Research Article: 2018 Vol: 22 Issue: 2
Nayeema Sultana, East West University
Shamsul Huq Bin Shahriar, East West University
Silvia Akter, East West University
Maria Rahman, East West University
Purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effectiveness of Facebook, as the source for job advertisements. This study also examined the basic characteristic of the contents of these job advertisements at local Facebook groups and brand pages. Both qualitative and quantitative approach was adopted for the study. Results confirmed that, from the organization’s perspective, it is the cost effective source. From the applicant’s perspective, it is a source of direct communication; still serious dilemma was reported on the question of privacy and security. Finally, according to academic experts, the advertisements characteristic has some problems of poor content, which could have serious effects on corporate reputation.
Job Advertisements, Facebook Groups, Brand Pages, Qualitative Research, Quantitative Method.
Most of the organizations, nowadays consider their human resource as the greatest corporate asset, it is also a foundation of their competitive advantage. Nevertheless, human resource is the most critical strategic source for any corporation, as the valuation of human capital is very complicated; still important for reinforcing the organizational growth. Hiring and retaining the right talent for the right position is the major challenge for the organizations, more specifically for the department of human resource. Through the job advertisements organizations attempt to attract applicants to apply for suitable job positions. Job advertisements are generally generated by organization’s internal human resource experts or external recruiting firms; those mainly work as a third party to assist the organizations with the recruitment processes. Generally, job advertisements are found in the newspapers, on television, or on any notice about a post of job enlistment (Collins, 2012) and it is a part of a wider recruitment procedure of organizations, executed to grasp the attention of the competent applicants for a job.
On the other hand, in his study Breaugh (1992) found one significant disadvantage of publicizing job advertisement that it becomes very difficult to distinguish or notable from other advertisements. So this section for job advertisements should be separated and specific so that readers and potential candidates can easily get those. Though local newspapers also publish job advertisements, but they do not actually maintain any sorting system; most of them are rather randomly systematized. Importantly, if it is a printed version of a newspaper the job advertisement serves the purpose only for a day, if it is an online version that advertisement is kept in the archive of that particular date when it was published; still it becomes very difficult for the readers to find that advertisement again, if the link has not been saved or shared. Nevertheless, over the last decade the mode of communication has changed dramatically; consequently compiling with the revolution process the medium of advertisement has also gone through a huge transformation. In this digital epoch of interactive communication, developing countries are also trying to keep equal pace with the digitalization and technological advancements. Developing countries such as Bangladesh are extensible adopting the digital platforms on the way to a definite vision of being ‘Digital Bangladesh’ (Bangladesh Enterprise Institute, 2010). The access of internet has become easier for the people through various devices such as mobile phones (smart phones), laptop, notebook, Tablet PC and etc.; the use of internet has also increased instantaneously. Where people are spending more time on internet, local companies are also adopting the digital platforms to reach the mass population; thus they are changing the mode of communication.
Previously, for a job advertisement newspaper was the most popular medium; nowadays due to high availability of internet along with local online newspapers and online job portals, company websites, Social networking sites, e.g. LinkedIn and Facebook (Facebook groups and Facebook brand pages) have turned out to be extremely popular mediums for job advertisements. Facebook, which is already came out as the most popular social networking site (Meiselwitz, 2016; Nielsen, 2012); has achieved the highest attention from the business organizations as the main tool of their social media communication. Nowadays companies are using their official Facebook pages for job advertisements, at the same time, many individual posts the news or information related to employment opportunities, vacancy announcements and job advertisements of different organizations in various public or closed Facebook group. Mainly admin (one or ode individual Facebook users) creates these groups in order to help others (who are searching for jobs or better opportunities); many companies and human resource professionals are also using those groups as these are becoming more popular day by day. This particular study tried to evaluate the job advertisements on these Facebook groups, and effectiveness of Facebook as a platform for sharing job advertisements from three different but important perspectives.
“Organizations trying to attract job applicants face a trade-off in the design of their recruiting advertisements...” (Feldman et al., 2006).
According to Linton, (1990)
“A job advertisement is an indemnified declaration or any announcement in a newspaper or other means about the job positions”
Job advertisements are generally used for recruiting employees from the external sources. One of the important researches on job advertisement was conducted by Feldman, Bearden and Hardesty (2006), in their study, researchers tried to determine the conception of varying contents of different job advertisements and the consequences of message specificity. Job advertisements are essentially different from the general form of advertisements which only give emphasis to the features and benefits of the product or services. Whereas, it requires more details regarding the company, job description, job location, complete application process, compensation and benefits, the main source of information and complete mailing address. It is very important for the employer’s to ensure the authentication of information is well maintained so that potential candidates can find it reliable to apply. In their study Sodhi and Son, (2010) have also focused on content analysis of job advertisements; however, their study was limited to operational research and required skills. Researchers such Orme, (2008) tried to find out what the employers actually search for while they recruit information professionals and library staffs where the researcher actually worked with 180 job advertisements. Cooman and Pepermans, (2012) on the other hand, tried to work with a greater number of job advertisements, as they analysed 1,768 job advertisements and their contents to determine appropriate values related information in job advertisements. Content analysis has been the major form for evaluating the job advertisements in case of various job types i.e. Liberians (Clyde, 2002; Cullen, 2000) and CEO (Ahmed, 2005).
The contents of the job advertisements are exceedingly important that in reality make the potential applicants for the job feel interested (Gatewood et al., 1993) to apply in response to the advertisement. It also helps the candidates understand the educational and professional requirements for the job as well as the job responsibilities. Job advertisement should also contain some important issues i.e. Basic salary, monetary and nonmonetary benefits, job location and also some mandatory information regarding the company. Barber & Roehling (1993) emphasizing on these important issues also mentioned that primarily, potential applicants when making choices on job advertisements are influenced by the information on compensation, benefits and job locations. As employees are one of the most essential sources of competitive advantage for the organizations, perceptibly organizations endeavour to appoint the best talent available in the market through vacancy announcements. Therefore, it is really important to select the right media for their job advertisements, accordingly that it may reach to the target audiences. Then again, within last decades the access and use of internet has increased in developed, developing and less developed countries. In case of a South Asian developing country, Bangladesh, the journey of the internet was started in 1996 and since then it has been used for numerous purposes (Ahmed et al., 2015). However, it took a long time to ensure the internet service at the doors of mass population. Governmental policies regarding ensuring internet services, the remarkable growth of telecommunication sector along with their internet services and finally high availability of smart devices and access of internet from these devices have taken the concept of digitization at the door of mass population all over the country. Subsequently, the use of Social Networking sites (SNS) and social media communication has also increased as a result. It has dramatically transformed the process of communication process, also added many new dimensions. Importantly, the whole information environment has been vividly changed due to social media (Bawden and Robinson, 2009) as it has become an essential source of information (Kilgour et al., 2015; Pavlou and Stewart, 2000).
Kaplan and Haenlein, (2010) defined social media as
“Group of internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technical foundations of Web 2.0 and that allow the creation and exchange of user generated content”.
In his studies, Aharony (2012) mentioned it as a cultural phenomenon and later on, in another study he called it a social phenomenon (Aharony, 2013). Social networking has actually made the communication and social interaction process more dynamic and interesting for its users. Therefore, it has been stated as one of the rapidly growing internet application in the previous two decades (Zhuang et al., 2012). As a result, the numbers of social networking site's users are increasing day by day. One single user may have multiple user accounts on different social networking sites. Nowadays, people are spending a much time on these social networking sites as they can interact, discuss as well as share their thoughts (Raacke and Bonds-raacke, 2008) through these Web.20 based sites. So it has become really important for the business organizations go for a new concept, namely ‘Social media marketing’ (Constantinides, 2014; Drury, 2008) which generated due to more use of social networking sites. Constantinides (2014) suggested social media as a marketing tool and importantly as a part of marketing strategy. Brand communication, promotion and online advertisement are some important parts of this emerging trend of social media marketing. Baird and Parasnis, (2011) in their paper tried to show the link between social media and a new concept cum strategy social customer relationship management. In their paper authors, Baird, who is a Global CRM Research Leader with the IBM Institute for Business Value, IBM Global Services and Parasnis who is a Partner and Vice President for IBM Global Business Services and the Global CRM Leader suggested some important steps for the social media marketing, i.e. to distinguish social media as game changer, better differentiate social media with other channels, think from the perspective of the customers, engage more customers and ask them regarding the customer value and finally use the community platforms. Where, Hutchinson, (2015) argued that half of the social media users are already following different brands.
Considering the advertisement on social media, researchers such Okazaki and Taylor (2013) tried to find out the theoretical foundations (mainly challenges and potential directions) regarding use of social media in international advertising. Among many others Facebook is acknowledged as the most accepted and popular (Meiselwitz, 2016; Chang et al., 2015; Matook et al., 2015; Nielsen, 2012) social networking sites. A university campus based social networking site, founded in 2004, known as ‘Facebook’ now has become a mighty giant social media platform which is now a centre of attraction for many scholars from different areas. In case of marketing research, scholars from diversified areas tried to conceptualize the use of Facebook as the appropriate one for different corporate activities; i.e. as a marketing communication tool (Al-Mu’ani et al., 2014) and as a mean of brand communication from the perspective of a developing country, Bangladesh (Harun, 2015). Many organizations now have their own Facebook brand pages, from these pages they try to promote themselves and to increase customer’s brand engagement (Pongpaew et al., 2017; Kabadayi and Price, 2014; Cvijikj and Michahelles, 2013).Consistent with Tsimonis and Dimitriadis (2014) it is required to understand usage of social media in case of different countries. As people from different countries have different views and perceptions regarding using social media.
In Bangladesh, the popularity of Facebook has also extended within very short period of time; in fact by following the trend, more and more people are becoming active users of Facebook (Harun, 2015). In current year 2017, with 22,000,000 numbers of active Facebook users, Dhaka-the capital of Bangladesh got 2nd position among the top cities in the whole world (The Daily Star, 2017). Facebook provides many unique options to its users, i.e. Create a user profile, connect with others, send friend request, accept other’s friend requests, create Facebook pages, create Facebook groups, add or invite others on these groups and pages, upload contents, like, comment, and share these contents, chat with others and even share contents on these charts through application (App, in short) like a messenger. According to some researchers, Facebook, as a platform for social interaction, is really popular among young people (Palazon et al., 2015; Dogruer et al., 2011; Junco and Cotton, 2011), where Mazman and Usluel, (2010) specified the aged group between 18 to 25 years. Another report confirmed that, more than 60% of adult populations in Bangladesh have the competences of adopting internet and 80% of total internet users are on Facebook where most of them are young (Parvin, 2017).
However, nowadays companies are using Facebook not only for their brand promotion, but also some are even posting job advertisements on their Facebook brand pages. Facebook groups or communities have been usually created for sharing contents, ideas and even for helping each other. Some previous studies, i.e. Ho (2014) found that customer’s community participation in Facebook brand pages has positive effects on generating brand trust and conversely brand trust has positive effects on creating community identifications. The reasons why Facebook has turned into the most popular Social Networking Site (SNS) in a developing country such as Bangladesh are i.e. increased use of smart phones and other devices and easy access to the internet, the unique nature of Facebook as the easiest terms of opening accounts, facilities of connecting with many people, facilities of creating groups and pages, the scope of sharing the contents (write-ups, pictures and memories) with others, scope of reviewing and commenting, chatting and etc. On one side, the growth of the telecommunication sector in Bangladeshi has started to ensure network coverage all over the country and also promote the use of the internet, at the same time, in other side companies producing smart mobile phone have enabled their devices en route for exploring the internet to keep pace with the emergence of ‘Digital Bangladesh’ (Finance Division Ministry of Finance, 2011).
Social media, particularly Facebook, with the facility of easy access to the vast world of social network web; essentially have opened a gateway of enormous opportunities for the businesses all around the world. Not only for larger organizations, but also for the medium and small firms; similarly, for the informal businesses, individual entrepreneurs, non-profit organizations, social communities and volunteer organizations can use Facebook because it is the most affordable and effective communication tool to reach the maximum number of people. It is also a great facility provided by Facebook groups and pages that any Facebook user can be joined as a member in different Facebook groups and pages as well as can directly communicate with the corresponding of that pages or group admin.
Furthermore, they can get time to time notifications and updates from the liked Facebook pages. Interestingly, both local and multinational companies are sharing their job advertisement posts at their Facebook pages today. This type of job or internship posts also increases the interest of the followers to like, share and give comment on those posts and make it viral over online. The same scenario is also seen in different Facebook groups regarding the job advertisement posts. Whereas, Kang et al. (2014) found an alarming issue that where brand trust is increasing due to customer’s enthusiastic participation in Facebook brand pages, on the other side, vulnerability may arise on the issue of personal security regarding sharing personal information e.g. CV, telephone number, address, email or other personal information. And it is observed that while applying for a job in response of job advertisement posts on Facebook, this information is mandatory to share. Previous studies were only occupied with content analysis of job advertisements; or busy with analysing Facebook and its different scopes, uses, applications or other sides. However, these issues regarding job advertisements on Facebook groups and company’s Facebook brand pages never came into the academic discussions. This paper attempts to highlight these important concerns of this emerging trend.
The main purpose of this depth study is to evaluate the effectiveness of a social networking site, Facebook as an important source for job advertisements on different job searching and information sharing Facebook groups and company brand pages. This study furthermore tries to discuss some fundamental characteristic of these job advertisements at the Facebook groups and local company’s Facebook brand pages.
This particular study not only endows with insights into the important aspects of Facebook as a source for job advertisements and the characteristic these job advertisement posts from different perception, but also provides recommendations to enrich the advertisement contents in order to better communicate their message with the target groups. This study will contribute in the case of both the areas i.e. marketing and human resource management and also offers three totally different perspectives over one subject matter for the rigorous understanding.
As the research is exploratory in nature; therefore researchers followed both the qualitative and quantitative approaches.
Qualitative Approach
As it is important to underlying the concepts and the relationship (Frankfort-Nchmias and Nachmias, 1996) to get the vivid picture of the subject matter; therefore at the first phase a qualitative research approach is adopted to analyse the trend. Primary data are collected from three different perspectives through depth interviews for congregating data of great depth (King, 1994). Initially, researchers took three Facebook groups, which are created in order to mutual corporate help and share job opportunities. These groups are e.g. “Vacancy announcement”, “Life after Grad” and “Jobs for EWUians”.
Three selected company brand pages were also closely observed. 45 job advertisement posts from these groups and pages have randomly picked by the researchers, which are shown to the academic experts from the area of marketing and human resource management. Firstly, four academic experts, two from marketing and two from Human resources management are interviewed in-depth. Then again, Three Human resource managers are interviewed to get the organization’s perspective regarding the issue.
Finally, thirty prospective applicants, who have already applied at least once in response to the job advertisements on the Facebook groups or company’s Facebook brand pages, are interviewed. Most of the interview sessions are designed with unstructured questions, none of them are recorded and important notes are taken by the authors. Each interview session lasts for approximately fifteen to thirty minutes. On the other hand, for profound theoretical understanding, different books, journals, reports related to the research topic have been used as the secondary data sources.
Quantitative Approach
For the quantitative part of the research, a survey has been done with 100 prospective job applicants who have been primarily selected through snowball sampling technique (Tabachnick and Fidell, 2001) where some primary participants were recruited from previously selected 3 different Facebook job advertisement posting groups, and then references from the previously selected samples. For quantitative analysis, effectiveness of Facebook as the source of job advertisements is measured using a regression analysis method where there are 7 independent variables in total with 1 dependent variable.
The dependent variable (Y)=Facebook is the most effective source for job advertisements to be engaged with potential candidates.
The independent variables (Xs):
X1= Easier accessibility from mobile phone and pc
X2= Way of direct communication with professionals and admin
X3=Getting updates on new job posts from FB joined groups
X4=Being notified about job from the company’s official Facebook page
X5=Ensure job post reliability
X6=Presence of sufficient information related with job posts
X7=Assurance of personal security
Hypothesis Testing for Regression
Null Hypothesis (H0): There is no linear relationship between X & Y
Null Hypothesis (H1): All βs ≠ 0 (There is a relationship, positive/negative between X & Y)
Regression Equation:
Y=β0+β1X1+β2X2+β3X3+β4X4+β5X5+β6X6+β7X7
Qualitative Data Analysis
Interview Summary of the Academic Experts
According to an Academic expert (Marketing-1)
“Through the advertisements, businesses provide an essential message to its target audiences i.e. Customer, suppliers, stakeholders and other interest groups, so the message should be very clear and well designed”
Job advertisements are clearly different from the general form of advertisements of product and services. But still it is a part related to organization’s promotional process and public relation. It is not only for acquiring the best talent from the market, but also for promoting organizational culture and values. However, job advertisements, internship announcements at company owned Facebook brand pages seems very well managed. Messages are clearer; contents are simple but effective and trustworthy. On the other hand, though Facebook groups are created and managed for the greater purpose of mutual help still concern should be given to, content, design and full information should be provided in order to maintain reliability.
According to an Academic expert (Marketing-2)
“Advertising is called a paid form of non-personal communication, but Facebook groups and brand pages have created a new span for free advertising”
However, that doesn’t mean it should be used as like however one wants. It is an interactive media and has a huge scope for taking suggestions from audiences and experts so companies and corresponding should use it. Before making advertisement, organizations and the responsible people should go for qualitative audit; it can certainly help them for making good quality contents for job advertisements, as it is also related to organization’s status. Nevertheless, job posts on the Facebook brand pages increases the popularity of the pages per se through making them viral by the followers. The organization should also need to assess the qualitative media effect seriously.
According to an Academic expert (HRM-1) mentioned that
“Though it is an informal platform, the groups on Facebook are mainly created informally with some unofficial purposes”
Still, when it is about job advertisements, it becomes an official substance. Organizational image, its culture and mission are deeply related with the staffing process. Consequently, organizations as well as the people dealing with the job advertisement process should be more careful regarding the contents. All official contacts should be there, rather than personal contacts i.e. emails, contact numbers. Importantly, if possible the application process should be linked with the official Facebook brand pages or websites.
Similar views regarding the contents were suggested by other academic expert (HRM-2) to. However, he also added that
“In my experience, I have seen that organizations keep saying that they maintain some confidentiality regarding their benefits and compensation packages, job descriptions and workplace environments. We have already experienced that this information are missing in most of these job advertisements on Facebook groups. This is actually a wrong perception. Getting a huge response should not be their intention rather having qualified and interested applicants. As organizations are getting the opportunity for free advertisements on Facebook; I think they should be more careful because it’s a giant media and anybody can see the posts (With group access) can comment on it, share it so the mistakes can also be viral with the advertisements, which will actually have reflection on organization’s public image. So there should be a manual, not only the job descriptions. I can see some job advertisements haven’t mentioned the organization’s name, just said that–in a multinational company! This is not a way of job advertising, really not.”
According to the academic experts, the main problems with these kinds of job advertisements were poor content designing and presentation. Evidently, it was found that the job advertisements on Facebook groups were poorly presented. In some cases, some corresponding who posted the job advertisements on those Facebook groups intentionally avoided the company names; merely mentioned “For a Multinational Company” or “For a Reputed Local Company”. According to the experts, this seems really unprofessional also much unexpected from any company. As the advertisement is a viral communication system and companies are expecting to expand benefits from the uses of Facebook so they need to better understand the negative and positive effect of this vast media. Therefore, they have to be very careful while using this influential platform as the source of communication. As an advertisement is an essential component of the communication system; the contents should be well designed and presented. So poor advertising contents or messages may create “fear appeals”; anxiety or negative perception in the market. Since, advertisement has been identical to information so any advertisement should contain required information, it can be even in the form of “Direct headline”. Firstly, organizations, especially the human resource and marketing department should carefully deal with the important information and communication objectives and tasks for the job advertisements. Though Facebook groups are sources for free advertisements, its influential role-both negative and positive consequences are manifestly serious to be concerned about. So, there should not be any scope for mistake while dealing with the contents.
Interview Summary from the Human Resource Managers
At this part Human Resource managers were asked to evaluate Facebook groups and brand pages as the effective sources for posting job advertisements. Interestingly, all of them agreed on one common point that
“Facebook groups and brand pages are the most cost effective sources for job advertisements”
As online job portals, newspapers charge much money for per job advertisements. In online job portals there are complex arrangement for Top and Bump or Boost the ad, where they charge extra money for these. On the other hand, they can post same job advertisements on the Facebook groups and pages completely free of cost. Whereas, a few people check company career pages on the websites for searching jobs, job advertisement posts on the Facebook groups become viral within a very short span of time, people can tag their friend on the comment section, so number of viewers also increases. Posting job advertisements on Facebook is most effective when urgent candidates are required. As most of the Facebook groups are maintained by university alumni, so it goes viral quickly through group posting and sharing. With a huge number of group members, including prospective candidates with little or more experience and fresh graduates; a huge number of responses from these groups could come even with an hour. But sometimes lots of people apply without even checking the post and requirements, so HR department needs to give some extra time to sort out expected CVs.
On the point of contents, one HR manager (1) mentioned that
“See we try to provide all the necessary information on the vacancy announcements in both the platforms i.e. Job portals and Facebook groups. In most of the cases we use the same format and try to make it simple. Due to our organizational confidentiality and strategic objectives, we are bound to not sharing all information at the advertisements…… Another reason of using Facebook is, it increases our brand popularity, through views, reviews, share, tag and comments”
It is also a fact that sometimes organizations depend on their present employees and their references as line managers or departmental employees they try to find any appropriate candidate from own university or contacts. Though it is the job of human resource management, but in special cases rules are being obliterated due to organizational strategic missions. So, in those cases, the corresponding designs the job advertisements by themselves and keeps those ads simple as they are using these only for private contacts in groups. In such cases, corresponding feels it better to use personal email addresses and even sometimes sorts CV and send them directly to the human resource department or line managers for further implementations. In some situations like when organizations need to hire temporary employees, or interns they use this approach mostly. Another issue that human resource managers mentioned that publicizing job advertisement in printed newspaper has become an old approach for the private companies to use.
The response rate from these printed job advertisements is very less at present. In Bangladesh, very few people use LinkedIn as a professional platform. That’s why HR professionals are using Facebook groups and brand pages. It is also very appropriate to say that, this is also correlated with the employee branding and brand popularity as well. In both brand pages and Facebook groups, companies give a lot of effort for employee branding and brand promotions. It is mainly done for creating a positive impression regarding organizational culture, promoting organizational values and good work place environment.
Interview Summary of the Prospective Applicants
At this stage thirty prospective job applicants were initially interviewed, who spends minimum 1-5 hours a day on Facebook. They were asked about the job advertisements on Facebook groups and brand pages. Some points those were found in this interactive depth interview session are:
1. As applicants are getting fewer responses from the job portals, they found Facebook groups and brand pages more consistent regarding the responses;
2. They now have greater access to the internet and spend a lot of time on Facebook. They can search new job opportunity from this platform, join many groups for career suggestions and new job opportunities. They read news from online newspapers, mostly, but do not care much about job advertisements in the newspapers;
3. There is a scope for direct interaction with the employers and corresponding; Admin of the groups for further inquiries; People see this as a way of social interaction, making contacts, references and gaining knowledge about corporate culture;
4. As Facebook offers an option named ‘Notifications’, the members of those job advertisement groups and brand pages can easily get updates regarding new job advertisements, so ads become viral really fast;
5. Applicants feel secure to share personal information and CV through the company email address rather sharing to any personal email address;
6. Sometimes employers, corresponding do not provide sufficient information regarding the company, job location, basic salary and benefits, job specification and description. So these kinds of advertisements sometimes say that
‘These job vacancies are for any multinational company’
Or
‘Salary is negotiable’
It creates a dilemma for the applicants to take decision whether they should apply or not.
Quantitative Data Analysis of Survey Questionnaire
From the survey over 100 prospective candidate’s following survey analysis are found that, 74% (most) respondent’s age is in between 23-27 years, 16% respondents are of 28 to 32 years and 8% are in between 18-22 years. 59% of respondents were prospective candidates (including fresh graduates and job seekers) and 41% are currently job holders. 99% respondents use internet for searching job advertisements and 1% does not. 93% of total respondents use Facebook as their main online communication tool where 3% use other online communication tools.
Both the Online communication tools, namely ‘Viber’ and ‘Whatsapp’ have 2% users. Interestingly, here in the survey it is found that among these 100 respondents no one use Twitter. About 38% respondents use Facebook for 1 to 3 hours, 22% respondents use Facebook for 3 to 5 hours and also use for 1 hour. About 18% respondents use Facebook for more than 5 hours. It is observed that, 54% respondents use Facebook groups and brand page for searching job advertisement, 33% use online job portal, 10% has a profile on LinkedIn, 2% search on company website and 1% search in the newspaper.
Analysis on Anova
From the above statistic Table 1, it is observed that the level of significance for this study is.000 where the sum of square for regression is 48.186 with 7 degrees of freedom and residual is 59.454 with 92 degrees of freedom. The rule says that, studies which have level of significance lower than 0.05 those are appropriate. Therefore, this study also proves the appropriateness as here the level of significance is 0.000 which is smaller enough than 0.05 levels. The F value of this study is 10.652 (6.884/0.646). So it can say that, with the dependent variable (Facebook is the effective source for job advertisements to be engaged with potential candidates), identified 7 independent variables (easier accessibility from mobile phone and PC, way of direct communication with professionals and admin, getting updates on new job posts from FB joined groups, being notified about job from company’s official Facebook page, presence of sufficient information related with job posts, ensure job post reliability, assurance of personal security) are correlated. Thus, the null hypothesis of this study is rejected.
| Table 1 Anovaa |
||||||
| Model | Sum of Squares | df | Mean Square | F | Sig. | |
| 1 | Regression | 48.186 | 7 | 6.884 | 10.652 | 0.000 |
| Residual | 59.454 | s92 | 0.646 | |||
| Total | 107.640 | 99 | ||||
Regression Analysis
The R Square value for this study is 0.448 which represents the explained variation in dependent variable due to independent variables where adjusted R square value is 0.406. According to the rule, those regression models will be fit where the value of the adjusted R square will be nearer to the value of R square. From the above model summary Table 2, it is identified that the value of adjusted R square is 0.406 which is closer with the R square value 0.448 which shows the consistency with the rule. On the other hand, the calculated value of F is 10.652 with 0.000 level of significance. Thereby, it can be said that the regression model of this study is fit.
| Table 2 Model Summary |
|||||||||
| Model | R | R Square | Adjusted R Square | Std. Error of the Estimate | Change Statistics | ||||
| R Square Change | F Change | df1 | df2 | Sig. F Change | |||||
| 1 | 0.669 | 0.448 | 0.406 | 0.80389 | 0.448 | 10.652 | 7 | 92 | 0.000 |
Regression Table
The estimated regression equation is:
Y=1.818+0.065 X1+3.626 X2+0.571 X3+3.454 X4+4.120 X5+(-0.433)X6+(-0.900)X7
So, effectiveness of Facebook as the source of job advertisements (Y)=1.818+0.065 easier accessibility from mobile phone and PC+3.626 ways of direct communication with professionals and admin+0.571 getting updates on new job posts from FB joined groups+3.454 being notified about job from company’s official Facebook page+4.120 presence of sufficient information related to job posts+(-0.433) source of reliability+(-0.900) assurance of personal security. Here, it is understood that, with the dependent variable-effectiveness of Facebook as the source of job advertisements to be engaged with potential candidates, total 3 independent variables-way of direct communication with professionals and admin (X2), notified about job from company’s official Facebook page (X4), the presence of sufficient information on the job post (X6) with the level of significance 0.000, 0.001 and 0.000 respectively (Table 3).
| Table 3 Coefficientsa |
||||||
| Model | Unstandardized Coefficients | Standardized Coefficients | t | Sig. | ||
| B | Std. Error | Beta | ||||
| 1 | (Constant) | 0.943 | 0.519 | 1.818 | 0.072 | |
| I prefer Facebook groups and brand pages for searching job advertisements due to easier access from my mobile phone and PC | 0.005 | 0.078 | 0.006 | 0.065 | 0.949 | |
| I like searching job advertisements at Facebook group and brand pages as I can directly communicate with the employer and group admin for further query | 0.300 | 0.083 | 0.324 | 3.626 | 0.000 | |
| I always get notifications about job advertisements on my Facebook account from the groups where I have joined. | 0.041 | 0.071 | 0.055 | 0.571 | 0.570 | |
| I am also being notified regarding vacancy posts from different companie’s Facebook brand pages that I ‘Like’ | 0.294 | 0.085 | 0.299 | 3.454 | 0.001 | |
| I like to respond to those job advertisements posted on Facebook where sufficient information is given | 0.313 | 0.076 | 0.372 | 4.120 | 0.000 | |
| To me, getting vacancy posts through Facebook is completely reliable | -0.034 | 0.078 | -0.042 | -0.433 | 0.666 | |
| I prefer to respond towards those job advertisements on Facebook where company e-mail address has been given properly rather than any personal e-mail ID | -0.066 | 0.073 | -0.072 | -0.900 | 0.371 | |
| a. Dependent Variable: Facebook is the most effective source for job advertisements to be engaged with potential candidates. | ||||||
Here the research findings confirmed that, for the organization’s Facebook has proven as the most cost effective source for posting their job advertisements, though there are differences between posting job advertisement on Facebook groups and Brand pages, in terms of contents. More than fifty percent of the respondents are seeking job over Facebook due to easier access on it from their smart mobile phones and PC. Almost all the respondents have agreed that from Facebook joined groups they are getting regular updates and also been notified by others about potential jobs which are helping them in brightening their career. Additionally, it can also help the organizations to increase the popularity of their Facebook Brand pages through making the job advertisements viral by the followers of the brand pages.
On the other hand, from the prospective applicant’s perspective, it was found that, though it is actually a source of direct communication to the reliable authority through the brand pages and groups; the question is arising on maintaining privacy and security due to personal dealing. Respondents also mentioned that their disinterest grows when the job posts are coming from a personal Facebook ID having personal e-mail address rather than the company’s email because they have fear of disclosing their own personal information like mobile number, home address which may create danger for them (Here, we must consider that, recently some security measures taken by ‘Facebook’ per se; in order to provide greater comfort to its users have been much appreciated by the users). Besides, lack of reliable information, less information regarding the company, compensation and benefits, job description also create negative perceptions. Incomplete information and usage of personal e-mail id in the job posts on Facebook groups are the main reasons for some prospective applicants to ignore those.
Here to be noted that; in recent years, security issues related to Facebook has got much important from the academic perspective, however it was never described from this angle.
Finally, from the analysis of academic expert views it was found that, the advertisements characteristic still has some sober problems of contents. Clearly, these types of poor content presentations could have serious effects on corporate reputation as there is huge scope of debate on Facebook regarding the pitiable contents. The entire communication process could wrong due to the poor advertisement contents, so qualitative audit and assessment of the qualitative media effect of Facebook are suggested. At this juncture, qualitative audit can help the organizations to make better contents for the advertisements, posts on Facebook and also to attract the potential applicants. It should be kept in mind that, Facebook is well-accepted by people not only as an interactive medium, but also as a medium of communication and advertising which is fairly different from the other media e.g. Newspapers, online job portals and company websites. So, organizations also have to assess the qualitative media effect of Facebook before posting any job advertisements. Deliberate qualitative media effect analysis can help them to learn from previous mistakes of poor content, designing and be able to reduce any noise in the communication process on Facebook for ensuring its effectiveness.
Undoubtedly, Facebook is a powerful media for communication, promotional activities and advertisements. Job advertising through Facebook groups and brand pages are demonstrated as the most cost effective method for communication and getting responses from a huge number of prospective job applicants. Nonetheless, organizations should be careful regarding the job advertisement contents, as it is an important part of the virtual communication process. Facebook is an interactive medium to which allocates back-and-forth flow of information so the organization must consider its effects also, as due to any mistake the process of communication can be hampered. At the end it can be concluded that, Facebook can be the most an effective source for the job advertisements from the both ends; besides it can be a cost effective and collaborative tool for organizational branding; lastly, in case of Bangladesh and most of the people including job holders and fresh graduates have positive perception about applying as a response of these job advertisements.