Recruiting 2.0 | Eshaam Rabaney

In a developing country where socio-economic problems are rife, unemployment figures are alarming and the quality of your education depends on where you matriculated from, seeking alternative means to beat these harsh realities is a MUST to ensure success.

I’m sure we can all relate to the ideology infused into us by parents and career counselors etc – That we go to high school, matriculate with exceptional grades then attain access to a fine university, where we then will graduate, enter the job market and start building on our careers.

A career is typically made up of many jobs. However, with steep competition for jobs that are far scarcer now day’s means that job seekers need to find new and creative ways to stand out amongst the barrage of other applicants, all vying for the same position.

The job hunting world is continually changing, driven primarily by advancements in technology and leveraging the Internet. I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately, which is why I wrote this post to direct your attention to something I both believe in and hold to be mandatory in these times of economic uncertainty.

I want you to examine the picture above. You’ll notice that there are two LinkedIn profiles, but both tell a different story. The profile on the left story’s reads savvier and illustrates that person’s unique position. The profile on the right however reads less savvy, but illustrates that the buzz around “Social Media for career advancements” has reached that person.

The common factor here is not that they both have a presence on LinkedIn, but the fact that “buzz” both reached them. Profile on the left has executed on that buzz whereas profile on the right suggests that that buzz was dismissed.

I ask you though, which profile is more likely to find success?

With attention such as “Social networking sites are the new recruitment platform”, niche communities such as “South Africa’s Recruitment Community” and “The Social Media Education Community“ – there is indeed great opportunity (both ways) in which web technology can, but probably will, be leveraged to stand out from the crowd (23.6%) and help people onto the career ladder.