I’ve been playing around with Facebooklately, as an alternate sourcing tool. We’ve actually had some nice success with it – several of the people I’ve found who looked interesting have come in for interviews, and a number of them are still in process, with one at offer stage. I started tracking the numbers (because I like metrics), and started to realize that the success rate with Facebook is actually pretty darned high,
I run my searches by using the a Proile Search feature. I can plug in a job title, location, schools, etc, and get a pretty good list. From there, I can take a look at your profile and make some assumptions about the person – are they passionate about their career (love that), do they have good judgement skills, etc.
Facebook gives me an interesting 360 view on who you are as a person – professionally as well as socially. The groups and associations you belong to give me a hint how passionate you are about your career. If your interests include things like “binge drinking” “SMOKING BLUNTS!!!”, they tell me about your judgement skills (seriously – those are cut and pastes from people who are old enough – ie, have jobs they may want to keep). If it’s the middle of the week, and your status from 11 am that morning is about how you’re still hungover at work from the night before, well, assumptions galore on this end…
That said: _great_ personal branding tool. Write a blog. tweet, etc? Tie ‘em into Facebook. Have a LinkedIn profile? Tie it in. Use the right apps, join the right groups, and make yourself look like a subject matter expert with a few clicks of the mouse.
Long story short, keep it clean, people., and use it to sell yourself. Yeah, yeah I know – “but it’s private, it’s for fun, blah-blah-blah.” The minute ol’ Zuckerbergdecided to open it up to anyone over 13, it became fully public. What you do there can – and, more and more so, will – be held for or against you. It’s the Internet: nothing’s private.
Good information. Be sure to stress the “keep it clean”. We have lost candidates that fail to use good judgement here.
love this post!! I presented to our team of recruiters 2 weeks ago on exactly the same issue hoping to convince them of Facebook’s value for recruiting. I like how you present both sides to Facebook as a tool for the recruiter and the candidate.
thanks kerry – appreciate it. i’d add something else: use the status to your advantage. if you’re looking for a job – say it. when i see that on someone’s status, i’m guaranteed to at least take a look to see if they’re somebody we’re looking for.
if you’re a recruiter, use the status to say things like, oh i dunno: “Martin has an unbelievable job available for a direct marketer: http://tinyurl.com/ZoomDirectMrktg”
(The tiny URL is great, especially if the URL to the job post is kinda long – the one for the job I just mentioned is actually: http://zoominfo.hrmdirect.com/employment/view.php?req=24499)
The link in the status update will be live & clickable, and is a great way to get the word out – if your network is BIG enough…
Very well said. Most people are simply not aware that “real” people are looking at these profiles and a hiring and a firing are only a few clicks away. On the other hand, they could be seen as at least being truthful, even the most professional of workers can walk in hungover on a Friday morning. Just saying.
[...] course, you can also use Facebook to purposely share content that would attract recruiters and employers. [...]