Like it or not - The Recruitment Practises of Today A qualitative study on how Social Network Sites are used within recruitment

Abstract

This paper investigates how technology in the interaction with humans is situated in practice and creates possibilities and new practices within organizations. In particular, this study explores how the technology of Social Network Sites (SNSs) is used within recruitment processes. The paper uses a qualitative method and is based on two case studies, where a private and a public organization are compared. Data has been collected by conducting 18 interviews with a field researcher and respondents within the two organizations. Additionally, SNSs posts and internal documents from the organizations have been collected. The paper uses a sociomateriality and affordance lens to analyse the collected data and identifies four functions of SNSs in relation to SNSs affordances. In addition, this paper reveals that practices within recruitment are being established in imbrication between humans and technology, in relation to the different SNSs functions, but depending on organizational context, individual context and the relation between SNSs affordances. This paper contributes to new insights in the research field since previous research has not focused on how practices have been situated, but rather on the implications of SNSs usage within recruitment.