<Shine MyParichay has integrated its services through Facebook, giving recruiters access to a candidate’s network of friends on the social media site</</p>

Job portal Shine.com on June 4 unveiled a strategic partnership with social recruitment platform MyParichay, integrating its services through social media network Facebook. The job portal was seeking to tap the nascent but growing market in India where social media tools are gaining wide acceptance among recruiters.

Amit Garg, Business Head, Internet Business, HT Media, said, “With Shine.com, HT Media has focused on recruiter needs and strive for innovative solution which provides tremendous value in the recruitment industry. We are now the world’s first job portal to integrate Facebook hiring solutions with our mainstream offering.”

On why Shine.com chose to use Facebook as a platform, Garg said, “Our latest survey with candidates suggests that 65 per cent of the respondents are more likely to use Facebook over LinkedIn for job search – we now have a product that bridges this opportunity between recruiters and candidates. Our strong technological capabilities and a focused team working on integrating social media for recruitment have been instrumental in creating this unique product for this space. ”

A company press release said that Facebook has 35 million job seekers not on any job site and four times more profiles than LinkedIn in the prime hiring age. About 60 per cent of the candidates are only on Facebook and not on LinkedIn, the release said.

Launched in 2008, Shine.com claims to be the second largest job portal in the country with a candidate database of more than 1.2 crore and over 200,000 job openings on the site. Garg said that Shine.com on an average receives resumes in the range of 9,000 to 11,000 daily.

Underlining how Shine MyParichay will help companies/recruiters, Garg said it allows them to get high quality hires in a very short period and helps in minimizing bad hires. Since more companies are gearing towards hiring through referrals and direct recruitment, this recruitment tool will harness the power of social media networks and friendships through the platform, where one can refer his/her friends to a recruiter, he said.

The Shine social toolbar will enable candidates to find friends/acquaintances in organisations they want to apply and help recruiters sieve through hundreds of CVs by narrowing down on the right hires. Candidates need not apply through Shine.com, instead they can use their Facebook account for the same. For companies, contextual branding on the platform gives them more visibility and brings down the cost of wrong hires.

Allaying fears of invading privacy, Garg said the candidate can decide if he/she wants a recruiter to access his/her network. He said Facebook is an engaging platform, where 51 per cent of users update their education and current and previous work backgrounds and 65 per cent of candidates believe they will find their next job on Facebook. Recruiters aim to access a candidate’s network on Facebook through this platform but also his/her friends’ network.