Asia leads in social media job hunting

A majority of Malaysians are turning to social media as a means to look for new jobs, making them the third highest in the world.

The 2013 Kelly Global Workforce Index found 67% of Malaysians prefer searching for jobs using social media over traditional methods such as newspaper advertisements, online job boards or recruitment companies.

Thailand and Indonesia were identified as the top two leading countries in the world to embrace social media when looking for jobs, coming in at 79% and 70%, respectively.

"Online recruitment and social media have transformed recruitment and provided an exponential increase in the volume of job information in circulation," the survey reported.

"People not only search for jobs online but engage in conversations and swap information about jobs, careers and prospective employers."

While social media may be making job hunting easier for candidates, tapping into this vast sea of information is precisely "the challenge for HR managers and employees alike".

This trend seems to be more pronounced in the Asian region, as the Western hemisphere remained wedded to more traditional means of eliciting news about jobs.

"More than half of Asia Pacific respondents (56%) had been contacted about a potential job via social media, compared with 41% in the Americas and 38% in Europe, the Middle East and Africa," the survey said.

The annual survey brought in corporate insights sourced from more than 120,000 respondents from 31 countries across the Americas, EMEA and APAC regions, and examined the way social media has impacted job selection, career choice and recruitment.