Recent survey by BlueSteps, the career management service of the Association of Executive Search Consultants (AESC), looked into the role of social networking websites and the role that they play in career management.

Of the 100+ Australia-based executives who responded to the survey, many had been approached by a recruiter via LinkedIn at one stage or another, but only 6 percent had landed themselves a job.

The main reasons provided by BlueSteps executives on why they use LinkedIn, is to expand (35 percent) and to stay connected with people in their network (32 percent).  Only 19 percent were using LinkedIn to find a new employment opportunity.

“While clearly websites like LinkedIn have had an impact on the hiring landscape by enabling executives to make themselves publicly available to recruiters, the key to finding new roles is more often to network with the leading search consultants, to establish a unique personal brand in the market and to connect with other prominent executives in a given industry,” said Christine Hayward, Managing Director of Asia Pacific at the AESC.

A majority of the executives (55.5 percent) believed having a LinkedIn was either extremely important, or important for their overall career management strategy.

Jason Johnson, Asia Pacific Chair for the AESC, said the role of a recruiter is not to find executives who have a presence on or are contactable via social media, but to identify the best candidates for the job.

“The role of an executive search firm is to identify the best candidates for their clients, not just those executives that can be easily found online on social networks. Online tools should be considered as just one part of an executive’s overall career management strategy,” he said.