Jonathan Duarte – Social Media meets Job Search

If you’re one of the 15 Million Americans out of work, chances are you’re first New Year’s Resolution might be “Get a Job!”.

In a must read, Free Ebook, from Polly Pearson and the recruiting team at EMC, 100 Tips from Fortune 500 recruiters, outline the their top job seeker tips and top mistakes they see job seekers making.

In the Ebook, 10 EMC recruiters listed their tips to each of the questions.

I did a little work to summarize the responses into some “Top Tips”, based on the number of times a tip or similar tip was repeated by a recruiter. A summary is below:

Top Job Seeker Tips
# 1 Job seeker tip- Networking!
9 out of the 10 recruiters stated that networking, in it’s different forms, was one of their top tips for job seekers. Networking came in multiple flavors from traditional networking on online and social networking, to using sites like LinkedIn, FaceBook, and Twitter.

# 2 job seeker tip – Being Prepared!
8 out of 10 recruiters stated this as being one of their top tips. When the recruiters stated “being prepared”, this included things like having researched the company before the interview, being prepared for the interview (ie, having practiced the most common interview questions), and showing an interest in the company by coming prepared with and asking questions about the company, the department, and the job, in the interview. This of course dove tailed into the following:

Biggest Job Seeker Mistakes -“Not being prepared in the interview”
Based on the above, its’ easy to understand why 10 of 10 recruiters mentioned being prepared as one of the biggest job seeker mistakes. Being prepared also included understanding how to interview, and having a clear objective or reason why you are interviewing for the position.

Word to the Wise… If you want to stand out in the interview, it’s really easy… Be Prepared! (I guess the old Boy Scouts motto is sill relevant!)

Recruiters Favorite “Sources of Hires” – Referrals and Social Networks.
Again, unanimous, 10 of 10 recruiters stated that Referrals or Social Networks were listed in the top tips from each of the recruiters. The favorite sources included everything from job fairs, employee referrals, college career centers, job boards, social networking sites, like LinkedIn, FaceBook and Twitter., etc. What’s interesting and important to note is that job boards were only mentioned in the 4 of the 10 recruiter’s top sources.

The 17 page Ebook has lot’s of great tips and quotes, here are a couple:

Linda Di, “There is no “best” candidate but “best suitable” candidate. A successful outcome for both the company and the candidate is to find out if they are the best match for each other.”

Michelle Flynn, “It will always be the preference of the hiring manager to recruit someone who is known to them. Give yourself the advantage by being a person to them, rather than a [resume].”

Liz Liptrot, “All people experience what you are going through [as a job seeker]. Whether it is your first job search, you have been hit by the recession, or you are just looking for another career – we have all been there. Don’t be embarrassed by your situation and network with anyone and everyone. Remember that most positions are filled through referrals.”

Technorati Tags: Interivew tips, Job Search Tips, Recruiter Tips, social networking job search

You NEED a Social Strategy! Even a basic one!

Your top recruits are already using sites like LinkedIn, FaceBook, and Twitter.
They’re out there looking for you!

What are they finding?

We are here!
We are a great company to work for!
Come, see for yourself!

or

We don’t get it!”
We don’t care!”

Even if you have a company presence on LinkedIn, Twitter, or FaceBook, Do you know what it says? Or who wrote it?

Social Media Recruiting is “Social”. (That’s the hardest part to understand)
It’s not about writing the bigger check than you competitors.
And, it’s not JUST about how many hires you generate. It’s about getting your message out and engaging your Top Recruits, on their terms, on the sites they use, how they want it, when they want it.

It’s not about writing a check to the site with the best ads on the SuperBowl! Or most aggressive sales people.

What good does it really do if you have a $20,000 “Branding Presence” on a national job board, when you know your Top Recruits never visited those sites?

What’s you message on FaceBook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, where your Top Recruits are? Do you even know?

If you don’t have a social strategy, don’t be surprised when it gets harder and harder to attract and retain to top candidates.

At the moment, social media sites may not be the primary driver of candidates applying for jobs, but they can definitely make the difference during the “Why Work With Us” phase of recruiting.

Social media sites like LinkedIn and FaceBook are quickly becoming the go-to portals for all kinds of information, including company information, product research, consumer reviews, etc. LinkedIn now even embeds company information from BusinessWeek and CNBC into company profiles.

A poorly planned, duct-tape social media recruiting campaign might have worked in the past, but the competition is quickly starting to heat up. Top employers like Starbucks, Addidas, Ernst & Young, and McGladrey are all using social media in their recruitment marketing.

If you know your Top Hires are individuals that know your company, products, clients and markets, and even your existing employees, don’t you think these are the candidates you should be spending the most resources on?

This is what Social Media Recruiting is all about. If you engage and help educate your Top Recruits, you stand a better chance at getting their attention. You can do this with social media… or you can just say “We don’t care!”

Unfortunately you aren’t going to get a phone call from some FaceBook sales rep, who for $25,000, will wave his wand and make the problem go away.

You need to know what to do. Where to start! What sites should we be on? And what are the best practices that others have implemented.

This is where having the help of an experienced and knowledgeable consultant can help you get the ball rolling.
• Someone who has 10+ years in the Internet Recruiting Industry, so they know the ropes.
• Someone who knows LinkedIn, FaceBook, and Twitter, and has a proven track record.
• Someone who knows technical web design and how to integrate job postings into multiple websites.
• Someone who know how to build, implement and maintain a social media marketing strategy.
• Someone who knows how Social Media and Search Engine Optimization can be used to build a social recruiting brand.

I highly recommend starting with a 3-6 month pilot project. It’s easier to digest, you and your recruiting team get to learn the sites, and your recruiting message is clear. From the pilot project, you can then decide which social campaigns make the most sense to you and your recruiting team.

If you are interested in learning more about creating a Social Media Recruiting Strategy, please give me a call, or send me an email at jonathan @ Gojobs.com.

While there are a few Social Media Recruiting experts out there, there just aren’t that many.

Technorati Tags: FaceBook, LinkedIn Recruiting, social media recruiting, Twitter

LinkedIn recently started rolling out changes to the geographic location of thousands of Orange County, CA residents. Previously, if you were a resident of Orange County, your LinkedIn geographic region was set to “Greater Los Angeles”.

I’m sure it’s no news to sports fans, but most residents of Orange County would never consider themselves from Los Angeles – funny thing that we have a baseball team called “Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim” though!

None the less, lots of Orange County residents had complained about the distinction. The biggest problem was that when searching for contacts in LinkedIn, it showed members who could live 20 miles away. Normally, that might not be a bad thing, but networking already takes a lot of time, then add in LA Traffic, that was a 1.5 hour commute. So, for networking, which is what LinkedIn is all about, this stunk!

Well, lots of people complained, but Sven Johnston did something about it!

Sven started a LinkedIn group called We Are Orange County. Over 4 months, Sven has grown the group to over 3,500 people, and recently convinced LinkedIn to make a change.

Orange County residents will now be classified as Orange County, instead of “Greater Los Angeles”. Thanks Sven.

I had a chance to meet up with Sven. Here is a video we shot at Pete’s Coffee at the The District at Tustin Legacy.

Sven learned a lot from growing the group and networking within Orange County. He’s one heck of a Business Development guy.

Technorati Tags: LinkedIn, Sven Johnston, We Are Orange County

Social Networking sites, like LinkedIn.com, FaceBook.com, and Twitter.com are quickly changing the recruiting landscape.

Not only is transparency completely altering the recruiting processes, but candidates are quickly learning more about the companies. Most employers have yet to realized this growing trend.

Those employers who start adapting to the new Recruiting Transparency reality stand to gain the greatest.

Recruiting in a socially networked world is going to require engagement, and specifically highly targeted engagement campaigns into niche groups to attract the best and brightest of the passive candidates.

In a recent, 1 hour Live Streaming Interview, hosted on Ustream.com, I was interviewed by Dr. Amy Vanderbilt, host of the TrendPOV Show, regarding “Who’s Tapping your Talent Pipeline”.

The interview is also available via podcasts as well as Ustream.

Below is a copy of the ustream. It’s 60 minutes long… FYI

The full interview is also available via Itunes for Free Downloaning:

Who’s Tapping Your Talent Pipeline? – Part 1

Who’s Tapping Your Talent Pipeline? – Part 2

Who’s Tapping Your Talent Pipeline? – Part 3

Who’s Tapping Your Talent Pipeline? – Part 4

Who’s Tapping Your Talent Pipeline? – Part 5

Technorati Tags: LinkedIn Recruiting, social media recruiting, Talent Pipelines

Kirsti Stubbs, @kstubbs, was interviewed by WhyHire.me about using Social Media and Social Networking sites in the recruiting process.

She discusses how she uses Social Media sites like LinkedIn, FaceBook, Twitter and Blogs to source candidates and get a deeper understanding of who the candidate is.

She walks through some of the sites she is using, and even compares the ROI of social media recruiting to traditional job boards. Spelling out the difference in candidates that she is seeing from the different sources.

This is a great video for both job seekers and employers.

Job seekers, pay attention to what Kirsti says about your personal brand, and how she and recruiters like her are using social networking sites to find candidates that they think will fit their company.

Employers listen as Kirsti describes how she is using the different social media sites and especially with networking into groups.