Evaluating the potential of social networking services for hospital recruitment

Abstract

Currently, the German healthcare industry is a fast-growing sector. However, it has to face enormous challenges posed by the increasing lack of skilled employees. Particularly in the hospital sector, qualified staff is one of the most critical success factors. Therefore, it was analysed whether social networking services such as Facebook and the German business network XING provide suitable opportunities for hospitals' e-recruitment strategies. First, the characteristics of human resource management in hospitals and its presence in social networking services as an application of Web 2.0 were analysed. Subsequently, actual recruiting activities and further potentials by using Facebook and XING were investigated by an online survey of German hospitals and an empirical study within these platforms. It was evaluated whether hospitals are using social networking services, and in a further study whether this use is promising. Major results included a low acceptance by the hospitals, but a significant success of using social networking services, especially for recruiting employees for senior positions in nursing and medical fields.