SDS: Recruitment Agency
specialising in recruitment services for japanese speaking job seekers in Singapore

Looking for staffs with the same wavelength as you?
Singapore social networking service sets trend as recruitment tool

You will discover, after at least a year, that the method of classified advertising to employ local staff in Singapore is very different from the Japanese model.

Here, in Singapore, the ads in newspapers are much more effective and impactful than when they appear in other media. Also, recruitment statistics are compiled from the newspaper ads.

At the same time, the use of SNS (social networking services) such as Twitter and Facebook is definitely on the rise in Singapore.

This emergence of this trend brings to mind the well-known, traditional Japanese folk tale, “Straw Millionaire,” in which a poor man became wealthy through a series of successive trades, starting with a single piece of straw. The moral of this folk tale is reflected in how the currently nascent use of SNS for job recruitment could potentially grow to be a significant recruitment movement.

Here’s an actual case of how one person leveraged on SNS to land a good job, as reported by The New Paper on 8th June 2011.

The 41-year-old Singaporean, Mr Kerry Reutens, who was a freelance computer programmer, was browsing through his Twitter timeline when he spotted a tweet for a job opening at a Singapore graphic and web design studio, Brew Creative. The tweet included an e-mail address for interested applicants to respond.

Following an exchange of email, he was called for an interview for the position of programmer. He was eventually successful in getting the job.

Brew Creative hired two out of their three staff via Twitter. Ms. Vicki Lew, co-owner of Brew Creative, said: “With social networks, you tend to get involved with people who are on the same wavelength as you, so I guess the old saying of ‘birds of a feather flock together' applies".

She’s not stopping at just Facebook and Twitter as recruitment tools. She’s also considering using LinkedIn, a social network for professional connections, for the next round of hiring.

According to a report this year on social media by recruitment agency Achieve Group, 52 per cent of the companies polled said there was a five to 10 per cent rise in hiring through social media last year.

Mr Benjamin Koe, head of client leadership at JamieQ, a Singapore-based company which monitors social media for its clients, comments: "Although the interviews and submission of curriculum vitae (CVs) or job histories are still done in the old-fashioned way, the fact is that it is getting as a hook for applicants to be interested in the job. “After reading the detailed job description on our corporate website, they have a chat with us before making a decision for an interview."

We have previously discussed this trend of using SNS for recruitment (the case of Standard Chartered Bank ) in our newsletter. It seems that this trend will continue to grow.

But Mr Adrian Loh, a senior consultant of recruitment firm Robert Walters, warns: "Social media itself only may not allow us to reach certain target groups of talent".

"It is still more feasible to fully utilise both the traditional methods and social media platforms,” he adds.

As a recruit agency specialising in recruitment services for Japanese-speaking job seekers in Singapore, we track such trends closely as we want to find the best ways to provide the most suitable applicants for our clients.