How Social Media can Help Universities with Job Placements?

Abrastact. The process of interaction between individuals, through the use of social media, is one of the most complex problems that theorists have had to analyse in recent years (Richards, 2007; Kolbitsch and Maurer, 2006; Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010; ecc.). Social media tools are becoming an important presence in recruitment processes, transforming them . Today many organizations are faced a challenge: they must choose to allow their operators to use this new method of communication with their students and with firms or forbid it. The rapid changes that the diffusion of social media has had in the communication processes would undoubtedly impose a drastic change: the use of social media allow an instant sharing of ideas, opinions, knowledge and experiences, creating a new “space-time” dimension that would translate in a new way (additional) to "recruit" workers. Although there are many benefits and promises from social media several risks are associated with their use. The ambiguity related to legal and ethical issues (for example individual privacy) of social media at the same time contains the enthusiasm related to the potentialities that social media offer. In particular we analyse the perceived risks and benefits of social media in job placement of Universities. The paper aims to provide an analysis of the phenomenon of social recruitment in the context of Italian universities through the analysis of the percentage of presence and survival of these social networks and the use of this instrument for the placement of graduates in companies.This work can be useful for managers of universities and firms to understand that, if the perception of presence of Universities on social media by students and firms is positive. The challenge is due and it must be not only organizational but, above all, cultural (Normann, 1996).