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Matilda Alvarado Thofelt

International IT College of Sweden
Text communication C
Research report

Research Report
Online Social Networking

Research report – Online Social Networking, 12/12 – 2009, Stockholm

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Matilda Alvarado Thofelt
International IT College of Sweden
Text communication C
Research report

Content

• Front page p. 1
• Content p.2
• Introduction p. 3
• Social Networking p. 3
• Online social networking; Just for fun? p. 4
• Will online social networkin get you a job? p. 4-5
• Positive online content p. 6
• Discrimination online p. 6
• Summary p. 6-7

Research report – Online Social Networking, 12/12 – 2009, Stockholm

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Matilda Alvarado Thofelt
International IT College of Sweden
Text communication C
Research report

Online Social Networking

Introduction
There are thousands and thousands of employment sites out there, websites that all have
one thing in common, the promise you a job. But how efficient is really social networking
when it comes to work? A source 1 at Yahoo.com say social networking is good for
entertainment purposes only and aren’t appropriate for employment, but if all these
websites says it is, who is right?

***

Social networking
To understand the phenomena of online social networking, we have to look closer at social
networking as a whole.
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Imagine that this spider web is a social network; the dot that is marked in yellow is the most
central person in it. That person knows more people, have more ties to people, than anyone
else in the network. He/she is as connected as can be.

This whole structure is made of

individuals, or organizations, also
called “nodes”. Every node is tied to
another. How they are tied to each
other differ from network to
network. Most common is that the
networks are divided in to family
networks, friendship, beliefs or
business.
You can have a different amount of
social capital depending on how
many ties you have. A node with very
few ties has a low social capital, a
node with 500 or more ties have a
very rich social capital. The more ties
the higher capital.

1
By Peter D. Weddle, under “networking tips”, hotjobs.yahoo.com
http://hotjobs.yahoo.com/networking/Will_Social_Networking_Get_You_a_Job__20060911-
082016.html?subtopic=Networking+Tips
2
Social Networking, Wikipedia.com, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_network
Research report – Online Social Networking, 12/12 – 2009, Stockholm
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Matilda Alvarado Thofelt
International IT College of Sweden
Text communication C
Research report

***

Online Social Networking; Just for fun?

It seems to me as if all the top sites, facebook, myspace, flickr and so on are for social use
only. Nothing about them says I’m a professional. It’s mostly vacation pictures and pictures
of friends. Irrelevant information when applying for a job. Those sites are much more for
social purposes, as yahoo says; I know from personal experience that I only use that kind of
sites to keep in contact with friends and family that live outside f Stockholm or others that I
don’t see as often.
However, one site is among the most used ones and is for
one purpose only, finding a job. Monster. Com.
To your left is the statistics 3 for how many that gets new
jobs via monster.com every month. The figures look good
from here, but since there is no statistics over how many
people that are currently using the site, there is no way to
compare. Although, since monster.com is used all over the world and have different domain
names in every country (e.g. monster.fr –France, monster.se –Sweden) it is hard to establish
exactly how many are active users. Thus, the sites official ranking among other sites is
currently 4 508 and 141 in USA, I guess we could presume that the users are plenty.
Personally I doubt monster.com efficiency. Most of the job offers on the sites were links to
smaller sites. This results in more people applying for the same job on small sites. This
means that more people apply and your own chances of landing the job decrees.

***

Will online social networking get you a job?

Social networking has been proved many times over to be the best way to get a job,
however, is online social networking equally efficient?
When you are looking for friends, online social networking is efficient.

In a survey that I did on friends and randomly picked people between 16

3
Monster.com, http://about-monster.com/employment/index/17
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Alexa.com, http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/monster.com
Research report – Online Social Networking, 12/12 – 2009, Stockholm
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Matilda Alvarado Thofelt
International IT College of Sweden
Text communication C
Research report

and 60 years old, almost 25% had a

friend or boyfriend/girlfriend that the
met online.

Finding a job by online social

networking proved to be not as easy.
Mostly because, as I mentioned
earlier, most of the sites are for social
purposes only. Unless you visit a site
like monster.com, you won’t find many
sites for job searching. At least not in
comparison to all the social networking sites.
The difference between “social” sites and job searching sites are there purposes, 5they have
different purposes that are performed in different ways and takes place on different
websites.

“They may be a ton of fun, but it’s unlikely to get you hired”

These are the words of Peter D. Weddle, author of the report I refer to above. He means
that since the purposes are so different, the chance of getting a job through online social
networking are minimal. I believe pictures play a big role in this dilemma. For example, on
facebook.com you are able to upload pictures and “tag” people on them. This so that
everyone can see who did what when. Most of the pictures are from different events, trips
you’ve made together ect. I personally would not like to hire someone that I’ve seen pictures
of bingeing at a party two weeks ago. This lowers your credibility when applying for a job,
Your employers can dicide not to hire you over just one picture and then hire someone else,
not necessarly better than you but with more credibility. Also, your employer don't need to
log on to an account to see your pictures on different social sites, they could just google your
name and see what comes up. Göran Nilsson who works as an employer for bigger
companies says this;

"Some of the companies who hire me do ask me to check up on possible candidates online.
Surprisingly, googleing someone can tell you quite a lot about a person, but to be honest, in
most cases, nothing relevant, or nothing at all, pops up."

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By Peter D. Weddle, under “networking tips”, hotjobs.yahho.com,
http://hotjobs.yahoo.com/networking/Will_Social_Networking_Get_You_a_Job__20060911-
082016.html?subtopic=Networking+Tips
Research report – Online Social Networking, 12/12 – 2009, Stockholm
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Matilda Alvarado Thofelt
International IT College of Sweden
Text communication C
Research report

So how much does really your online social networking pages effect you? According to Mr.
Nilsson, nothing at all.

***

Positive online content

Online content isn't always negative, if you work with media, graphic design, web design,
photagrafy or alike, content of your work online can be very helpful. Almost every
photografer has a web page now a days. Mostly for their clients sake.

"My web page really helps me reach out to all kinds of clients"

Says Andreas Holmström 6 owner of AndreasHolmström.com. However, if you are a

receptionist, doctor or maybe work in a film theatre, a web site wouldn't help muck since it's
looked upon as irrelevant.

***

Discrimination online
Another risk when online social networking is the risk of discrimination. When you e-mail
your resume, no one can judge you by your looks, ethnic background, way of dressing
yourself ect. Also, your employer might deny you an interview because of pictures or
information about you online. However, if your employer is a person that judge people by
their looks and not by your skills, you aren’t very likely to get the job anyway, unless you
really make a mark at the interview. This is of course is wrong and shouldn’t be tolerated but
unfortunately this is the situation at many work places today.

***

Summary
Online social networking, as most matters, can be both good or bad depending in what
context and for what purpose it is used. I believe that social networking works better when
searching for clients, e.g. companies offering services such as a web designer offering design.

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Andreas Holmström - http://www.andreasholmstrom.com/

Research report – Online Social Networking, 12/12 – 2009, Stockholm

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Matilda Alvarado Thofelt
International IT College of Sweden
Text communication C
Research report

He or she can then show his or her portfolio online and get hired that way, however, if you
are not your own company and if you are not offering services. Online social networking is
not relevant in your job searching. This could even possibly do more harm than good when
applying for a job, although, that risk is quite small as long as you don't have too much
personal content online.

Research report – Online Social Networking, 12/12 – 2009, Stockholm