DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.

Method

Sample

 

            The population of interest for this study is hiring managers or people that are involved in the hiring process for their company or organization in America. The sample represents the entire population and does not limit itself to a particular area or region in America. The sample in this study consists of all persons that responded to emails that were forwarded through personal and professional contacts and posted on the researcher’s personal Blog as well as their Linkedin, Facebook and Twitter accounts. This resulted in a sample size of twenty-six volunteers who took an online questionnaire over a two week period. Out of the 26 respondents, two were filtered out because they did not complete the entire survey leaving a population sample of 24. While all respondents are involved in the hiring process of their organization, their company’s economic sectors varied.

 

            Most of the  participants were from the economic sector of Education (70.8%) with 17 participants. The following economic sectors with the most participants are IT (8%) and Customer Care (8.3%), with 2 participants. Lastly, the economics sectors of Health Care (4%), Management Consulting (4.2%), Banking (4.2%), and News Media (4.2%) each had one participant. There were no participants from the other five economic sectors listed: Food Service; Entertainment; Transportation; Retailing; Tourism. Out of the 24 subjects, 11 (45%) of the subjects actually web-check candidates. The economic sectors of the 11 respondents who web-check candidates consist of: Education (63%), Customer Care (18%), News Media (9.1%), Management and Consulting (9.1%).

While the study sample cannot be considered representative of the original population of interest, generalizability was not a primary goal -- the major purpose of this study was to determine whether an organization’s specific economic sector made more of an effort to incorporate web 2.0 technologies in the hiring process.

 

Measures

 

Survey research is used for this study. This type of research is used to determine the impact of potential-employees online posted content in the hiring process. The survey instrument for this study will utilize SurveyMonkey.com; therefore, all responses are completely anonymous. SurveyMonkey.com allows access to subjects’ computers IP address to control the internal validity of the procedure. The “browse” and “filter” options through SurveyMonkey.com allow the researcher to analyze comprehensive and specific segments of the sample population. The external validity may be threatened by the non-representative sample. The majority of respondants fell in the Educational economic sector (66.6%). With a total of twelve economic sectors to choose from eight economic sectors (66.6%) had no respondants.    

 

Design

 

The questionnaire is created with a cross-sectional design. Twenty-six hiring managers or people in charge of hiring at their company/organization as part of a questionnaire created through SurveyMonkey.com. Data for two participants were omitted from all analysis because the participants did not complete the survey. The first 6 items of the questionnaire ask the subject to identify different aspects of their company and their hiring process. The next seven items ask them to answer according to the last employee their company hired. The remaining items ask their opinion regarding aspects of the hiring process and “web-checking” candidates using a 4-point scale (1=Very Likely, 2=Somewhat Likely, 3=Somewhat Unlikely, 4=Very Unlikely). Due to the scope of the project, the first thirteen items (excluding economic sector) were not incorporated into final analysis.

 

 

Results/Discussion

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.