Recruiting On Facebook

Last month I had my first hire from Facebook.

It wasn’t about joining lots of groups or  ”joining their conversation”.  It was simple, like good old-fashioned networking.    Here’s the play-by-play…

I updated my status to “Looking for a QA Specialist – Know anyone???”.

So all 142 of my friends saw it…or at least the ones who regularly check their FB page.

The next day I get a direct mail in my Facebook account from a really close friend of mine who, incidentally, I had just spent all day Saturday with watching soccer and drinking craft brews.

I knew he was a QA Specialist and he knew I was a recruiter.    But I thought he was happy with his job.   It just so happened that the day after we hung out, he and his girlfriend split up and he decided he wanted to move closer to home. He had also been contemplating a move from his job too. So he saw my Facebook status and contacted me.  

I got him an interview. He got the job. It took 9 business days.

Moral of the story: Never assume that the people in your network are not interested…or that they don’t know someone who is.  The experts talk too much about building thousands of friends and infiltrating relevant groups…but sometimes, all you need is your own personal network.

Have you ever recruited someone from Facebook?  Send me your story…

Tags: facebook

Social Networking for Recruiters: Social Media Strategy 2010

So I’ve taken almost a year off from blogging and I’m back.  I took a hiatus mainly because I wasn’t happy with the way that the HR technology market was moving.  It became very clear to me that every technology provider and even some famous bloggers knew that Managers/Directors/VP’s of Talent Acquisition didn’t have a clue about how to leverage social media for recruitment so they swooped in and eagerly offered their products and services.  2009 will go down in my book as the “Year of the Webinar”.  I must have passively watched about 50 webinars last year.  Most of them on the same topics:  facebook, linkedin, google…and now this years’ gem:  Twitter. 

In May I went to the Kennedy Conference and saw example after example of companies and presenters spouting off about basic social media principles without having a clue about metrics or how to measure results.  Attendees feaverishly took notes.  They basically said…”we know it’s big and we know we need to be a part of it so that’s why we’re doing it.”  That’s not a reason to do something.  Yes, it’s good to innovate without needing results right away, but it’s not okay to be clueless about technology and just pay someone to get you into the space. 

That’s why I started this blog.  Not because I’m an expert on social media for recruiting, but because I wanted to understand it better.  And what better way to understand something than to immerse yourself in it.  So over the course of 2009 I used my Fortune 500 status to sample just about every social media platform, gimmick, trick and technology on the market.  There were no shortage of players willing to charge rediculous fees for “social media training”  (NAS, TMP, Shaker, etc.).  I didn’t pay a dime but did a lot of demos.  You can learn a lot by kicking the tires.

So here we are 2010 and I just finished making recommendations to my higher ups as to what our 2010 social media strategy should be and where we should invest our money and our time.  So after much debate, here are my top recommendations.

1.  Invest in a CRM tool that allows multiple database and open web searches simultaneously with easy parsing and tracking of resumes.  The reason:  To build talent pools where you can use social media tools to keep your candidates warm and informed.  CRM tools have a lot of built in social media tools that make outreach really easy. 

2.  Get LinkedIn Talent Advantage and use it until you run out of inmails and then use it some more.  Linkedin is hands-down the most effective social media tool on the market today.

3.  Invest in Social Media Marketing using a tool such as TalentSeekr or Monster’s Career Ad Network.  This technology tracks your internet usage and then serves up those little annoying ads on the side of your favorite websites.  But the ads are relevant and employment related.  I’ve seen it in action.  It increases relevant candidate flow.

4.  Career site revamp to include more transparency via videos on Youtube and pictures on Flikr.  People like to see the culture of a company by seeing the people working in the company.  Gone are the days of the boring career web sites.   Create multiple “channels” by business unit or job category to increase relevant content.

Technology to avoid overspending on?   Search Engine Optimization.  Everyone is claiming to offer it but only a couple companies actually do it well.  The problem is that now Monster, Careerbuilder, Indeed, and every other major job portal is using search engine optimization to drive traffic to their sites.  There’s no point in competing.  It will cost you too much and you’ll only drive additional “ACTIVE” candidates to your site.  Like you need more of those right?

So those are the four key areas where we’re investing in 2010 as it relates to social media.  Notice I didn’t mention Twitter or Facebook.  They’re in our strategy too, but we spend almost zero time on them and zero money.  The payoff is so small that it’s not even worth mentioning.

I’m hoping to update my Social Media Booklet this year with the most up-to-date things that work…not just the buzz.   And I’ll be expanding on the 4 topics I listed above.  Stay tuned…

Tags: "social media", crm, facebook, sem, seo, twitter

Using Social Networks to Check Candidate References

Good article – bad title – today at PC World on a hot topic. I personally don’t check references online but because I do a lot of advanced boolean searches for candidates on search engines, I see some things about people that I normally wouldn’t see in my applicant tracking system. The bottom line is…we live in a transparent world and candidates looking for jobs need to be aware of what they allow people to see about themselves. What do you think about this topic?

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Recruiting with Social Networks is Iffy – PC World

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/164012/recruiting_with_social_networks_is_iffy.html

In March, I railed against employers who use the Web and social networking sites to screen candidates for jobs at their companies. I argued that it’s unfair for employers to base professional hiring decisions on personal information about candidates that they discover online. Such a use of the Web and online social networks is also potentially discriminatory, I noted in Job Seekers to Employers: Stop Snooping.

So when I recently read about a bank in Texas that prohibits internal staff and external recruiters from using social networks in its recruiting process, I was pleased to learn that at least one company refuses to use the web to snoop into prospective employees’ personal lives.

For Houston-based Amegy Bank of Texas, the decision to ban the use of social networks from its hiring process was primarily driven by the CEO’s desire to avoid “legal landmines”, according to an article on Law.com via Texas Lawyer. Even though employers can legally troll social networking sites for information on prospective employees, they can still get into big legal trouble if they eliminate candidates from consideration for the wrong reasons. For instance, if an employer disqualifies a candidate for a job after finding out via the books on the candidate’s Amazon.com wish list (turned up via a search engine) that she wants to get pregnant, the candidate could sue the employer for discrimination.

Amegy’s CEO also established a ‘no social networks in recruiting’ policy out of “respect” to potential employees (and, presumably, to their personal lives), according to the article. (I should note, as does the article, that Amegy is investigating low-risk ways to incorporate professional networking sites, such as LinkedIn, into its hiring process.)

I think Amegy is being smart about limiting the use of social networking sites in its hiring process, and I hope more employers follow the precedent the bank is setting. Banning what amounts to online snooping will prevent costly and time-consuming litigation and will demonstrate that employers respect job seekers’ and employees’ privacy. It won’t negatively impact employers’ ability to quickly find talented candidates. Let’s not forget that employers have been able to do this just fine for years without online social networks.

Whether you agree or disagree with me or with Amegy, I recommend reading Texas Lawyer’s article. It’s a quick, easy read that takes you through the CEO’s thought-process on this controversial issue. It also clearly explains the myriad legal pitfalls associated with using social networking sites for recruiting, not to mention the systems and processes Amegy has put in place to enforce its policy.

BountyJobs.Com Continued…

So it’s been a while since my last post but my blog traffic is up by like 9000% so I’m thinking that people have somewhat of an interest in what I have to say…so I’ll continue.

Since my last post the economy has tanked leaving guys like me in a feast mode with candidates. The candidates who wouldn’t talk to me 6 months ago, won’t stop calling me for a job. Interesting dynamic. My headhunter calls for new business and repeat business are also at an all-time high. So I’m back to working with BountyJobs to manage the madness.

I recently met at my local hangout with the new Director of Corporate Accounts – Tom Walsh – who was on a mission of gathering customer insights. He did a great job of asking how I use the site and actually turned some of my suggestions into applications within a couple days. Not sure how he did it – but he did.

He also listened when I, and other customers like me, said that we want ATS integration. So this morning, I had a call with their tech guy who has integrated our system with theirs so that we’re not opening up ourselves to OFCCP worries and it streamlines my workflow. Very impressed with how far they’ve come with tweaking their offerings to meet the needs of people who see the value but can’t get it to work within their process.

Although I still haven’t made a placement through the site, I’ve had several candidates come through that were interviewed. I probably would have had a hire recently but the position was put on hold until 2010. But I’m continuing to use BountyJobs and with the new ATS integration, will be more likely to put additional jobs on the site.

My major issue is still with vendor quality so I’m going to see if I can’t think up some ways that I can bend a little bit to get better information to the headhunters so they can do a better job of sourcing. My biggest concern is that most of the vendors seem to be cherry picking from the big boards — which we already do so I end up with a lot of duplicates and low-quality candidates. Anyway…I’ll keep using the site and keep updating as new improvements are made.

As always, stay tuned…

The opinions expressed in this blog are mine and mine alone and do not represent the opinions of my employer.

Tags: "social media", bountyjobs.com, recruiting, Social Networks, sourcing, staffing, Web 3.0

BountyJobs.Com…The New Frontier Of Recruiting? Part 2

It’s taken me about 6 months to begin writing this piece because just when I was about to start, BountyJobs upgraded some features and I wanted to be able to test drive them before commenting. I guess that’s what it’s all about….always be in Beta.

So this post will deal with the initial signing up on BountyJobs as an “Employer”. I won’t go into signing up as a “Headhunter” because I don’t operate in this space, but I will tell you that I have two Headhunter friends who had a VERY difficult time getting ahold of someone at BountyJobs to sign up. No return calls or emails. They have since signed up, but it wasn’t easy.

Now on to the concept for those of you who haven’t used BountyJobs.Com before. The idea for me was simple: Centralized Vendor Management.

BountyJobs.Com gives you a chance to work with multiple vendors, outside of your preferred suppliers, without having to sign a new contract, do an intake call, tell them about your company, blah-blah-blah…the whole new recruiter song & dance. Some companies actually use BountyJobs to manage ALL of their vendor activity (or so I’m told). So the potential here to save time is great, but let’s go further to see if it really does….

BountyJobs makes you sign their master search firm agreement which is similar to whatever you use, but outlines that they are the middleman and assume no risk but will process the payments and take a cut of each one — from the pocket of the Headhunter. And the cool part is, you get to set the fee: 15%, 20%, whatever. So you can actually cut fees without having to negotiate contracts with Headhunters. If they want to work on your job at 10% they will. If not, they work on other jobs. By the way – you can ask BountyJobs to add into their contract some of your legal terms and they will. Everything is negotiable…just the way a free market should be. It took us a couple months to customize the agreement but that was our process not theirs.

Once we were up and running they were helpful in getting our first 10 jobs posted on the system. They push for you to put multiple jobs because the more that get filled, the more money they make. That’s the model.

I was excited when the Headhunters started requesting the right to work on my open jobs. I’ve used a lot of similar services like Guru.Com and it’s always exciting when the bids start rolling in.

Although I loved the concept and the ease of use, as soon as the bids started coming in I started to notice a key flaw in this whole idea — the quality of the Headhunters will make or break my experience.

It was really clear to me from the start that some Headhunters were thorough in the explanations of who they were and why they wanted to source candidates for us, and then others didn’t provide any information. But that’s where my right to choose comes in. Since it’s an open market, I get to select which companies (or independent recruiters) to work with and which one’s will get the “rejection notice”. It’s kind of like selecting candidates in my applicant tracking system. And if I really wanted to be picky (and had the time) I could call and interview each vendor — but that’s not the point here. The point here was to save time and make it a more efficient process.

This was the experience I had on the first day of use with BountyJobs.Com. My next post will include more details on days that followed. As always…stay tuned.

The opinions expressed on this blog are mine and mine alone and do not reflect the opinions of my employer.

Tags: "social media", bountyjobs.com, recruiter, recruiting