Social Media as a Recruiting Tool, Your Feedback & SM Failures

Last week I asked you if you were using social media for recruiting purposes, and if so, what your experience had been. Here is your feedback:

When asked how sites have worked for you specifically in regard to recruiting, the results were mixed. between My Space, Linkedin, Twitter and Facebook, the site you had had the most success with was Linkedin, with 42% of you claiming success. The least effective by far was My Space with no one claiming any recruiting success at all. Facebook came in second, Twitter in third place, although the actual winner was "other." meaning the most success found for online recruiting was not on any of these four sites.

The downside included, "More noise than real return. A lot of energy spent sorting out unwelcome solicitations." One of the positive stories: "I used Skype to interview and hire Rick Bakas without ever meeting him in person. Way better than just a phone call." I think one survey participant put it best: "Using social media to recruit is a tool, not the tool." In other words, it is not a magic bullet, simply one of a number of avenues you can use to attract the right candidates to your company.

Thanks for your participation!

I wanted to ask a different social media question this week, due to a recent experience I had on Facebook (and I once had a similar one on Linkedin). What have been you negative experiences with social media - either with connections or with technology?

Since my Facebook page is used primarily for business, I set up a new one strictly for close friends and family. As I went through the process I carefully selected people to send invites to. As my address book is long, this took quite some time. At the end, I saw a message that said: "invitations will be send to 66 people" which was correct. I clicked to send, and apparently 2,500+ contacts were sent invitations. It was obvious immediately, because I started getting vacation replies, etc. from people who I had not intended to send invites to. If you are one who received this, I am very sorry for the inconvenience! I immediately de-activated the account.

I also found this process not user friendly, as Facebook does not have an option to include a personal message. I find the email that goes out "Check out my photos on Facebook" to be inappropriate and not the message I wish to send at all.

Have you had bad or embarrassing experiences with social media? Tell me about them!

-Margie