It wasn’t long ago when the playing field for finding a job was relatively simple.  For the most part (and I’m sure you can add a few), it consisted of the following:

• Resume – Make sure you check the spelling, the formatting is clean and the content is easy to follow.
• Interviewing Skills – You had to make sure that you could answer questions and keep your nerves under control.
• Professional Attire/Appearance – Clean suit, clean nails, no “I drank a keg of beer last night” eyes… you get the idea.
• Networking – Asking around and going to networking meetings to find potential contacts.
• Job Search – This had a lot to do with job boards and newspapers… posting resumes and searching for potential roles.

Nowadays, it’s a bit more complex to find a job.  Most of the “necessities” listed above continue to be true.  However, for someone who is really hungry to find a position, they are going to have to reinvent the way they handle both the Networking and Job Search approaches for finding their next role.  The great news is that keeping pace with the job search world also builds your resume…

Let’s consider some of these new areas and what a job seeker can do about it.

Social Media In Job Search

Facebook

• Spend some time completing your personal profile.  What you do, what you like… give your connections something to get interested in.
• Join some of the thousands (perhaps more) groups you will have to pick from on Facebook that relate to your career field.
• If you can identify causes, non-profits or fun initiatives that are of interest… do that too!  You never know who you’ll meet!
• If you really feel adventurous, consider a Social Ad campaign targeted at your ideal hiring managers.

Twitter

• If you still give a blank stare when someone mentions Twitter… go review the tutorial I put together for SHRM.
• Learn the concepts of Hashtags, @replies, Lists and ReTweets (RTs).
• Play around with tools like Twubs and TweetDeck… they will make your “Twitter Life” easier – I promise!
• Start attending TweetUps in your local area… or put one together!  They are the Nouveau Networking and a lot of fun!

LinkedIn

• Put the time, energy and effort into making this profile as professional and interesting as possible.
• For some companies, this has become the main (in some cases the only) way that they are finding candidates.
• Connect and join professional groups and get involved in the conversation.
• Answer polls and questions thrown out by strangers.
• Use the tool to study companies of interest.
• Look for past colleagues and start to rebuild your network… forget the Rolodex – LinkedIn will help you there!

Blogging

• I know it seems out there… but, it sure makes it easier to show what you know if you can blog about it somewhere.
• Great way to start or engage in conversations… share a link to a blog post that you wrote.
• Employers find people in a variety of ways – if they find you because you know what you’re talking about, that can only be to your benefit.
• It’s fun… that’s right, FUN!  Job search can be a drag sometimes, so mix it up and share a bit.  Who knows who you can help with what you already know.

YouTube

• It never hurts to introduce yourself first… so, why not make a video doing just that.  If you already started your blog, it could actually be a post with an embedded video!
• Explain your career field of choice, your ideal role, what inspires you… be yourself.
• YouTube is a massive search engine at this point… your video may show up the next time someone Googles your skill set.
• If you are tired of being judged simply based off of your resume… think about including your YouTube video link on your resume.

What exactly are we going to do about it?

I hate to see good people in the job market who don’t know what to do next.  There are some fantastic candidates who are absolutely lost with their efforts at this point.  This situation, in and of itself, creates a pretty substantial divide between those who are “in the know” and those who are not.  So, I just hope that we can help and as a result allow the best candidate to secure the job!

The list above is not meant to solve all of your job search problems, but hopefully it will get you started.  By the nature of technology, the person who this post was written for will probably come across it via email or through searching on Google.  If you found this due to Twitter or Facebook, you are probably already on board – consider helping a friend that has yet to take the leap and forward this posting to them.

What other techniques, methods or technologies would you recommend for someone who has yet to jump into social media job search world?  Your advice matters

Photo Credit, striatic

There is little doubt that most organizations have a sincere desire to connect with their target talent markets.  They spend millions (perhaps billions) of dollars a year analyzing their potential candidates.

• How can we attract the right talent?
• How do we connect with our ideal candidates?

Social Media, for all its wonders, is not the “have all, end all” of candidate interaction.  In fact, if we were discussing this over coffee, you would find out quickly that I much prefer the balanced approach.  Embark on the path of learning the tools, but control the amount of time invested.  Build into it, don’t just decide one morning that it’s the only approach.

Before you jump at me with a sharp “Twitter changed my life!” lashing – let me clarify a bit more.

Social Media is an amazing place to be.  You can meet all kinds of great people, very quickly target and connect with like-minded individuals… and perhaps even discover new avenues for your journey that you had yet to uncover.  Unfortunately, and fortunately, it’s not the only way that a person can go about doing this.  My opinion, and this is only my opinion, is that a balance must be established.

Candidates are people who have wants, needs and desires.  They are attracted to and they interact in the communities of interest to them.  Social Media creates an opportunity for us to connect with them on a different level… in a place that they choose.

According to a recent study performed by CareerBuilder and Inavero, “The average job candidate spends more than five hours on social media sites each week; however, only one in five organizations indicated utilizing social networking as part of their recruiting strategy.”

Baby Steps Into Social Media

There are thousands of posts on what to do and what not to do if you want to get involved in recruiting within social media.  It’s actually quite overwhelming if you consider the huge amount of information.

With that said, the study clearly indicates that many organizations are holding back.  Perhaps it’s due to overall understanding, a perceived lack of ROI… there are many arguments for and against getting involved.

The bottom line, however, is that Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and the many other community driven sites are here.  They are growing and they are catching on faster and faster by the day.  You don’t have to change your recruiting approach over night… but, I sure wouldn’t want to be the guy/gal who wakes up in five years to realize that one vital piece of the established recruiting approach had been entirely ignored.

So, get started… even if that means baby steps.  My advice, for what it’s worth, is the following:

1. LinkedIn – Set up your account with a complete profile.  Join some groups and occasionally jump in the conversation.  Perhaps create a survey based on what your candidates want, need and desire.  Be a presence.
2. Twitter – Find a picture you like, create a 160 character bio and set up your Twitter account.  Don’t worry about it being confusing at first… it will be that way for a while.  Check out my free video tutorial I created for SHRM on getting started and perhaps pick up a copy of Twitterville.
3. Facebook – Picture, bio, likes/dislikes in bio format.  Join some groups… interact.  If you are feeling really adventurous, go post a job using their social ad system.  On the bottom of your profile, you will see a little link that says “advertising”.  I personally recommend doing an “impressions” campaign… it’s cheap and you will get your feet wet with very little expense.

I love blogging and I think it’s a great tool… but, the time commitment is a bit much for some people.  For the time being, just work at understanding how the above tools can impact your recruiting efforts.  If you want to start playing around with blogging, check out RecruitingBlogs.com – try your hand at sharing your knowledge.  Be creative, think like your target candidates… see where you get.  Later, you can add other tools to the mix and really start building out a comprehensive targeting strategy.

Step 1 is to begin the process.  Whatever your organization decides to do, it’s a great opportunity for you to improve your skill set (yes, these tools are appearing on resumes now) and to discover what all the buzz is about.  Besides, we’d love to see you out there!

If you would like to connect with me out on one of the above mentioned sites, here are links for you to connect:

LinkedIn

Facebook

Twitter

The bottom line is just get started.  Try it… Twitter doesn’t bite

For those of you already involved in the realm, what baby steps would you recommend?  Any must-dos for those who have yet to take the leap into the world of social media?

For those who have yet to get started… I’m curious to know what has held you back?  Perceived complexity, time, clear ROI?  I’m interested.

Photo Credit, stargazr441

This past week, I had the great privilege of visiting with a large group of recruiters in Southern California for the inaugural BarCamp Recruit event in Newport Beach, CA.

Gretchen Benes and Chrisa Mott conceived of the event after attending something similar for the Real Estate industry.  In summary, it was an unconference for recruiters that had a pretty intense focus on the use of social media.  Topics ranged from SEO to Twitter Best-Practices.  For the participants, it was a jam-packed day of valuable information!

Gretchen and Chrisa threw an excellent event!  Keep your eyes open for a BarCamp Recruit close to you… it’s coming!

The more I travel the country and meet recruiters, the more I enjoy teaching about how social media is becoming a force in the area of recruitment and HR.  Perhaps it’s because the more time that passes, the more the topic becomes relevant.  iStrategyLabs just reported last week that Facebook is trending to pass Google in unique visits per month by September… do you know what this means for the recruitment industry?  Are you planning to embrace this change?

During the training at BarCamp Recruit, I said to the group that any recruiter who does not familiarize themselves with social media over the course of the next two years will be a dinosaur.  I meant it.  In fact, in retrospect, I should have said “over the course of the next year” – it would have made more sense.

No one can deny that this little phenomenon that we refer to as social media is growing.  I just wonder if people realize how fast it’s growing.  And, it’s not just about Facebook.  Think about how many people are adopting Twitter, LinkedIn, Blogging… just to name a few routes for social interaction online.  Are you improving your recruiting game as it applies to these tools?  How?

So, what does this all mean and how can a recruiter start to make sense of this online frenzy?

Here are a few suggestions…

Getting Started In Social Media

1. Decide on an available user ID – This should help… http://www.usernamecheck.com
2. Register your accounts (at least Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and Flickr)
3. Put together a short and interesting bio that you can use across multiple sites… be consistent.
4. Go have 50 pictures taken of yourself and pick one that you like… make sure your face is central.
5. Edit your pictures in http://picnik.com – Great for cropping pictures to the necessary size for social media.
6. Start being curious… poke around, read what people say and how they interact online.
7. Read a few blogs that have to do with social media from general and recruiting specific perspectives… here are some:

• Chris Brogan – Lots of valuable information on approach, strategy and processes
• Mashable – Lots of nitty-gritty on the tools (good for if you’d like to be “in the know”)
• Boolean Black Belt – Constant exploration of sourcing topics… very valuable information
• (Feel free to drop your suggestions in the comments… there are many great sources, but I’m blanking at the moment.)

Social media should not consume your life.  Perhaps it’s our natural curiosity – we love knowing what’s going on.  When we get that first sweet taste of being informed all the time… it can be a bit intoxicating.  You’ll ultimately do whatever you’d like… just remember that it’s important to balance the online with the off.  Spend time away from the computer and develop a fresh perspective.  It will make you that much more interesting when you return to exchange thoughts with your online friends.

Do Something About Social Media

No one is expecting that you are going to wake up tomorrow and be a super-savvy social media user.  However, you are going to be expected, over the next year (or more), to have a grasp on this topic.  If you are banking on it being a fad… wake up!  It may change and evolve, but it’s not going away.  Getting familiar with how things work will only benefit you and your career.

What did I leave out?  What would you suggest for an HR pro or Recruiter who is just starting out?

I stumbled across this great post last week by Boolean Black Belt entitled “Don’t Be A Sourcing Snob“.  The creator of this blog is a highly intelligent individual who has a firm grasp on a variety of pertinent topics… I like his material so much that I subscribe to his site and make it a habit to see what he’s talking about.  Really good stuff!

The main topic of his post was that Job Boards (Monster, Careerbuilder, etc…) have a bad reputation with recruiters.  He points out the fact that some recruiters purposely avoid job boards because of a belief that the candidates within those sites are inferior to the ones who are not. He goes on to discuss the statistical relationship that a job board would have with any candidate pool and his belief that there are plenty of great candidates on the boards, so long as we can find them.  In summary, he is urging recruiters to reconsider their stances on job boards and avoid being Sourcing Snobs.

All in all, I agree with him on a number of points that he makes.  Of course there are good people on job boards.  If there weren’t, we probably wouldn’t see that business model in existence.  So, statistical analysis aside, let’s just look at the reality.

• A job board industry exists
• Many candidates utilize these services when they are looking for work
• There are multiple organizations offerings similar services

So, there is a demand for the service and candidates use the boards.  Organizations pay to have access and the wheels on the bus go round and round.  This totally makes sense.

The Beauty of Dialogue

So, after reading the post, a few people started commenting on Twitter about their thoughts.  Two of those people were Debra Wheatman and Stephanie Lloyd.  It quickly became obvious that this was not just a timely topic, but a hot one!  The three of us, together, decided to formulate independent responses to the post as it’s a topic that requires conversation… well beyond my little post.  You can see what Stephanie and Debra have to say by choosing their articles here:

Commentary: Does it really matter where a great candidate comes from? – Stephanie Lloyd

Don’t be a sourcing snob – Debra Wheatman

Fortunately, we don’t agree on everything, so it won’t feel like swimming laps by reading their posts.  Enjoy!

Why I have to be a Sourcing Snob

So, even though I can be in complete agreement with BBB about the fact that decent candidates exist on the job boards, I feel compelled to elaborate my reasons for not using them.  It’s not all about snobbery or jumping on the bandwagon of recruiters turning their noses up at them as a source.  In reality, it has to do with my demand side.

My clients have certain levels of expectations when they engage me in a search.  First and foremost, the expectation is that I will be able to get something that they could not have acquired on their own.  Specifically, they are asking me to pull on and build new relationships with candidates that would be a potential match for their role.  In many cases, they are trying to plan for an upcoming (confidential) internal departure.  Sometimes, due to business needs, they are planning in advance for expansion.

Secondly, they are not usually looking for someone with just a skill set match for the role.  Often times, they are most eager to see someone from their competition.  Let me repeat that and clarify:

Clients usually want someone who is currently working for their competition.  Someone who has the skill set and the competitive intelligence.

Finally, my demand side has recently started demanding candidates from outside of the job board pool.  Yes, you heard me right… our contracts dictate that the candidate not be an actively listed participant of a job board.  Therefore, as a recruiter, I am rather limited in the who and the where of my search.

The Future of Snobbery

While I agree with a number of points that are made within the BBB post, it’s not something that can be dealt with simply by presenting statistical data.  As recruiters we deal with market forces and constantly changing norms for what a great candidate is.  The clients of the future are going to be more savvy.  The days when an employer didn’t understand LinkedIn or the basic sourcing methods within social media recruiting are rapidly going away.  We, as a recruiting profession, are going to be held accountable to do what we state in our titles… recruit.

What do you think?  How much do you value job boards in your search practice?

Picture thanks to jglsongs on Flickr.

This may be the last of two parts on how to use Twitter in conjunction with your recruiting desk, but I doubt it. The topic continues to evolve as more and more participants jump in the game. One thing is for sure – we have lots to look forward to within this relatively new realm of communication. If you have questions about Twitter and how it may be used for your specific demands, feel free to post a question in the comments section. I do not have all the answers, but surely the community can work together to solve all of our individual challenges.

I’m going to get a bit more step-by-step in this post for those of you that are ready to start using the tool. If you’ve already started, this may just be a refresher.

If you are reading this and you know of different, additional or better ways of doing it, I encourage you to share in the comments section as well.

You are ready to start Tweeting

1. It’s important to establish a name that is consistent across multiple social media channels. For example, if I went by mlong in one place and TheRedRecruiter in another, there would be no way for people to know that these two names were connected. So, choose a name that is both applicable and available across multiple channels. The best way I know how to do this is by visiting this website. If you can’t reserve your name on at least Twitter and LinkedIn, then I would choose something else. Preferably, you will choose something completely unique.
2. Go out and establish a Gmail account. Beyond having an email strictly assigned to your social media adventures, Google has a slew of free add-ons that will be helpful as you dive deeper in to the realm of social media recruiting. Among others, and I’ll cover this in more depth in another post, the reader (aggregator) that Google offers is very easy to use and will pretty much change the way you currently read the news.
3. Now you are ready to get in to the details. If you haven’t already registered your Twitter account, take care of that now. Be sure to use your same consistent user name. In the set-up process, you will be able to enter a brief bio, your company or personal website and a photograph. I want you to take great care with these three items as they really will make or break your ability to express your personal and/or professional brand. Oh yeah… and if you think you don’t need a photo… think again. The days of being completely nameless and faceless on the internet are about over. If you really want to use this tool to establish yourself, I encourage you to take the vital step of being yourself openly… and that includes a picture.
4. Now that you have your account set up, it’s time to start finding people to communicate with. I recommend that you head over to Twellow. This website serves as a sort of Yellow Pages for Twitter. You will have the ability to search for people within Twitter based on their bios. For example, if you recruit Engineers, then it would be great to start following Engineers that have profiles on Twitter. Twellow makes it very easy to do this. The other resource that I’ve enjoyed is called We Follow. With this site, you can categorize your skills and also look for people based on a keyword. The lists are based on followers, so the more people who follow the individual, the higher on the rankings they will be.
5. The next big recommendation I have is to step outside of the web page interface used for Twitter and use a third-party tool. There are two main tools that I have used; TweetDeck and Twhirl. They both have pros and cons, but I simply prefer TweetDeck for my purposes. It makes it easy for me to communicate with others, set up multiple search types and categorize my friends. In all fairness, Twhirl has some cool features as well and I have found that it’s really a matter of taste. Try them both… you have nothing to lose – they are free!
6. You have the account, you have the control, you have people to follow… now what? This is usually where it all breaks apart, but the next step in using Twitter is about engagement. You can’t expect people to just start talking to you. So, you must listen to the people you are following and be willing to respond to what they say… without them soliciting you directly. However, please know that while Twitter gives you the ability to establish relationships with candidates in an open forum, I do not believe that you should use it as a sales or hard recruiting channel. This is about a community of people who feel comfortable sharing openly. As with all other relationships, they build slowly and require work. To attempt to establish that relationship on a “What’s in it for me?” level would be foolish.

So, that’s the end of part two. That should get you started if you haven’t had a chance to jump in the game yet. Truth be told, Twitter is a lot of fun. I have, in a very short amount of time, established relationships with a number of people that extend outside of the Twitter channels. These are individuals who bring a high level of value to Human Resources as a field and I feel privileged to have met them. I wish you the same success no matter what your future audience is.

I have a few more thoughts about using Twitter and how that will impact recruiting going forward. Just this week I had my first official conflict with a person on Twitter. It was both uncomfortable and highly frustrating. Mostly it taught me a good lesson. As recruiters, we are going to encounter individuals who both question and reject our judgment. We are, by trade, compensated to rule in and rule out people. Humans, by nature, are emotional beings. As a result, certain individuals may use this communication channel to discredit your decisions. How we prepare and respond to these issues when they come up will be important. While I do not proclaim to know the magic solution, I will happily share my real life exchange in an effort to build understanding around this pressing topic.

Have you started using Twitter for recruiting? Do you have additional questions before jumping in?

Special thanks to Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten for the above link cloud!  Great stuff Boris!