It is well known that most companies, especially bigger organisations, tend to fill vacant positions internally. Organisations are often not content with hiring new people which they cannot do a background check on.
The existence of online job platforms such as LinkedIn have severely helped organisations in hiring new people, because this platform provides organisation to easily trace back to the common relations they share.
LinkedIn has recently announced to aid its professionals with a new function, where they enable high profiled LinkedIn users to anonymously hint recruiters that they are looking for a new challenge while not informing their current employer’s organisation.
LinkedIn aims to better its strength and better their recruiting and selection services they provide, but is this achievable with the novel service? According to Quartz LinkedIn has attached a fine print where they state that they cannot guarantee that that every company is accurately identified, or that affiliated companies are accurately mapped in their platform. They also cannot guarantee that every recruiter has an up-to-date and correct Company ID. Making this system not completely safe. There is a small chance that your career interest preferences will be visible to a recruiter at your current employer or an affiliated company(Galbraith, 2016).
This new feature definitely is interesting for professionals who secretly want to find a new job without informing their current employers. However, the tricky question is if this is ethical?
Nowadays, transparency is being stressed by all parties in the job market due to the discrepancies in this sector. This possibly meaning that LinkedIn may aid in enhancing this discrepancy, with this novel feature.
Moreover, the higher or the more developed an occupation is, the more difficult it is to hire a qualified person. Therefore, by enabling professionals to secretly look for a job can be ethically inappropriate.
In order for there to be completeness of information on, it is best that users truly state what they desire and what their plans are.
Sources:
http://www.rtlnieuws.nl/geld-en-werk/in-het-geheim-een-nieuwe-baan-zoeken-linkedin-helpt-je-erbij
https://www.bright.nl/nieuws/zo-kun-je-bij-linkedin-aangeven-dat-recruiters-je-mogen-benaderen
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Hi Stella! This was really interesting to read. I was unaware of LinkedIn’s new feature until I read your post. Although this feature would definitely be useful to some, I agree with you that it isn’t very ethical and that employees should be upfront about their plans. As the fine print of the Open Candidate feature states that LinkedIn cannot 100% guarantee that you won’t be matched to a recruiter of your current firm, and the fact that LinkedIn is quite a buggy platform (random job recommendations, new message notification of an old message, … other examples can be found in the link below), I believe this feature could potentially do more harm than good. It may even cost someone their own job if they get caught by their firm’s recruiter!
Links:
– https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/dear-linkedin-your-platform-buggy-someone-needs-address-parry-aftab
– http://qz.com/802399/linkedins-new-open-candidate-feature-is-designed-to-let-you-signal-you-want-a-job-without-your-boss-knowing/
Hi Stella, I very much enjoyed reading your post! Think the topic will be very relevant in the near future. Working for a company and enjoying that work is what we all aim to do. However, what if the job has become boring and you want a new challenge. I think that the employee should have that freedom. From a company point of view, I would recommend to interact more with the employees and try to have a critical yearly evaluation about what the company could do better. Investing in current employees works better than hiring new ones in general! I think the point of discussion should not be whether this is ethical or not, because the freedom to voluntarily switch jobs is the same as a mandatory switch of jobs. Considering the binding contract that the firm and employee have signed.
Hi Stella, Thanks a lot for blogging about this interesting topic. I have been reading articles regarding this subject as I was highly interested in understanding what LinkedIn’s plans are. I am agreeing with you that the main question is whether secretly seeking for another job is completely ethical, and as well is LinkedIn able to provide 100% assurance that none of this information will leak. I currently do not believe that LinkedIn will be able to protect my privacy fully and believe that any leaks can highly damage the person at hand’s career. Therefore I would actually not entrust LinkedIn with my more or less secretive search for a new employer. I would still recommend others that seek a new challenge to approach others on their own. And actually, when you are searching for a new challenge the easiest is to always be transparent and who knows your current employer might be understanding and helping you towards your goal.
Anyways, I believe it is quite a complex subject as the reasons why you would want to change may vary highly and it might not always be easy to be transparent. But at the moment I would not entrust LinkedIn with my secretive searches as they may come out and may harm.
Let’s see what the developments will be. Thanks for sharing!