothesis. The following questions
should help to answer the hypothesis and are guiding the content of this research paper.
First of all a main research question has been derived:
How can companies make the most out of using the two social business networks
XING and LinkedIn?
Carlo Colicchio, Iso Demirkaya, Alex Hächler 5/72
Introduction
Making most out of it refers to recruiting activities within a company. Marketing activities are
also a part of XING and LinkedIn. This research paper will not go into detail regarding this
application area. The recruiting activities are described from the point of view of enterprises
from the time when they decide to search for appropriate candidates until to the stage when
they finally hire new employees.
The research project in the field of social business networks (XING and LinkedIn) wants to
answer, the following research questions:
What functionalities do the web and mobile platforms of XING and LinkedIn provide in
order to support efficient recruiting processes?
What kind of pricing models exist and which benefits are offered by these two platforms?
What are the experiences of companies that use XING and LinkedIn for their recruiting
activities?
Which are the advantages and disadvantages (comparison) between the two social
business networks?
Basically the answers of these research questions should help to provide recommendations
to companies, which are considering the application of social business networks like XING or
LinkedIn for recruitment.
Carlo Colicchio, Iso Demirkaya, Alex Hächler 6/72
Introduction
1.3 Boundary
The boundary shows which topics are parts of this research paper and what specifically of
those parts is being analysed. In Figure 1 the general hierarchy is described. The focus is on
the topics with the dark background (social business networks and recruitment).
social
business
networks
social
networks
social media
Figure 1: Pyramid of social media/ networks/ business networks
This hierarchy is created by the research team in order to give the reader a clear
understanding of the terms which are used by the research team. The social networks
belong to the social media and one sub-category of the social networks is social business
networks. So this research paper will only be about social business networks and the
influences of social business networks. There are two relevant activities which are covered
by social business networks: Recruitment and marketing. This paper focuses mainly on
recruiting activities for enterprises. The recruitment process is being described from the
companies’ point of view. It covers the whole process from searching to hiring a new
employee.
Marketing activities are only part of this paper if the activities are related to recruitment, such
as a professional company profile, groups or events on a social business network to attract
potential employees. In this research paper marketing is regarded as an instrument to reach
potential new employees.
Social business network will be explained to give a clear and common understanding about
what a social business network is. This research paper focusses on two well-known social
business networks in Europe: XING and LinkedIn. Other social business networks are not
part of this research paper. The experience of private users is not part of this research paper
as well because the focus is on the usage and benefits for enterprises.
Carlo Colicchio, Iso Demirkaya, Alex Hächler 7/72Introduction
1.4 Research methodology and techniques
In order to achieve the defined research goals a research methodology is needed to ensure
the scientific character of the research findings.
In general, the research project followed a deductive approach which included these steps:
Theory (Research of previous findings, experiences, first observations)
Hypothesis (Derivation of the hypothesis according to already analysed theory)
Observations (Analysis of the research area with the stated research questions)
Confirmation (According to the carried out analysis, confirmation or rejection of the
hypothesis and deduction of a conclusion)
The following sections of this chapter precisely describe the most important activities and the
corresponding techniques in order to understand how the research questions have been
answered.
The first step of the research project included an accurate literature research of
scientific papers, books and research studies within the field of social media
with the focus on social business networks. Due to the fact that the hype topic
“social media” is well-known all over the world and reached a good state of
maturity, market research companies like Gartner, Forrester, etc. have already
conducted interesting research studies within this field. Furthermore internet
sources like blogs and twitter-streams of experts have also been followed.
According to the high quantity of literature an accurate analysis is required in
order to get as much information as possible to reach an appropriate
knowledge base, which is the state of the art.
After the literature research, the research questions and sub-questions have
been defined in order to outline the focus of this research project. As already
mentioned in chapter 1.2 the main research question is:
How can companies make the most out of using the two social
business networks XING and LinkedIn?
In order to answer this main research question five further sub-questions have
been defined to specify the main goals which have to be achieved by carrying
out this research project. Furthermore a hypothesis has been derived from the
described research questions which has to be approved or rejected according
to the findings of the research analysis.
Carlo Colicchio, Iso Demirkaya, Alex Hächler 8/72Introduction
The main research analysis first covered the history, facts and figures of XING
and LinkedIn. Based on the gathered information, a better understanding and
new knowledge about the two platforms was derived. In addition to the
explanation of both social business networks, real-life experiences of
enterprises (case studies), which already use respectively benefit from social
business networks like XING or LinkedIn have been researched. Therefore9
semi-structured interviews have been carried out with knowledge holders,
which have experience in our research field. Most of the interview partners
have been recommended or are part of the business network of the research
team.
The interview partners are CEOs, human resource managers or personnel
consultants with the focus on (e)-recruiting (also social recruitment). The
interviewees are from small to large and from locally to internationally operating
enterprises. For the interviews, an interview catalogue of eleven questions has
been derived from the literature research. All the interviews, which on average
have lasted an hour, have been carried out personally to get as much
information as possible from these recruiting experts.
The results from the interviews have been collected and merged together in
order to reach an overview about all posed questions. The next step included a
qualitative analysis of the data set, which allowed to identify response patterns
and to derive conclusions from that. The research findings from the interviews
have been compared with similar results from two well-known empirical
research studies in the field of recruitment. Thanks to this approach the
statements from the interview partners have been confirmed.
It has been rejected to carry out an empirical survey, based on the decision that
the focus of this research project is to show how enterprises can make most out
of using these social business networks. Therefore it makes more sense to
interview knowledge holders from companies which are already active within
the mentioned research topic. Assuming that the return of an empirical survey
would not be very large, the preferred research technique has been to carry out
qualitative semi-structured interviews.
Carlo Colicchio, Iso Demirkaya, Alex Hächler 9/72Introduction
The last step of the research methodology was to inter the final findings from
the interviews in order to prove or disprove the hypothesis. Therefore it has
been defined to measure and compare the efficiency of “new” processes (social
business networks and applicant tracking systems) with a classic recruitment
process. More efficient in this case means a shorter cycle time with lower costs
compared to the classical recruiting channels. The costs should be measured
by the existing pricing models of XING and LinkedIn and the process costs of
the modelled generic processes by the answered questions of the interviewees.
According to the described approach it has not been possible to measure the
efficiency quantitatively of these activities due to the fact that the interviewed
partners have virtually no data of recruitment process costs and generally the
information gained from the interviews is not precise enough to write
representative quantitative statements. Therefore it has been decided to make
qualitative statements with the existing theoretical data and the data from the
interviews. Additionally the effectiveness of the different recruiting channels
could be analysed quantitatively as well to give a better decision basis for
companies what kind of recruiting channels may be applicable in practice.
In addition to this efficiency measurement, a qualitative comparison of both
social business networks has also been carried out. Based on a predefined set
of criteria, which has been weighted according to the importance for social
business networks (especially recruiting), both networks have been rated. This
evaluation allowed getting a final comparison of XING and LinkedIn. Thanks to
that a conclusion which contained the most important findings of this research
project, and especially proved or disproved the hypothesis, has been stated.
Carlo Colicchio, Iso Demirkaya, Alex Hächler 10/72Literature review
2 Literature review
To get an overview of the topic of social media and especially social business networks like
XING and LinkedIn this chapter outlines the state of the art around this topic. Social Media is
a wide term which nowadays can be associated with different activities in the internet. This
chapter explains what is already known about social media, the differentiation of social
networks types and how these new communication channels can be used for business
activities such as for recruitment.
2.1 Social media
Social Media is an overall term for media that serves the exchange of partners over the
Internet within a community. It can be represented as opinions, impressions, experiences
and information and knowledge which are generated by users (Onlinemarketing-Praxis
2012).
Furthermore social media allows
users to create contributions in
certain online media channels.
According to Figure 2 it can be
shown that a huge amount of
social media platforms have
been established over the past
years. They are used to share
different types of media for
example pictures, music, video,
events, business contacts and
much more. Social media
platforms are not only used for
private purposes but they can
also be found in business
Figure 2: Social Media Prisma (ethority.de, 2011) environments.
Therefore enterprises are facing the trend and react to this new way of collaboration and
exchange of media. According to the research study of KPMG International (2011, p. 2) the
participation of enterprises in social media has become a business imperative. More than 70
per cent of the organizations operating around the world are active on social media now.
Carlo Colicchio, Iso Demirkaya, Alex Hächler 11/72Literature review
As a matter of fact, social media are rapidly moving up the boardroom agenda, regardless
the type of industry or the organisation structure. This fact can also be proved by the social
media report 2010/11 (Böttcher et al 2010, p. 3) where 77 per cent of the survey participants
are of the opinion that social media is relevant for enterprises. Networks like Facebook,
LinkedIn, Twitter and XING are the most important and should be used by organisations.
Social business networks like XING with 12.3 million (XING 2012) and LinkedIn with 161
million users (LinkedIn 2012) have combined about 175 million users which use these
platforms to share business contacts and build up relationships with like-minded people.
Such figures outline the potential of social media and demonstrate the importance they
already have reached in the society.
2.2 Social network
In reference to social media the term social networks can be summarised as platforms and
online-presences, which help internet-users to build up and maintain relationships. Therefore
the related information exchange and communication between the parties is also supported
(Hettler 2010, p. 53). The contextual alignment of the social networks providers differs a lot
between the platforms and therefore a differentiation of two types of networks is necessary
(Hettler 2010, p. 54):
Scope Communication and private exchange between (un/known) persons
Basis of the network Social relationships between the persons
Type of the network Symmetric, with the confirmation of the relationship the sharing of activities
starts
Example Facebook, LinkedIn, XING
Table 1: Social network types (relationship and communication)
Scope Publication, sharing and discussion about all types of content
Basis of the network Published content of the sender
Type of the network Asymmetric, users can follow the contributions of network participants
without having mutual connection/relationship.
Example SlideShare, Twitter, YouTube
Table 2: Social network types (publication of content)
According to the above mentioned social network types the following basic functionalities can
be described: Identity Management (Possibility to edit the own profile), Contact Management
Carlo Colicchio, Iso Demirkaya, Alex Hächler 12/72Literature review
(Possibility to administrate contacts and to network), Expert research and the support of an
information exchange between contacts (Back et al. 2009, p. 71).
To get an impression of social networks it can be said that Facebook is the largest world-
wide social-network with more than 900 million members at the moment (Facebook 2012).
To turn the focus on the business-side, enterprises also use social networks especially XING
and LinkedIn to support business activities. These so called social business networks like
XING or LinkedIn provide a multitude of functionalities, which can be used for marketing or
recruitment activities. Specifically, these social business networks have special pricing
models which allow the user to get a basic set of functionalities for free. For more
sophisticated functions a periodical service fee is charged. The detailed characteristics of
both social business networks will be described in the following chapters 3 and 4.
2.3 The use of social business networks in enterprises
The impact of social media in general is according to already mentioned facts astonishing. In
order to deepen the application areas of XING and LinkedIn the European social media
report 2010/11 (Böttcher et al 2010, p. 5) outlines the findings in Figure 3: According to the
research study, the business activity which can be best supported by social business
networks is human resources/career enhancement (XING: 81% and LinkedIn: 51%) in both
cases. This activity is followed by external communication with business partners (XING:
73% and LinkedIn: 43%). Figure 3 shows also that both social business networks are used
for private and business purposes. According to that fact it is evident that people ascertained
that such platforms bring advantages along, which support their activities in both application
areas. It can be said that employees connect their private and business life through the use
of social business networks. Beside the application of social business networks for career
enhancement/HR the corporate communication to external stakeholders can also be
supported by these platforms.
81% 73% 72% 79%
51%
43% 46% XING
37%
29% 28%
24%
15% LinkedIn
13% 12% 9%5% 9%
3%
Figure 3: For which purpose is XING/LinkedIn useful? (Böttcher et al 2010, p. 5)
Carlo Colicchio, Iso Demirkaya, Alex Hächler 13/72Literature review According to the “Social Media Studie 2011-Namics” (2011, p. 14), the largest share of communication through social networks is covered by the human resource department followed by the corporate communication division. It is expected that the importance of social business networks like XING and LinkedIn will increase and take a relevant position in the near future (Böttcher et al 2010, p. 9). 2.4 Users of social networks The evolution of social media and the contemporaneous growth of social networks are supported by the large amount of people, who use these networks. The so called “Digital Natives” are the generation which have grown up with the new possibilities which the internet technology has provided. Already in their childhood they started to spend time on the internet and tried to generate and share content with other internet users. In comparison to older generations, Digital Natives make the internet an essential part of their life and that can be seen as a virtual living environment (Hilker 2010, p. 21). The already mentioned older generation, which can be defined as “Digital Immigrants”, has a more conservative attitude to use the internet and especially social networks. Nowadays, the management positions within companies are mostly taken by such “Digital Immigrants” which have another approach of working and have more difficulties adapting to the use of new communication media. But it is a matter of fact that social media especially social networks will lead to a paradigm shift where openness, transparency and interactivity are taking a more important role in the society and also in the business world. Companies have to face this evolution and take into consideration the needs of the “Digital Natives” to become attractive as an employer of the new generation but as well to be competitive on the market (Hilker 2010, p. 22). In order to get back to the main focus of this research paper Figure 4 shows the age distribution of the users of both social business networks XING and LinkedIn. According to that figure, it can be said that the users of these platforms are business people which are mostly aged between 25 and 44 years. This age range would represent something between “Digital Natives” and “Digital Immigrants”. As already mentioned, the target group of such social business groups is on average a little bit older than for example other social networks like Facebook, Twitter or YouTube. This fact can be also interesting for companies which are aiming to hire new employees or to enhance the popularity of their brand. Through the use of such social business networks there are a lot of possibilities to reach an appropriate target group to fulfil the already mentioned company tasks. Carlo Colicchio, Iso Demirkaya, Alex Hächler 14/72
Literature review
6%
0-17
4%
6%
18-24
4%
21%
25-34
28%
Age
35%
35-44
34%
12%
45-54
13%
16%
55-64
13%
4%
65-older LinkedIn XING
4%
Figure 4: Age distribution of XING and LinkedIn (eins-zu-null 2012)
2.5 Social media recruitment
Based on the assumption that social business networks are new ways of supporting
recruiting activities of enterprises can be supported, this chapter gives an overview how
modern social business networks are used for this application area.
The term “social media recruitment” is part of the overall concept of “e-recruitment”, also
known as “online recruitment”. This topic is defined by the use of web based tools to assist
the recruitment process. The tool can be a job platform, the organisation’s corporate web site
or an even more sophisticated applicant tracking system (ATS). Nowadays organizations are
using the internet as a source for recruitment and in some cases IT-systems (ATS) to
support the whole recruitment process (recruitment.naukrihub.com 2012).
As a matter of fact, the search of employees by companies is usually handled with job
advertisements in newspapers, personal recommendations or job platforms in the internet.
But a lot of enterprises are neglecting the opportunities which social media are providing.
Especially the opportunities to reach highly qualified people (employer recruitment) and
furthermore to enhance positively the development of the brand of the company (employer
branding) are topics which should awake the interest of the business world (Hilker 2010, p.
131).
According to the explanation of the characteristics and functionalities of the social business
networks XING and LinkedIn in the following chapters 3 and 4, it can be shown that they
Carlo Colicchio, Iso Demirkaya, Alex Hächler 15/72Literature review
provide new ways for companies to support employer recruitment. For example, social
business networks offer search engines with extended filter functionalities to find potential
employees and to directly get in touch with them. Considering the whole recruiting process
according to the German research study “Recruiting Trends 2012” (2012, p. 34) it can be
confirmed that social business networks are mostly used for the publication of job
advertisements and the active sourcing of new applicants, which represents one of the first
stages of the whole recruiting process.
59% 60%
52% 52%
Yes
44%
36%
Currently not,
29%
27% 26% 27% 29% but planned in
22% future
No, neighter
14% 12% planned in
12%
future
publication of job active sourcing employer branding building up and active sourcing of
advertisments for applicants enlarge network of already identified
recruiters applicants
Figure 5: Adoption of social business networks for recruitment (Eckhardt et al. 2012b, p. 34)
Carlo Colicchio, Iso Demirkaya, Alex Hächler 16/72XING
3 XING
The social business network “Open Business Club” was founded in 2003 in Hamburg,
Germany and has been renamed in 2006 (Lutz et al. 2011, p. 21) to its current brand “XING”.
The company employs over 450 people from 27 different countries. In 2010 XING acquired
amiando AG, a Europe’s leading provider of online event management and ticketing. The
platform has more than 12 million members worldwide (March 2012) and is available in 16
languages (XING 2012). The revenue in 2011 was EUR 66.2 million (XING 2012).
3.1 Characteristics / functionalities
The characteristics of XING should give the reader an overview of the kind of people and
companies that are using XING. It also points out the regions where it is mostly used.
The XING Media Data is an analysis in the DACH region (Adconion 2012).
XING has 5.27 million members in the DACH region (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) and
approximately 7 million members are from other countries. These 7 million members are a
small and not relevant percentage per country and are therefore not included in Figure 6. In
the brackets is the percentage of XING members compared to the total amount of the
population of the respective country. The graph shows that the popularity of XING is mostly
in German speaking countries, although XING offers its platform also in English and other
languages.
Switzerland 0.43 (5.41%)
Austria 0.44 (5.23%)
Germany 4.4 (5.38%)
Total in DACH 5.27 (5.37%)
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Numbers of members in million
Figure 6: Numbers of members in millions of XING (XING Media Data 2012, p. 1; statistik.at;
de.statista.com; bfs.admin.ch)
Carlo Colicchio, Iso Demirkaya, Alex Hächler 17/72XING
Figure 7 shows the industry distribution of XING. For companies in the service branch XING
is quite well-known and applied, followed closely by industry and media.
14%
12% 11%
Industry distribution
8% 8% 8%
7%
6% 6% 6%
5%
3%
2% 2% 1%
Figure 7: Industry distribution of XING (XING Media Data 2012, p. 2)
Figure 8 gives an overview of the companies’ size that can be found on XING. Small
companies between 1 and 50 employees have a combined share of over 30% of all company
sizes. On the other side huge companies with over 10,000 employees are also well
established on XING.
17%
Size of company distribution
16% 15% 15%
12%
9%
7%
5%
4%
Figure 8: Company size distribution of XING (XING Media Data 2012, p. 2)
Carlo Colicchio, Iso Demirkaya, Alex Hächler 18/72XING
3.1.1 Web platform
This section describes the web platform of XING focussed on the business side. It is not the
intention of the following descriptions to go into detail about how to set up a personal profile.
As already mentioned in chapter 1.3, the focus is on the usage and benefits for enterprises.
Figure 9: XING web platform profile example (Bpmnforum 2012)
First of all the functionalities of XING related to recruiting activities are mentioned.
Messaging The messaging function is used to contact other members on XING by
text messages which are saved in every member’s mailbox. This function
can also be used to send messages to members belonging to a specific
group or invite people directly to an event.
Member This function offers the option to search for members by name, position,
search company, wants, haves etc.
Job offer The point of view is from a company who is searching for a new qualified
employee to hire. The job offer function allows companies to place their
job offer online on XING and all members of XING can view and apply for
it. The job offer is in one of ten typical categorisations such as IT or
Engineering.
Job search The applicant can search for job advertisements by entering a search
term concerning a job position, a company name or search by a category
or a city. For some job advertisements it is possible to directly go to the
website of the company and apply online.
Carlo Colicchio, Iso Demirkaya, Alex Hächler 19/72XING
Company XING provides a functionality to set up a company profile. Applicants can
profile visit the company site to get an overview of the company they might like
to apply for.
Premium The Premium Membership offers more than the free membership.
Membership Additionally it provides an advanced search function which is helpful for
employers and recruiters to find better matching candidates, due to the
specific search filters. Furthermore compared to the free membership it is
possible to see who viewed the own profile. The free membership only
shows the profile picture without name and profile information of the
visitor. More about the Premium Membership can be found in chapter 3.2.
Recruiter For HR consultants, managers and head hunters there exists a special
Membership membership called “Recruiter Membership”. With this membership
recruiters can use more search filters to find top candidates faster.
Additionally they can see more profile information of the candidates in the
overview without having the candidates in their own contact list. It is
possible to assign a candidate status for every person in the overview,
such as “Interesting”, “CV received”, “Interviewed with the customer” etc.
More about the Recruiter Membership can be found in chapter 3.2.
In the following the functionalities for marketing activities related to support recruitment are
mentioned.
Groups With the function to create groups, companies can advertise themselves.
A XING member who works for a company in the machine building
industry can e.g. create a group for engineers to discuss interesting
topics. At this moment the XING member is also a moderator of a group
and is listed on the side of the group page with his company name. The
company has the chance to get to know some interesting members of
XING in the respective field and these could also be potential employees.
Events XING members have the possibility to organise events and use the
online-ticketing system provided by amiando. For example a recruiting
event for graduates could help to find new employees.
Carlo Colicchio, Iso Demirkaya, Alex Hächler 20/72XING
3.1.2 Mobile apps
This section describes the mobile app of XING. The following descriptions are related to the
version 3.5.7i of the German Android app. The functions of the Android and iPhone app are
the same. XING has a specially designed website for tablets on touch.xing.com and mobile
apps for Black Berries and Windows Phones as well (XING 2012), which are - due to a lower
popularity - not part of this research paper. Compared to the web platform the mobile apps
do not offer as much functionalities.
Contacts The app provides the standard
functionality to view your own
contacts with their whole profile.
Search The search function offers the
possibility to search for contacts
which are not in the user’s list.
My Profile The own profile can be viewed but
not edited.
Messages With this function it is possible to
view and send messages to the
contacts of the own network.
Connector The connector provides re-
commendations of people you may
perhaps know or are related to your
contacts.
Birthdays Birthdays shows the upcoming Figure 10: Mobile app XING iOS
birthdays of your contacts in XING.
Visitors The free membership allows you to
see the profile picture of the person
who visited your profile whereas the
contact details of those visitors can
only be viewed if you at least have a
Premium membership.
Handshake The only function that is not provided
in the web platform but in the mobile
app is “Handshake”. The user can
display the QR-Code of his profile on
his mobile phone while another
person who also uses this app can
scan the QR-Code and can then
Figure 11: Example view the profile of the person in front
of a QR-Code
(internet-echo, of him. For example this can be used
2012) at a meeting to add new business
contacts on XING. Figure 12: Mobile app XING Android
Carlo Colicchio, Iso Demirkaya, Alex Hächler 21/72XING
3.2 Price models and benefits
XING offers several fee-based services. In this section, the focus relies on the additional
benefit for professional members, not private people, if they choose to subscribe to fee-
based services. These price models refer to the web platform and not to the mobile apps.
There are three different types of memberships shown in Table 3. In the column “Benefit” all
the additional benefits are listed compared to the Premium Membership. The free
membership is below the Premium Membership and is not listed. The important
functionalities for recruiting of the free membership have been already mentioned in chapter
3.1. The Sales Membership is an additional price model which is provided by XING but is
only mentioned in this chapter for the sake of completeness.
Membership Price in CHF Benefit
XING 4.75 per month See who visited your profile
Premium Membership (3-month term) Apply filters to improve search efficiency
4.15 per month Send messages to non-contacts
(12-month term)
50% off the regular
price for students
XING Find business partners in a more
Sales Membership 60.00 per month
targeted way
(3-month term)
Identify potential customers faster than
ever
36.00 per month Transparent sales workflows
(12-month term) Plus all of the Premium features
XING 72.00 per month Use exclusive search filters to find top
Recruiter Membership (3-month term) candidates faster.
60.00 per month See more profile information in the
(6-month term) overview
Efficient candidate management
48.00 per month
Plus all of the Premium benefits
(12-month term)
Table 3: XING Membership cost/benefit overview (XING 2012)
Carlo Colicchio, Iso Demirkaya, Alex Hächler 22/72XING
There are two services in XING which are offered in three price categories each and are
available in every type of membership. The job advertisement function in Table 4 provides
three different types of advertisements. The more the customer is willing to spend, the more
options are available to set up an attractive advertisement. The prices for ads and company
profiles are officially only available in EUR on the website of XING. Therefore the prices in
CHF are below the EUR prices with an estimated exchange rate of 1.2.
ad TEXT LOGO DESIGN
Price1 EUR 0.94 EUR 470.05 EUR 589.05
CHF 1.15 CHF 564.05 CHF 706.86
Price type Pay-per-click Fixed price, including Fixed price, customized,
logo, PDF, 30-day term 30-day term
Benefit No basic fee, no Add your company Generate more
minimum charges logo to improve interest with a
Click limit for recognition customized design
complete cost Ad text can be XING will post your
management formatted ad(s) for you
View up to 20 View up to 20
members that match members that match
your ad right now your ad right now
Table 4: XING job advertisement cost/benefit overview (XING 2012)
The service to set up a company profile in Table 5 offers three possible types as well. The
basic profile is for free. For additional monthly charges, the profile can be found easier due to
the option to define your own keywords. The most expensive option provides statistical
analysis of the visitors of the company profile such as traffic-analysis and profile-analysis.
Company BASIC STANDARD PLUS
Profile
Price 0 EUR 24.90 a month2 EUR 129.00 a month2
CHF 29.90 a month2 CHF 154.80 a month2
Benefit "About us" page All of the BASIC All of the STANDARD
together with benefits benefits
your company’s Improved visibility Linkable header graphics
logo thanks to freely that can be changed as
automatically definable often as you like
generated list of keywords See who visited your
employees "Contact" page Company Profile
Option to post listing people to Visitor and follower
company get in touch with at statistics as well as traffic
updates the company and profile analysis
Up to 5 profile Highlighted entry in search
editors results
Table 5: XING company profile cost/benefit overview (XING 2012)
1
Prices for Switzerland and non-EU countries
2
The minimum terms is 12 month
Carlo Colicchio, Iso Demirkaya, Alex Hächler 23/72LinkedIn
4 LinkedIn
LinkedIn was founded in 2002 in the living room of Reid Hofmann, a co-founder of the
company. The website was published on the internet on 5th May 2003. Just one month later,
already 4500 members were registered. The main purpose of the social network is
professional networking. LinkedIn was considered to be one of the top ten companies of
most valuable start-ups in 2010 with a value of $1.575 billion in private markets. (LinkedIn
2012)
4.1 Characteristics / functionalities
In this chapter, all the important characteristics and functionalities will be explained. To make
it better comparable, the structure of chapter 4 is held similar to the preceding chapter 3
about XING.
First of all, LinkedIn is the biggest platform for professional networking, considering its more
than 161 million subscribers (LinkedIn 2012). Figure 13 shows how they are grouped in
different countries. Most of the users are still located in the US market. But there is a huge
growth in European countries. According to LinkedIn students and recent college graduates
have the demographical fastest growth.
42
Numbers of members in million
34
25
15
9
7
5 4 3 3 3 3 2 2 1 1 1 1
Figure 13: Numbers of members in million of LinkedIn (LinkedIn 2012)
Carlo Colicchio, Iso Demirkaya, Alex Hächler 24/72LinkedIn
Figure 14 shows the related industries, where LinkedIn is mostly used. There is still a larger
usage by technical industries such as IT and telecommunication as this target group is more
technology oriented as others.
20%
17%
Industry distribution
10% 9% 8% 8% 7% 6% 5% 4% 3% 3%
Figure 14: Industry distribution of LinkedIn (IQ Digital Mediadaten LinkedIn 2012, p. 11)
Figure 15 shows the different sizes of companies using LinkedIn. Leaders of social media
are still big companies with 10,000 or more employees according to IQ Digital. There is still a
huge potential in middle-sized enterprises. Surprisingly, enterprises with employees between
5,001 and 10,000 use LinkedIn less than smaller enterprises.
52%
Size of company distribution
18%
12%
10% 9%
4%
1-50 51-200 201-1,000 1,001-5,000 5,001-10,000 >10,001
employees employees employees employees employees employees
Figure 15 Size of company distribution of LinkedIn (IQ Digital Mediadaten LinkedIn 2012, p. 11)
Carlo Colicchio, Iso Demirkaya, Alex Hächler 25/72LinkedIn
4.1.1 Web platform
Figure 16: LinkedIn web platform profile example (Socialrabbit 2012)
On the first page, LinkedIn shows different kind of news and gives a first impression about
updates in the joined network. The important functions of the web platform are mentioned in
the following:
Messaging The messaging function allows contacting other members on LinkedIn by
text messages which are saved in every member’s mailbox. This function
can also be used to send messages to members belonging to a specific
group or invite people directly to an event.
Search for The search function allows finding new members on LinkedIn or existing
contacts ones. There are different search criteria’s possible such as the company
name, member name, school, groups, skills and more.
Job offer Recruiting news are found in the head of all updates. The job
advertisement function allows companies to place their job advertisement
online on LinkedIn and all members of LinkedIn can view and apply for it.
Carlo Colicchio, Iso Demirkaya, Alex Hächler 26/72LinkedIn
Job search There is also a separate section “jobs” which provides search
functionalities for all available jobs. The applicant is able to filter the jobs
by entering the company name, category such as IT, Engineering etc. or
region to get suitable job search results.
Company For companies, LinkedIn provides a section where a company profile can
profile be set up. This information is important to get an overview of the
company and for situations where the company tries to hire new
employee over LinkedIn or to reach potential customers.
Premium Premium accounts offer more functionalities than the free membership. It
Accounts offers more search results, expanded profile information, full list of visitors
and better filtering mechanisms.
For Recruiters HR consultants, managers, head hunters or sales professionals might
benefit from search functionalities provided by the Recruiter Membership
which enables to choose important skills for new candidates.
In the following the functionalities for marketing activities related to support recruitment are
mentioned.
Groups With the group function, employee of companies may discuss and follow
different topics. For example a LinkedIn member who works for a job
agency can create a group for HR managers to discuss related topics
about recruitment. The member who created the group is at this moment
the moderator of the group.
Events LinkedIn members are able to organise and promote events with the
provided events function. In addition, LinkedIn shows a list of events,
which might be interesting for the user based on the groups which the
user follows.
Carlo Colicchio, Iso Demirkaya, Alex Hächler 27/72LinkedIn
4.1.2 Mobile apps
The LinkedIn mobile app is available for the following mobile operating systems: Android,
iPhones iOS and Black Berry (LinkedIn 2012). Most of the functions available on the web
platform are provided on the mobile app, too. There are still
some limitations: For example editing of the profile is not
possible on the mobile apps. The mobile app described in this
section is based on Android mobile app version 2.4.1. Figure
16 shows in comparison to the Android app, the iOS version
which looks different but provides the same functions.
LinkedIn LinkedIn Today shows important business
Today news.
Updates This functionality provides latest updates about
the own network activities.
You This section shows the own profile which can
Figure 17: Mobile app LinkedIn iOS
be viewed but not edited. Furthermore the user
has an overview about the visitors of the own
profile and by clicking on the person, LinkedIn
shows the profile information of the visitor.
Inbox With this function it is possible to view and
send messages to the contacts of the own
network.
More This functionality recommends people and
groups which can be interesting for the user.
Search for It is possible to search for people in the contact
people list and for new contacts.
Speech The speech box in the right corner of the app
box allows sending notifications. The user can
choose if the stats update can be viewed by all
network users or only by the own contacts.
Figure 18: Mobile app LinkedIn
Android
Furthermore a new mobile app for the iPad has been released, which provides a nicer view
of the dashboards, a better usability and a higher resolution for the iPad’s display.
Carlo Colicchio, Iso Demirkaya, Alex Hächler 28/72LinkedIn
4.2 Price models and benefits
LinkedIn offers several professional tools which can be categorized into four different areas.
One area considers the Premium Accounts, which allows members to directly contact any
people who are not in the personal contacts. The second area is for recruiters, which
provides several search functionalities to find a suitable employee. The Memberships for
Sales Professionals and for Job Seekers are additional price models which are provided by
LinkedIn but are only mentioned in this chapter for the sake of completeness.
Table 6 provides a brief overview of membership prices and benefits of the memberships.
Membership Price in CHF Benefit
Premium Accounts
LinkedIn Business 21.95 per month Contact anyone directly with InMail
(1 month term) Business: 3 per month
19.95 per month Business Plus: 10 per month
(1 year term) Executive: 25 per month
See more profiles when you search
LinkedIn Business 42.95 per month Business: 300
Plus (1 month term) Business Plus: 500
39.95 per month Executive: 700
(1 year term) Zero in (search engine provider) on
profiles with Premium search filters
LinkedIn Executive 85.95 per month See expanded profiles of everyone on
(1 month term) LinkedIn
64.95 per month Who’s viewed your profile: Get the full
(1 year term) list
For Recruiters
LinkedIn Talent Basic 42.95 per month Contact anyone on LinkedIn with InMail
(1 month term) Basic: 10 per month
39.95 per month Finder: 25 per month
(1 year term) Pro: 50 per month
Pinpoint candidates with advanced
LinkedIn Talent 85.95 per month search filters
Finder (1 month term) See more candidates when you search
69.95 per month Basic: 500
(1 year term) Finder: 700
Pro: 1000
LinkedIn Talent Pro 429.95 per month Search for top talent within your groups
(1 month term) Save and manage your candidate
399.95 per month pipeline
(1 year term) Basic: 25 folders
Finder: 50 folders
Pro: 75 folders
Table 6 continues on the next page.
Carlo Colicchio, Iso Demirkaya, Alex Hächler 29/72LinkedIn
For Sales Professionals
Sales Basic 17.95 per month Contact anyone directly with InMail
(1 month term) o Sales Navigator: 10 per month
13.95 per month o Sales Executive: 25 per month
(1 year term) Build your pipeline with Lead Builder
Pinpoint the right leads with Premium
Sales Navigator 42.95 per month search filters
(1 month term) Who’s viewed your profile: Get the full
34.95 per month list
(1 year term) Save important profiles and notes using
profile organizer
Sales Executive 85.95 per month
(1 month term)
64.95 per month
(1 year term)
For Job Seekers
Job Seeker Basic 17.95 per month Contact anyone directly with InMail
(1 month term) o Job Seeker: 5 per month
13.95 per month o Job Seeker Plus: 10 per month
(1 year term) Who’s viewed your profile: Get the full
list
Job Seeker 25.95 per month Zero in (search engine provider) on
(1 month term) $100K plus jobs with detailed salary
21.95 per month information
(1 year term) Move to the top of the list as a featured
applicant
Job Seeker Plus 42.95 per month Exclusive access to our job seeker
(1 month term) community
39.95 per month
(1 year term)
Table 6: LinkedIn membership cost/benefit overview (LinkedIn 2012)
Carlo Colicchio, Iso Demirkaya, Alex Hächler 30/72LinkedIn
The job advertisement services in Table 7 provide different packages of advertisements.
Customers can get up to 36% off the standard price by choosing a larger job pack. A job
advertisement is published for 30 days. The “30-day posting” refers to 1 job. With the other
job packs more job advertisements can be published for a lower price per job ad. The
benefits are the same for all packages.
ad 30-day posting 5-Job Pack 10-Job Pack
Price in CHF 167.95 / job ad 132.99 / job ad 107.30 / job ad
Benefits Reach the best job seekers
Proprietary matching technology identifies the best candidates for your
job in real-time
Candidates see who posted the job and how they are connected into
your organization
Jobs are forwarded 11 times on average, collecting 400 views and 30
applications
Jobs appear in search results and on Twitter, increasing your visibility
across the web
Easy-to-use interface to review, organize, and contact applicants
Table 7: LinkedIn job advertisement cost/benefit overview (LinkedIn 2012)
The service to set up a company profile is free and offers interesting benefits for enterprises
such as product presentations, service- and product recommendations through customers,
analytics tools, advertising and blogging.
Company LinkedIn company profile
Profile
Price in CHF 0
Benefit Free including active company updates
Services and product presentations (visual)
Service- and product recommendations through customers
Analytics tools for page views and clicks
Advertising (similar to Facebook pages)
Blogging per feed
Table 8: LinkedIn company profile cost/benefit overview (Networkfinder 2012)
Carlo Colicchio, Iso Demirkaya, Alex Hächler 31/72Recruitment in social business networks 5 Recruitment in social business networks To give an overview of efficiency and effectiveness for the use of social business networks in the recruitment process, a use case has been created according to the answers derived from the interviews and the knowledge about the social business network platforms. The question “How does your recruitment process look?” has been directly integrated in the use case. The aspect efficiency has been analysed qualitatively with the responses from the interview and are underlined with results from the trend reports “Trend Report Online Recruiting Schweiz 2011” and “Recruiting Trends 2012”. These reports provided additional information about effectiveness which is also included in this chapter. Furthermore the experiences of enterprises with social business networks have been summarized. Two processes use the term “e-recruitment” and one process uses the term “applicant tracking system”. For a better understanding the definitions are as following: “E-recruitment or eRecruitment is the process of personnel recruitment using electronic resources, in particular the internet” (Human Resource Management by R. J. Stone 2012) “An applicant tracking system is a program (usually with a web-based section) used to monitor and coordinate an organization’s job applications and helps manage its recruitment needs” (Taleo 2012) 5.1 Use case for adaption in business area Figure 19 shows generic processes for a typical classical recruitment process without specific electronic recruitment tools on one hand and on the other hand e-recruitment processes with the use of a social business network or even with an applicant tracking system. The recruitment steps are more or less identical. Therefore, only those steps have been visualized more than once if they are different in another process. In the classical process the most expensive step compared to the other two processes is to place the job description in a newspaper (step 2). In the following Table 9 the interviewees answered a question about their recruiting costs. Carlo Colicchio, Iso Demirkaya, Alex Hächler 32/72
Sie können auch lesen
