September 2007
Social Networking in the New Work World
By
President of Workforce Associates
September 2007
Social Networking in the New Work World
By
President of Workforce Associates
We have been following social networking for several years, watching it pick up steam with the younger crowd who delight in having their own websites and meeting kindred spirits online. However, the social networking game has quickly been taken over by job hunters of all ages and degrees of education and experience. Here are some sites less well known to the general public but on everyone’s hit list in the job searching community:
The founders, alums from Stanford and MIT, created the curious name for this site by jumbling the letters in the Latin term dos tango, which loosely means to reach for talent. This invite-only site was founded in 2005, now has 250,000 users, and targets 20-to-35-years-olds in the country's top schools and companies to help them find each other and new jobs. The site was inspired by the studies of Stanford University researcher Mark Granovetter, who found that 70% of jobs are discovered through networking. Google has hired 30 to 40 people from the site, says Doostang co-founder Mareza Larizadeh. It's heavy on high-end finance jobs at such firms as investment banks Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley and consultants like McKinsey, he says. Other employers who have recently hired Doostang members include MTV, Apple, eBay, and ABC.
We first reported on linkedin when it was in its infancy. This is certainly one fast growing kid! As of the end of August, LinkedIn boasts more than 13 million active users in five continents. It targets professionals between the ages of 25 and 65 and lets them connect with others in their current jobs, past jobs, or schools they have attended. People use it to maintain professional ties or for specific tasks such as tapping their contacts to find a good attorney or to do due diligence on a company they're looking to interview or invest in. Even though its services are currently offered only in English, half of its market is overseas, with India and Brazil being its fastest-growing international hubs. Many job hunters like "the no-nonsense attitude" of LinkedIn. Its direct, plain vanilla Craigslist.org style certainly appeals to those who are so busy at work they have little time for idle surfing on social networking sites.
Xing that is based out of Hamburg, Germany is shaping up to be LinkedIn's chief rival. While it has fewer users--3.5 million--this German networking site operates in 16 languages, and its strategic partnerships and acquisitions this year will give it access to new markets. In March, it announced a deal with ZoomInfo, the search engine that trawls the Internet to collect details on professionals (without their knowledge). By this fall, Xing users will be able to tap into ZoomInfo's profiles of nearly 36 million business people and 3.8 million companies worldwide. In May, it acquired Neurona, a networking site that has 850,000 members in Spain and Latin America. Xing connects people to jobs and contacts at companies and also recently added a personal brand-management feature that allows people to influence what shows up first when their name is Googled.
Founded in 2004 by United Capital Investment, a Shanghai investment firm that funds startups, Wealink describes itself as a "social capital bank." It mixes entertainment and business and helps people find their next job or maintain their digital profile. While still in a testing phase and operating only in Mandarin, it has 1 million registered users and room to grow: According to the latest report from the China Internet Network Information Center, 46 million Chinese Web surfers use the Internet while at work. Other similar homegrown sites that have sprung up in China include Linklist and Tianji. While social networking is gaining in popularity among adults, its main users are the young, and they tend to use it more for entertainment than business. But that's changing as they begin to enter the workforce.
This networking platform, an outgrowth of Bangalore media company Silicon Media Technologies, and Silicon India magazine in Fremont, Calif., is designed to connect Indians around the world for professional purposes. With nearly 100,000 users, it has an apprentice and mentoring program pairing the young and the old, and organizes career fairs in India and America. Microsoft, America Online, and Cisco have hired through SiliconIndia. Rival sites include San Francisco's techTribe, which has an audience of 300,000 professionals in India. NEN Online, an offshoot of India's National Entrepreneurship Network, is another popular homegrown site for the Indian professional set.
Community Connect, Inc. (CCI), the leading online niche social-networking company, celebrated its 10-year anniversary this summer. Founded by Benjamin Sun, Calvin Wong, Peter Chen and Michael Montero, it is now the 5th largest US social networking property/publisher, measured in page views (Comscore Media Metrix June 2007).
As one the very first niche social-networking communities to develop on the Internet, the founders of Community Connect realized before anyone else the potential strength of bringing like-minded groups and ethnic/affinity communities together for both users and advertisers. They leveraged their propriety technology platform to launch sites for a number of niche communities including www.BlackPlanet.com for the African American community, www.MiGente.com for the Latino community, www.AsianAve.com for the Asian community, www.GLEE.com for the GLBT community, and Faithbase.com for the Christian community.
Founded three years ago solely as a social-networking site, Facebook opened to people with corporate addresses in 2006 and is increasingly used for work as well as play. It now has 37 million users and thousands of business networks. Privacy features, such as control over which people see your profile and how much of it they can see, helps attract the more cautious. Facebook has developed other business-friendly features, such as the ability to use contacts to lend or borrow money--to help fund startups, for example. You can now even buy or sell items, à la eBay, with people in your networks.
Then there are social networking websites that target professionals in particular industries. Here are some examples of ones that may be of interest to you:
This relatively new site is for physicians and health professionals who can tap into news from medical journals and find out who is hiring around the country. It was founded by Daniel Palestrant while he was a surgical resident in Boston last year. It covers discussions about new medical device and controversial new cancer treatments to help professionals determine what’s rising or falling in popularity. Doctors also use this site to recruit new docs and allied health talent to their hospitals and clinics. Identifies of Sermo users are not disclosed to protect its non-paying users while allowing free flow discussion among them.
INMobile.org was also launched last year by Adam Zawel, former director of the Yankee Group‘s Wireless US Research Program. It is a social network for the wireless industry and has attracted already 700+ executives and upper managers at cellphone makers, wireless operators, and media companies. For job hunters, it’s a great way to find out what the latest trends are, who the companies that are hot or not are, and to find names of executives to tap for interviews and further networking.
You recognize this website, of course, because it’s become one of the grand granddaddies of social networking by sharing insights and experiences and gossip by those on the inside with those who want to know how to get a job (or avoid one!) with a particular company. By using the techniques from these newer sites, you’ll be able to use vault.com more effectively to get the insiders’ view and perspective re job possibilities in thousands of companies in the US.
A word of caution! Although these social networking sites are fun and “hot” at the moment, don’t be sucked in for more than a few minutes at a time on them. If you’re really keen for a new job right away, most of these sites will occupy huge amounts of time without significant payoff. Enjoy them cuz they’re fun but don’t expect immediate returns. It takes time and patience to find the right social networking contacts and make them work for you.
Enjoy this lovely start to Indian summer and your new career! Let me know which sites you’ve found most useful in your own job search. We love to share your success stories, whether from social networking exploration or the more traditional 40,000 websites that are devoted to job hunting.
I can always be reached at jlommel@WorkforceAssociates.com
Jane M. Lommel, Ph.D.
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