Social Networking and its impact on individuals professional life - Literature review Example

In today’s technological era, the term social networking has commonly been associated with online networking. Keeping this fact into consideration, only online social networking has been evaluated regardless of the impact of offline social networking and its impact on individual’s professional life. With exponential growth of social networking, it has been observed that several organizations have been presented with an opportunity to enhance the job satisfaction level of its employees. For instance, Google provided its employees with an opportunity to work from home, rather than waking up early in the morning and coming to office.

This significantly impacted the overall professional life of an individual. (Garibian, 2012) By digging a bit deeper, it was assessed that professionals tend to invest their time in online social networking primarily to improve them, while maintaining their professional identity in today’s competitive landscape. To maintain their professional identity, professional tends to prefer networks that can help them in career enhancement followed by updates on brand and current affairs. . According to statistics, LinkedIn is most popular among individuals between the age group of 25-34 (i.e. 33 percent).

Within this age group, the reason for visiting LinkedIn has always been job search. Although, an individual within this age bracket may have a respectable job, but the possibility of finding another respectable job leads to frequent visits to LinkedIn. (Bullas, 2013) Professionals tend to frequently switch their jobs to enhance their career progression (Silu, 2013). According to a research, employees tend to switch their jobs primarily due to job insecurity or to move up the career ladder (Sverke, Hellgren, & Naswall, 2006).

On the other hand, researches revealed that professionals tend to switch their job due to bad management (Branham, 2012; Job Interview, n.d.). Furthermore, employees tend to switch to find better fit with his/her skills and strengths (Rouen, 2011). This can be done easily through LinkedIn. With significant information regarding the job on LinkedIn, professionals tend to apply for new jobs to take next step in their career development. This can be clearly witnessed through the story of David T.

Stevens who was nearly about to face the reduction in salary and other associated benefits with the job due to the decline in economy. By sourcing professionals throughout the world through LinkedIn, Steven got a job at Emeryville, Calif. This reflects that LinkedIn is used by every professional to search for better jobs (Adams, 2012). With the rise of social networking sites, organizations have been provided with an ability to create self-service model to attract the most feasible candidate.

According to a research firm, LinkedIn has changed the process of recruitment in today’s