The Truth About Social Recruiting

Hey you guys, LinkedIn is DEAD. All the cool kids are recruiting on Facebook and you better have yourself some Pinterest sourcing sessions. I’m serious. So serious, in fact, I Binged “Social Recruiting” (well what did you expect) and got over 42 million results, most of which were a horrifying mix of conferences and poorly written blogs by people who couldn’t make a placement if their mortgage payment depended on it. Yes, I Googled it too – 159M results of the same tired crap.

Sigh.

I guess I’m still under the impression that social still means what the good old dictionary defines it as –

relating to society: relating to human society and how it is organized
relating to interaction of people: relating to the way in which people in groups behave and interact
living in a community: living or preferring to live as part of a community or colony rather than alone

What's that you say? Interaction of people? But I TWEET! I BLOG! I LEAVE PITHY STATUS UPDATES ON FACEBOOK!

Eh, so what? When I think about recruiting as a social activity, I think of it as the act of talking with people for the purpose of filling roles for my clients. I don’t do this by spouting off statistics about the number of candidates who aren’t on LinkedIn (73% of people will tell you 92% of statistics are made up anyway). I don’t do this by posting white papers on Pinterest. Most of my Facebook content is food and kid pictures alongside a whole lotta football trash talk. No dears – social recruiting is talking to people who might be a fit for the jobs I’m paid to fill.

But what about the next generation of workers you ask? College students aren’t on LinkedIn! They’re on Facebook! Well, they were, until they started leaving it in droves for Snapchat or something. How are we to reach this next wave of candidates? I’ll tell you what’s worked for me. I talk to them. I find their email addresses and phone numbers and I get in touch. I offer to speak to their computer science clubs, sororities, wherever groups of them congregate. There are two main questions that come up EVERY SINGLE TIME -

How can I build relationships with Recruiters?
Can you help me with my LinkedIn profile?

Wait - recruiters AND LinkedIn? And this just isn't coming from the college set. In fact, I get the first question from all kinds of people from every age group and level of experience. What this tells me is that potential candidates understand the value of recruiters. They wouldn’t be interested in talking to us if they didn’t know there was something in it for them. If LinkedIn is dead, why am I speaking so often to groups of 50 or more college students about how to optimize their profiles and build their networks? Why am I getting new connection requests EVERY DAY from very talented people?

Now I am not anti-social media. I’m not anti-anything, really, except excessive amounts of BS. (I can tolerate it in small doses not to exceed the amount I personally dish out.) I even use job boards. One of my best hires EVER came from a last minute desperate Monster search of resumes posted 18-24 months ago. The tools are only as useful as the person wielding them. Although it’s perfectly fine with me if my competition wants to continue debating amongst themselves the importance of their Klout scores. I’ll just be over here wooing your people away. By being, you know, social.

***image shamelessly stolen from Mike Chuidian AKA The Rad Recruiter

Comment by Amy Ala Miller on December 30, 2013 at 5:14pm: thanks Mike you know I <3 ya!

Sarah couldn't agree more - I'd rather send 10 targeted inmails and get 8 responses than 100 with 30 MAYBES... but that's just me. ;) The more fancy tools we try to use the less "social" the whole thing becomes in my opinion.

Comment by Keith D. Halperin on December 30, 2013 at 5:40pm: @ Sarah: I'd LOVE to have 20% response on InMails, but since most of the people who say they're open to new opps aren't (they just haven't bothered to opt out- it's an opt out feature), most of the InMails/carefully crafted templates/messages, etc. are a complete waste of time, and LI laughs all the way to the bank..

-kh

Comment by Jai Turner on December 30, 2013 at 6:19pm: I have it in my mind to do what it takes to fill that job. I have my Pastor's email to send job orders to, my dad, my college alumni board, facebook, twitter, I do whatever I gotta do to get a person in the position. Yes, I do agree diversifying from linkedin is necessary, everyone is not on LinkedIn, even job boards still work sometimes...I do love this post, very timely. We do need to redefine our social search methods and just make good connections and conversations. Good work girly! ;)

Comment by Keith D. Halperin on December 30, 2013 at 7:01pm: Thanks Jai. Your hard work and good attitude will get you far.

May Everyone Have a Healthy Happy, and Prosperous 2014

Comment by Jai Turner on December 31, 2013 at 5:27am: LOL, thank ya Keith...!

Comment by Keith D. Halperin on December 31, 2013 at 1:32pm: Best to you, Jai.

Comment by Stephen Nehez, Jr. on January 2, 2014 at 3:06pm: Thanks SO VERY MUCH for this article, Amy!!!

We've been having a bugger of a time landing candidates on myspace.

- Nehez of Detroit

Comment by Amy Ala Miller on January 2, 2014 at 8:00pm: They've all moved to Spotify :)

Comment by Steven Guine on January 6, 2014 at 2:13pm: GREAT post! Every under/post grad I speak to asks the same thing.

I have an admission to make. I know how to recruit on FB (I have attended training, too). I even have gone to the extent of creating a company page, all to take it down and delete the account.

I have found more success recruiting using meetup and yelp.

Comment by Amy Ala Miller on January 6, 2014 at 2:16pm: thanks Steven! It's interesting how EVERY college student I talk to brings up LinkedIn - and not in the "ugh why do I have to be on here" kind of way. :)

I'm recruiting Technical Evangelists right now - basically developers who blog and speak at conferences - and am amazed at how many have a huge Twitter presence. You just have to fish where they're biting - not sure what's so complex about that. :)

Comment