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One in six Americans used social web to get their job

Going on Facebook to find work, not avoid it

A study of workers in America showed that one in six (17 per cent) of them found their current job through a social networking site.

Referral from a contact was the most successful tactic for finding a new job, with 36 per cent gaining employment that way. Newspapers and internet job boards came next and many people used internal jobs boards too.

Most people used a combination of factors, but social media made a strong showing, accounting for 15 per cent of people's current jobs.

Although LinkedIn was used for job searches to a much greater extent than Facebook, more people tended to be on Facebook and had more contacts on there, so it ended up being the main place that people found work.

Of those who found jobs on social networks, 78 per cent said they got one through Facebook, 40 per cent said LinkedIn and 42 per cent said Twitter. Given the maths, we're assuming that people's use of the networks overlapped.

Social network referrals were highly productive for job seekers – a natural extension of offline networking – 20 per cent of job seekers said they had made new professional connections on Facebook. Of those still unemployed, 54 per cent are using social networks to get a new gig.

The Social Job Survey queried 1,205 people who were in work or looking for it.

Jobvite describes itself as a recruiting platform for the social web. ®

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