Introduction
In the context of this article I’m referring to social media as those social sites which enable users to contribute content, create profiles, engage with others, and share knowledge, skills and experience. Examples include social networking sites like LinkedIn, Ecademy, Xing, Facebook, MySpace, and many others; media sharing sites like YouTube, Flickr and Last.FM; knowledge sharing sites like Wikipedia; personal blogs and micro-blogging sites such as Twitter.
Again, in the context of this article, I’m considering recruitment companies seek to find the ‘right’ person for opportunities and vacancies in organisations where a need for particular skills has already been identified and a vacancy exists.
Social media as a people-finder
Sites like LinkedIn and many of the other social networking sites allow recruiters to search for individuals who meet appropriate criteria. It’s therefore very common for recruiters presented with a vacancy by a client to search the internet for people who are locally based and have the right skills, experience and job history to be considered for the role. From the recruiter’s point of view this research enables them to find great people much more easily than before the sites existed.
However, there is no guarantee that the self-written, self-presented information provided on those sites is accurate so it’s important that recruiters do more than simply search. For the candidates themselves, or the potential candidates, recognising that their profiles and the information they provide online will be used to seek them out means that many recognise the need to present their material in a way that gets found easily for the right opportunities. Recruiters now engage pro-actively in conversation, it’s away to test and validate individual statements.
Design of profiles and searching systems on social networks have developed, and continue to develop, to enable those searches to be more effective and more targeted. As they develop candidates and recruiters need to adapt their approach to recognize the opportunities that these changes provide.
There is of course a greater opportunity for research to be undertaken into all aspects of an individual by looking at the media which they have shared, recommended, ‘favourited’ on sites like YouTube, enables a picture to be built up of their sense of humour, the places they enjoy visiting, the shows and personalities who they admire, the books which they read and so on. Increasingly this information is also becoming easier to find and more extensively indexed through search engines like Google and others.
Again, candidates and potential candidates are increasingly recognizing the need to take care with their online reputation and to ensure that the information that is found about them reflects them properly.
On some social networks like Facebook and MySpace the network remains relatively private to an individual and those with whom they associate and have acknowledged as ‘friends’. Many have assumed that that means that their information in those arenas won’t be too publicly visible and have taken a much more relaxed attitude to the presentation of their activities and style. Increasingly recruiters are finding access to that information easier to find as well and taking it into account when considering who to approach.
The converse though is powerful. Candidates who present a consistent and positive image of themselves and demonstrate skills and experience along with gaining credibility as an authority in the subject form their peers can stand out. If they can ally that positive profile to a wide and far-reaching visibility through a diverse network of contacts it’s likely that recruiters who search for people like them won’t miss them. Recruiters who learn their way around the social media opportunities and utilise their own referral sources can expect to continue to source the very best and build their own reputations as the agency of choice for their clients.
Conclusion
We are increasingly providing significant amounts of information to social networking and other social media sites as a society and as individuals. Recruiters having access to that information are increasingly using it to research and find the people whom they wish to approach for opportunities in the market.
Historically we used to say that the best opportunities went to those who were well-connected with the business or those with an opportunity to influence the decision makers in those businesses, whilst that remains true, the influence that we now present and the opportunity for our approach, our style and our personal and private activities to be considered as part of the recruitment process increases almost daily.
Recruiters will use social media perhaps, soon enough, exclusively as their sourcing medium for the appropriate candidates. Candidates need to be there in order to be found for those opportunities, but when they are there they need to be consistent and true to their own style, their own personality and their own way of working, for without doubt that will become obvious to those who seek them.
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