#RecruitmentSocialMedia : How Swedish organizations can utilize the beneficial outcomes of using social media in the recruitment process

Sammanfattning: Due to changes in the labour market, organizations need to adjust and change their attitude towards the recruitment process. The traditional way of recruiting will eventually disappear and the use of social media will play an important part in recruiting. The recruitment process is a set of actions created by the organization and consists of: Recruitment Objectives, Strategy Development, Recruitment Activities, Intervening Job Applicant Variables and Recruitment Results. The use of social media in the recruitment process has beneficial outcomes such as: Higher quality of job application, increased diversity of applicants, improved target group orientation, cost and time saving, all of which will help the organization to improve their recruitment. It has become more common among organizations to implement social media, but it has been found that Swedish organizations' HR departments are not in use of social media to the same extent when recruiting. Many organizations do not use or only use social media to a limited extent in the recruitment process, due to lack of skills and knowledge in how to use it effectively. There are also ethical and legal issues that arise and prevent the use of social media in the recruitment process. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how Swedish organizations use social media in their recruitment process. By doing so, it could give Swedish organizations a better understanding and knowledge on how they can utilize the beneficial outcomes from social media. In order to answer the essay's research question, a comparative case study was used based on qualitative semi-structured interviews with a Likert scale of four Swedish organizations and two recruitment organizations that have an international standard when it comes to recruitment. It has been found that Swedish companies are new to the use of social media and that they can use social media to a higher extent during the recruitment process. Swedish organizations can utilize the beneficial outcomes of using social media in the recruitment process by expanding its use of social media and managing data from social media efficiently.