Use of social networking services for job-seeking purposes : Under consideration of German students’ personality and their attitude towards social networking services

Abstract: Abstract: In recruiting factors such as experience and education are important for recruiters but also soft skills such as personality are considered. While education and experience can be learned, personality can hardly be changed and influences people’s behaviour. Job-seeking has evolved over the last decade from using traditional offline channels to including online channels in the search. Thus, reaching suitable candidates for employment requires the use of the right recruiting channels both online and offline. Therefore, one needs to know what kind of people use what channels for job-seeking. As online recruiting is gaining popularity, this research focuses on two factors that appear to be influencing job-seeking behaviour via social networking services (SNS). The aim of this paper is to investigate the relationships between students’ personality traits, their attitude towards SNS and usage of SNS for job-seeking purposes. Hypotheses were formulated in the conceptual framework related to the Big Five Inventory, the conceptualised attitude towards social media and three dimensions (past, passive & future) of use of SNS for job-seeking purposes for the three SNS Facebook, LinkedIn and Xing. These were tested by means of correlation analysis, regression analysis. The data for these analyses were collected using an online survey forwarded to German students by means of judgemental and snowball sampling. The results of this study show that regarding personality traits, i.e. openness, conscientiousness, agreeableness and neuroticism, no relationships were found with a favourable attitude towards SNS. Moreover, the hypothesis that a favourable attitude towards SNS has a positive relationship with the use of SNS for job-seeking purposes can be slightly supported. In conclusion, in the German context at this moment in time, based on the conducted study, there seems to be no advantage for organisations to concentrate their recruiting on specific SNS (Facebook, LinkedIn, Xing) to attract people according to the personality traits businesses desire from their future staff, but in relation to what kind of jobs are offered, i.e. full-time, internship, student jobs, some SNS are more suitable than others.