Why recruiters should care about job seekers’ social media ...

April
27
2011

Why recruiters should care about job seekers’ social media experience

Posted by: Mindy Fineout

Social media recruiting

This week, one of my colleagues forwarded me two posts on how a social media presence can be a negative in the recruiting process. In “Is Personal Social Media Experience a Negative For Job Seekers?“ job seeker and post author Beth Harte shares the following advice she received from a recruiter.

“Remove all of your personal speaking, writing, blogging and social media (i.e. Twitter, Facebook, SlideShare links, etc.) items from your resume. Companies don’t give a crap about that, they only care what you will do for them. Those items are red flags letting them know that you’ll request to be out of the office speaking or on Twitter all day and that you will not be helping to solve their day-to-day problems (i.e. tactical work).”

I closed my eyes and tried to imagine the recruiter that would dole out this kind of advice, sitting in front of his paper stack of yellow pages and Apple 1 computer, tied down to his land line, destroying small forests with his collection of paper resumes sent by fax, per his request. Sadly, in reality, his philosophy represents many companies and hiring teams that haven’t caught up with the 21st century and still think the Internet is only for e-mail and pornography.

It comes down to this. For companies to succeed, they need to innovate. In order to innovate, they need to accept the change that new technology brings, and this includes social media. Social media is not a fad, but it’s a new way we brand ourselves and our company.

The first thing I do when working with a new candidate is research their digital footprint. The results I find determine their level of involvement and engagement in their line of work and help me understand their motivation and character a bit better. Ignoring this digital road map of a person’s history and achievements is ignorant and prehistoric.

Recruiters need to educate hiring teams and companies on the importance of seeing prospective employees as a more than just transactional help solving “day-to-day problems.” Having (and sharing) a strong social media presence shows more than just your personal opinions. It shows what kind of value you can bring to a company.

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  • http://www.serengeticommunications.com/ bethharte

    Hi Mindy,

    I think there are several things that need to be shared for the recruiter’s advice to make sense.

    1. I live in an area where the predominate industries are Pharma, Healthcare and Finance. Three industries that are heavily regulated and still trying to understand why being social makes sense.

    2. There is a difference between using social media for personal and professional. I use social media personally to talk about my profession (marketing, PR, communications). I do not use social media to discuss personal hobbies, etc. The question is how does one’s social presence equate to a benefit for the hiring company? Typically it doesn’t. (How does tweeting about my passion for dogs equate to being able to drive revenue by tweeting about pharmaceuticals?) I can be on Twitter all day talking about marketing, but that doesn’t help a company using social media to say, have discussions around nuts and bolts. Different target audiences.

    3. Just because one is successful with their own personal social media use that doesn’t necessarily equate to being using social media successfully for an employer. There is a marketing aspect of understanding the industry, how customers use social media tools, what’s the ethos of said customers, etc. Just because you are social personally doesn’t mean someone gets all of that. That takes marketing skill as well.

    The recruiter’s advice is spot on for what is reality. So while I may have a strong digital foot print for tweeting, speaking, blogging, etc. about marketing, PR, social media, does that necessarily mean a direct transfer into what I can implement from a social media perspective that is beneficial for a company? They might not be able to make that jump (because to your point, they don’t always understand social media). My experience with implementing social media strategies for other employers/clients (which, BTW, is also on my resume, of course) will however.

    I think we need to balance where some of us are “socially & digitally” with where companies are. Right now companies are still trying to get their feet wet and figure out how being social benefits their customers and business. (Heck, a lot still don’t have social/mobile tools for their sales force.) What helps create an even balance is not our personal social media endeavors, but our professional social media experience.

    Thanks for bringing the conversation over to your place as well!

    Cheers,
    Beth Harte
    @bethharte

    • http://blog.yoh.com Mindy Fineout

      Hi Beth,
      I don’t know that I would agree that the recruiter’s advice is spot on. Speaking as a professional recruiter, I believe it is partly our responsibility to help those we are working with (whether it is our direct employer or a client we are recruiting for) connect the value of an extremely well qualified candidate to the talent demands in question.

      I would equate what you are experience to ‘job jumping.’ Hiring managers love to use ‘job jumping’ as an excuse to eliminate a candidate. But sometimes, there are very good reasons why a candidate has moved around with frequency. It is my job to understand the narrative behind the moves and evaluate whether or not they are a valid concern.

      Recruiters need to get the best candidates in front of hiring managers and work to help hiring managers overcome potentially incorrect perceptions they’ve formed based upon simply reading the words on the resume.

      And no thanks necessary. We love this sort of discussion and are thrilled to participate. Hope it turns out well for you!

      • http://www.serengeticommunications.com/ bethharte

        I think the key issue here is geography. What works in one city or state, might not be the same in another. As I said, the majority of hiring companies in this area are heavily regulated and that must be taken into consideration.

        As for job jumping…what does that have to do with the issue at hand? Or with the recruiters advice? Who has been job jumping?

        • http://blog.yoh.com Mindy Fineout

          Sorry Beth, I didn’t mean to imply you were job jumping. What I was trying to communicate is that seeing red flags on your resume based upon your social media activities is similar to a hiring manager seeing red flags on a candidate’s resume based on frequent movement to different employers.

          The recruiter in your piece suggested firms would view your online presence as indicating “you’ll request to be out of the office speaking or on Twitter all day and that you will not be helping to solve their day-to-day problems.” Much in the same way some other hiring managers would look at a candidate with multiple employers over a short period of time and say, “They won’t be sticking around long, so why should I invest in them?”

          Valid in either case? Perhaps, but that is my point. It is up to the recruiter to determine if these are red flags or not. And if they genuinely believe they’re not, to then help the hiring manager consider the candidate and decide for themselves. Make sense?

        • http://www.serengeticommunications.com/ bethharte

          Mindy, I couldn’t respond directly to your below comment. Yes, that makes total sense. In my case, the recruiter saw my “speaking and blogging” as a red flag and made a recommendation accordingly. I wanted to share the advice ultimately to see what recruiters and hiring managers thought, so thank you!

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