Social Recruiting or Whatever

It seems like everyone’s talking about social recruiting these days. There was recently a very impressively put together conference dedicated entirely to the subject. Now the domain name is for sale and everyone seems to be saying that social recruiting is the way to go. Meh.

What I find most interesting is how confused I seem to be on the subject. I started out in recruiting knowing less than nothing and have slowly figured out some of the complexities in the industry thanks to connections I’ve made online, many of which have graduated to physical (actual) relationships. Some of my best friends, colleagues and clients are in my life today because of social media and networking.

And while social media was very helpful in finding candidates, I never set out to use it that way. For me it was always an extension of the marketing portion of my business and I always treated it as such. So it boggles my mind slightly to see something so powerful used to capture candidates, which I always seemed to be able to find in spades. Granted I was never in executive search but still…

Now, I’ve gone on to discover that I’m a better marketer than recruiter, which is all well and good. But since recruiting encompasses both sales and candidate development, let’s look more closely at this social recruiting phenomenon.

So at the Social Recruiting Summit there was a lot of talk about candidates (how to attract them, how to network with them, how to connect with them through mobile devices, the whole shebang) and there was some talk about employees (how they own their own stuff, how to create your personal brand, buiding an authentic voice) and some about social media fancypantses in general (how we should all bend over backwards to engage anyone interested in our personal or professional or corporate brand lest they hate us.) And don’t get me wrong, all of this is valuable and MUCH of it is true. But what about ME?

Yeah, you heard me. You see, I’ve been digging around lately and examining some of the arguments from the old time recruiters and marketers who do nothing but seemingly complain about social media all day long. But that’s not the whole story. When you really pick apart their arguments, it comes down to a very real and sincere question: Is the pendulum swinging too far in one direction?

I think yes. There is too much talk about how to please candidates and not enough talk about how to manage them. There are a lot of presentations about transparency and not so many about market position. There is great postulation about blog comments and not enough about billable hours. Popularity has replaced effectiveness. Which is a crying shame.

Please don’t slam me. I’m all for popularity. Shoot. If it weren’t for Social Media, I would be dictating blog posts to a hot, empty attic in Nebraska. With it, well….tens of you are benefiting from my wisdom.

But the truth is, when communication shifts this unalterably, we need to harness that power for all the aspects of our livelihood. And for recruiters, especially third party ones, half of that livelihood is client dev, sales and marketing. Interestingly, corporate recruiters seem to have gotten this somewhat, finding themselves more wrapped up in “employer branding” than ever before. They find themselves involved in the marketing and sales aspects of HR that they never had to deal with before, which is cool.

I think Social Recruiting is not a fad. I think it currently has an incomplete definition. Here’s a good one though.

Educate, don’t Intimidate

A few weeks ago, I found out that a comedic actress I really like had joined Twitter. I immediately followed her and realized her TwitterStream was comprised of about 50 messages to see her new movie. I saw a lot of backlash from other Twitter and Facebook people.  I was a little irritated but decided to keep following her. Here’s why:

When I was 14, I moved from California to Nebraska. I knew no one, save my family and had no attended the junior high. Essentially, I started high school as a complete newbie. But I wasn’t worried. A military brat, used to frequent transfers, I’d learned to make friends quickly, If I could handle L.A. then I could handle Omaha. So my very first day, I set about charming everyone (or so I thought) and when gym period started, I secretly whispered “Yes!” as at least 7 or 8 of the really popular kids were in my class. And I KNOW Mark the hottie was checking out my legs.

So when it was time to do our timed 40-yard dashes, I was ready to wow ‘em. And I did, by racing across the gym so incredibly fast that my feet couldn’t keep up. I tripped, somersaulted and skidded to a stop, blinking at the lights overhead, realizing I had just killed any hope I had of being a high-school superstar.

So therein you find my tolerance and empathy for folks who maybe don’t know quite what they’re doing in social media yet. AND THAT’S OKAY! Yes, it’s really easy to be snarky and biting about auto-dms or misuse of twitterfeed, and there is certainly a time and place to tell quasi-spammers and hyperpromoters to shut their tweethole, but there is also a time to give people a chance, and maybe even a second chance if they do something dorky and dumb the first time.

We’re around social media so much and bombarded with articles on how to do it right from practically every perspective that sometimes we forget that this is a very new thing for the majority of people. And you might have even done something incredibly stupid when you started, just fewer people were around to see it.

Nice ways to tell someone they’re doing it wrong:

1) DM them privately
2) If you know them, call them
3) Post “how to” articles in the hope they’ll check them out
4) Give them time. If they’re cool, they’ll figure it out.

It’s easy to call someone out and point and laugh at social media gaffes but it’s not educational and it doesn’t really help anyone. The scary thing about social media is it gives some people a lot of distribution power very quickly. If you’re not careful about how you wield that power and influence, you can unwittingly (or wittingly) damage someone who’s just trying to figure it all out.

In regards to the actress, she eventually (in less than a week) got the hang of it all and starting saying funny stuff and posting pictures of her hot acting friends. So…I win.

Do we have to be SO social?

You know it’s kind of a funny question, since chances are, you heard about this post on Twitter, hopped over to read it on the blogor in a community. Why would I ask that here? Why in this post?

Because it’s been on my mind, that’s why. As I’ve made the slow transition from marketing to recruiting back to social media marketing, I’ve watched some interesting things take place. One of those things is the extremely rapid adoption curve that seems to accelerate with every new service and “sharing app” that comes our way. And sometimes, whether it’s because I’m cranky, or overwhelmed or have just wasted thirty minutes reading shared FaceBook links, I ask this question.

Do we have to be so social?

My answer may surprise you. No. In fact, you don’t have to be social at all. There are hundreds of jobs in tens of industries where being even social media proficient is not even a blip on the radar screen. I dont have to know what music you like and you don’t need to see my third grade pictures (kind of creepy anyway right?) for us to do business. There is NO need for me to have an account on LinkedIn, YouTube, Tumblr or FriendFeed to be able to be a smart, successful businesswoman. Today.

Today, it is NOT necessary to master social networking or new media to promote a book, pump a movie, sell a product or hawk a service. But tomorrow it absolutely will be. And here’s the thing about tomorrow. Tomorrow, everyone who is on social media today is wandering around, bumping into one another making mistakes. We’re screwing up, we’re giving TMI, pictures are being posted of us that are not flattering and we’re dealing with negative customer reviews. We’re also learning to be more accountable to advertisers, build relationships with clients, strengthen ties with strategic partners and do business on a global level (often from our homes). So by the time tomorrow rolls around, we’re going to be pretty good at this (I hope). But you won’t be. You’ll be learning, walking around, bumping into stuff, with embarrassing pics and negative customer reviews plastered all over your garishly tacky and misspelled MySpace profile. And we will not make fun of you. We will bill you.

We won’t bill you because you’re new, but because you pooh-poohed social media and networking when it came around and there was grace to learn. Ridiculous tools for narcissists and time wasters for the ADHD generation, you said. Well maybe you were part right….No you’ll finally give in and say “Ok, I’m ready to learn.” And we’ll tell you that junior high is over, that was YESTERDAY. You’re quite a few grades behind and while we’ll teach you, it’ll be for a price.

So there is no need to be SO social. And many of us are probably doing it wrong, taking quizzes on FaceBook and playing SpyMaster on Twitter. But eventually, it will be tomorrow and all those silly ADHD kids will be the only ones ready to step up and market your products and services. For a fee.

Ponytails, job search and why the shoe doesn’t always fit

So I am going to stop apologizing for going so long between blog posts. The economy’s in the crapper, we all have to work harder and longer and I wish I had more time to write blog posts but I don’t, so for now I’m gonna be cool with my once a week schedule.

Today, I was thumbing through some magazine and I saw a title that has been used in June issues in the fashion industry for time immemorial “5 easy summer hairdos”. Oooh lala. Now you have to understand that my hair defies all natural rules and laws of gravity. Easy? Hair? Never in the same sentence. But like a noob, I read the stupid article anyway (or at the least the 5 pictures of gorgeous women and the 10 words on each page). Of course, the ponytail was listed as a “foolproof” way to look “sleek and sophisticated” in the the “summer heat”. Blech. Right, if you’re Jennifer Aniston, Kate Moss or pretty much anyone except me. You don’t see Macy Gray sporting a pony tail now do you?

It got me to thinking (yes I HAVE a point, go to other blogs if you want to read about the LONG tail, we’re dissecting the ponytail up in here) that a lot of job search advice is exactly like that. The same 5-10 tired tips, repackaged, repurposed, recycled and dished out via webinar, powerpoint, blog posts and boot camps. The problem is NOT that those 5-10 tips aren’t very good ones, the problem is that they don’t work for everyone, especially the freaks. And since Chris Brogan (who is very smart and probably never has to worry about a ponytail because he is also, according to his Twitter avatar, very bald) brought up the book “The Outliers” today, I am thinking freaks are starting to become a more sought after commodity.

I love dishing out job advice and helping folks with their resumes, hooking them up with people that are hiring, and so on. And I think I could certainly do those things for my own livelihood if I had to (much like I could tame this ridiculous mane God gave me if given enough AquaNet and an iron) but are they really the right job search strategies for everyone? I don’t think so.

That’s why I get irritated with the constant “cover letter” debates and “job boards vs social media” hullabaloos. When it comes down to it, career search is a very personal thing. Yes, for some careers you need a cover letter, a resume, an employee referral and a three piece suit. For others, you need a great vlog post and pink striped hair (YES YOU DO). Not only are humans the ultimate variable, but jobs are being created that never existed before. What’s the process for that? The answer is there is none. If there is a variable, you can apply a formula but the result will not be the same every time.

Things a job/career search is dependant on:

-Whether or not you want a job, a career or to hang out in your attic and write code.

-Your personality. Are you really cut out for a 23 step interview process? Can you deal with a loosey-goosey infrastructure?

-Season of life. If you’re 23 with two kids and a brand spanking new degree, I’ll just say now’s not the time to get picky. However, with 20 years of progressive experience and some portfolio projects and metrics to point to, you can maybe choose to work from a yacht, maybe. Of course, that same 23 year old could travel the world liveblogging, while the 43 year old is stuck with the offspring’s college obligations.

-Your hair. No seriously, when I was a “journalist” I wore my hair super curly, had an eyebrow and nose ring and wore men’s button down shirts every day of my life. Now that I am a super dooper professional genius (it says that on my business card) my hair needs to be tamer and less likely to elicit SideShow Bob references.

-The industry. If you are headed for a marketing job in an investment firm, you need to look, act, be very different from the marketing person at a small graphic design firm right? Obviously, it stands to reason that your APPROACH needs to be different too.

-Bunches of other stuff.

But, and here comes my famous contradicting myself in the last paragraph of the post, as my mother always said, “Maren, you have to know the rules before you break them.” I am pretty sure she was referring to learning to read music, which remains one of the most traumatic experiences of my life, but it applies to career mapping, job search and learning how to help those folks too.

Not sure it applies to ponytails though.