The suitability of social media for headhunters to recruit managers from and for the fashion business

Master's Thesis from the year 2013 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 2,0, Prifysgol Cymru University of Wales, course: Master of Business Administration in General Management, language: English, abstract: In taking on a recruiting assignment headhunters shoulder an enormous responsibility within the framework of the search for competent qualified executives. Thanks to the development and expansion of a wide range of social media platforms, there are numerous, partly unknown, possibilities and means available to meet this challenge and select and identify suitable candidates who are willing to perform and also have a personal integrity. This master thesis examines the exciting question of whether social media are suitable for the recruitment of executives by headhunters, what new opportunities and tasks result from their use and to what extent they are already being used by headhunters, in particular in their search for executives for the fashion business in Germany. Using social media purposefully and systematically, the suitability of potential candidates can be verified prior to probationary periods or even personal interviews in a much better way than in former times. In these times of demographic change, skills shortage, "War for Talents", companies increasingly doing their own recruiting conducted by personnel managers, growing significance of social media and resulting increase in information about persons and companies on the Internet, headhunters in particular must prepare for these old and new trends. The empirical study presented in this master thesis analyses the current situation with regard to this development. Taking into account the results from the research discourse on the topics of headhunters, social media and the fashion business and including the results of the analysis of the study, concrete recommendations for action and potential for the future use of social media in the recruiting of executives by headhunters are made and elaborated.