Done.
Does it make me an old coot if I didn’t even know that social networking sites were used for job hunting?
Done. And I’d like to agree with this comment:
Similarly, I’m unsure how many people under 40 (an arbitrary cutoff, but let’s say 40 for now) don’t use Facebook etc. I’ve returned to school, where at age 47, I’m one of the much older students, and I’m amazed how many of my younger colleagues can’t get through a day without logging into their Facebook (etc.) accounts and seeing what their Facebook (etc.) friends are doing. They’ve told me many times to get a Facebook account so they can keep in touch; my response is probably typical for someone my age: “Why don’t you just call or e-mail me? Why do I need a Facebook account?”
Why indeed? But I think the question of age tells us something here: when I was in business before returning to school, networking for jobs was done face-to-face at gatherings of similar professionals, or somehow else through professional associations or social groups. There weren’t any social networking Internet sites. Using such a site for job-hunting is completely outside my frame of reference, although it obviously is not outside that of younger people. For this reason, you may want to incorporate an age question in your survey.
Thanks so much to everyone who has responded so far!
I also posted these links on LinkedIn and Facebook, and so far there have been 97 responses to the “Job Seekers” questions and 7 responses to the “HR Professionals” questions. I’m no survey expert so I have no idea what kind of response rate I should expect, but I’m pretty pleased with having over 100 responses in less than 24 hours.
Sure! I got a similar question yesterday in a PM. Frankly I hadn’t considered the international angle, and I should have made that one of the questions, but at this point I see no reason to leave out non-US responses just because I was short-sighted when I developed the surveys.
Thanks for the feedback!
I deliberately did not ask about age because that can be a touchy subject when it comes to Human Subjects Research Board* (HSRB) approval. Unless you’ve been through it, you wouldn’t believe the hoops it took to get permission to conduct these surveys. My thesis committee suggested avoiding asking that question directly; instead, I tried to get at it (and the experience angle) with the questions about education and whether positions were entry level, etc.
It is too late for me to change the survey questions: any change in my research protocol (as they call it) would require resubmitting my HSRB application and getting approved all over again, and with only 1.5 months left until I have to submit signed copies of my thesis to the university that ain’t gonna happen. 
I’m sure that when I’m analyzing the results I’ll have a few “Damn, I should have asked that” moments (like I did yesterday with the international thing), but at this point the surveys are what they are.
The questions were reviewed by one of my thesis committee members before I submitted them to the HSRB, so I’ll blame any glaring deficiencies on him. 
*In the OP I incorrectly defined HSRB as “Human Subjects Review Board.” It’s “Human Subjects Research Board.”
Done.
And boy would I like to see your IRB.
Question: From where will you obtain your participants? Well, see, there’s this message board that I hang out on. No, not that kind of message board, but a cool one called The Straight Dope. Anyways, I obtained permission from one of the moderators, TubaDiva to post my survey on a board called, Mindless Pointless Stuff I Must Share (MPSIMS). No, really, it’ll work. I promise.
Done!
My unique circumstances may have skewed your results as well.
Tripler
"Disclaimer: Individual results may (and will) vary. "
Sunday Afternoon, 3/16 12:32 Arizona time, the monkey told me the survey was closed.
Would you believe it was very similar to that? In the application I listed the sites that I intended to post survey links on, and as I received approval emails from the sites I forwarded them to the HSRB. So they actually got to see the permission from TubaDiva.
The survey is now back open; my apologies! I neglected to do enough research about Surveymonkey’s basic accounts, and it turns out I was limited to 100 responses. I upgraded to a paid account and all is well again. Thanks for letting me know!
Done. I am 40, and I do not have a Facebook or MySpace page. I signed up for Facebook at my daughter’s urging so I could see her and her brother’s pages, but to me, it seems a lot of silliness.
Misnomer, you may want to check out the April edition of Reader’s Digest. There’s an article about how social networking sites are affecting job applicants. Employers are checking them out for potential employees. While many people are finding that posting pictures of them drunk at parties may not be a good idea, one woman actually got a job because of her Facebook page…it had pictures of her travels and humanitarian work.
Did it yesterday, but I am glad to see that others have mentioned issues about
not being in the U.S.A.
and
being of the over-40 age that does not associate the Facebook sort of thing with serious stuff. Yeah, I know I’m wrong in that, but it does mean you have yet another respondent who does not use the things.
Good luck with the survey and with the whole thesis, anyway. And I *loved" SenoraGO’s comment. 
Done.
Done!
Well, I’m over 40 and I have Facebook, LiveJournal and MySpace pages. I wonder if that means that I’m simply not very mature. :dubious: In any event, I did the survey anyway. One more non-U.S. respondent.
What with us all skewing the data and everything, are you now concluding that the average job-seeker has 2.4 legs and owns a llama?
Glad to be of service, My input is now input.
Done!
Done
OK, filling it now and giving it a bump so people see it.
Thanks for the heads up!
You guys can’t skew the data: you are the data.
I’ve always wanted to be data.
I filled it out - hope it helps, Misnomer.
Done, good luck with that.
I went ahead and took both as an employer.
I don’t know if you will be allowed to use age at all but I believe it will be a definite factor, as will social environment (although the industry question will address social environment issues, at least partially)
Stoopid Monkey