Hashtag hire me!

With social media overtaking nearly every facet of life in todays tech-savvy modern culture, it was only a matter of time before employee recruitment opportunities hit your news feed.

It is imperative for someone in business, or even trying to be in business, be on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. The days are gone, mostly, where companies actively banned workers clicking on profiles, pictures and videos during work hours.

The major market emerging today for those seeking employment is the social media spectrum This couldn’t be more obvious when you look at the work of Zartis, a new company based right here in Cork.

Zartis has developed a series of online programs to help companies avoid the cost of hiring recruiters, but the emphasis on social media tells its own story. 

“There is an age thing with using the different platforms of social media,” says Zartis CEO John Dennehy.

“Most people I know are on LinkedIn and would use it more than Facebook. People who are in the tech sector and working in the tech sector for the last 15 years would use LinkedIn. Before I ever go to a meeting, I go to LinkedIn and look at the people I’m going to meet.”

The application of social media to the employment sector means there now is a whole new world of checking on potential employees and potential business partners. Even if you already have a job, finding that next step can be easily achieved through social media contacts and meeting with like-minded people in similar industries.

 “I have my profile on LinkedIn set to public and I think people are going to start using it for that a lot more. People will use it for checking out what people they are going to meet, as opposed to checking out on Facebook.”

Zartis already has clients around the world for its product on referring employment and gaining specialised workers. The simplicity of the operation to people not in tune with the complexities of the web application, is the main attractiveness of the feature.

“The program suggests people form my pages with the search words and I can send a message to those people about the job. The beauty is that it is really easy, you can post on Facebook, share on Twitter, etc.”

The company launched the product in July 2011 but are still surprised at the lack of Human Resource managers on social media, which is where their design comes in most useful

“There is only three per cent of HR recruiters on Twitter. That is such a tiny amount so we try and help them as much as we can through the app. Once a job is tweeted from a company of ours we immediately take it and post it on our feed and through LinkedIn and Facebook so it gets to as wide an audience as possible.”

The Zartis software is currently online and ready to use in a free trial at www.zartis.com.