Social Media Recruiting Works? Prove It.

I am working on two searches that have turned out to be somewhat of a purple squirrel and shouldn't be..I thought. Having advertised the positions, direct called, asked for personal referrals etc. etc. Still no viable candidates that are of interest to my client. Now, they have changed the job requirements mid search which caused some whiplash. But here's my thought. To all you who believe that social media recruiting is the holy grail..show me the candidates. If you can find candidates for these two positions using only social media, no posting ads, no direct calls, if you have one in the data base he/she has to be the result of social media recruiting, i'll split with you.

These will not make you rich, but on the surface they won't seem to be that difficult so if you want to give it a try, let's see if your medicine works. If it works we'll post about how you did it and give you the opportunity to show us how you did it.

Here's the job description:

Position: Staff Level Operations Manager - Wholesale Distribution

Location: Atlanta, Georgia - Here's the catch. Must be within 20 minutes commute time from the Lawrenceville, Georgia area. Prefer not to relo.

Salary Range: 50 to 60K. No bonus potential. 401K, Medical insurance effective after 90 days and expensive for family coverage first year. Fee is 20% of base, split paid upon receipt of check from company. 90 day replacement guarantee.

Deg. Supply Chain Management, Logistics, Business with supply chain management or other four year degree with Supply Chain/wholesale distribution experience..

Functional Responsibility: Supervise a team of 20 -25 hourly associates in a fast paced , automated pick, pack ship environment. Flexible for second shift or weekend shift work. Position is one of 12 Ops Managers at this level reporting to the AGM and GM. Experience with SAP, Red Prairie, High Jump or Manhattan WMS PkMS.

What the client wants. Min. of 3-4 years management experience in the wholesale distribution warehouse facility of any of the big box DC's ie; Target, K-Mart, Toys R. Us, Best Buy, etc. Can not consider candidates coming directily from Wal Mart distribution. Manufacturing background not a fit.

Retail not a fit. Stable job record. Heavy on the stable job record. Good reasons for change.

If you can find candidates using social media only i will be impressed. Questions, comments, my email address is prosearch@suddenlinkmail.com. Or post it here. We have looked at a lot of candidates for these positions. If we already have them from ads or direct recruiting will let you know immediately. I want to see if social media is really a tool that will produce candidates who are not findable using other recruiting processes. Wanna play?

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Jerry Albright on November 4, 2010 at 10:59am

Nick - this is perhaps one of the most well written responses I've seen in quite a while. You have a gift. Thanks!

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Permalink Reply by Sandra McCartt on November 4, 2010 at 12:12pm

Nick,
An erudite response that begs reading, digestion and contemplation.

I bet you can write one hell of a cover letter. We would all be better served if we indeed recognized the "subtitle" differences, as well as what really happens when a good recruiter, a candidate and a client triangulate.

So what do you think of Twitter and the viability of talent communities?

Paul,
As to mossy old headhunters who have evolved with several revolutions. I was having a conversation this week with a sophisticated recruiter who has been in the industry a bit over 10 years. He was astounded when i described typing a cover letter on a typewriter, sticking the copied resume and cover letter in an envelope, adding a stamp then waiting 3 to 5 days for the client to get the resume but he did giggle when i mentioned that it was so much faster than that tray of letters that had to dipped in ink and hit with a mallet when they were pressed to the paper.

He asked, "How did you find candidates?"

I had to think a minute, it's been a long time. "We advertised in newspapers and trade journals but the real treasure trove was the little room in the office that contained the yellow page phone books of every major and many minor cities in the United States". "We joined professional groups, wrote letters to people talking about positions that we were working on and to introduce ourselves and our services, we made "warm" calls, cold calls were as irritating to people as they are today, we built our reputations without using a bevy of trendy buzz words by proving our knowledge of business in general and learning enough about an individual business to be able to make a judgement call as to who would fit in that organization." We learned to sell and negotiate and close. We depended heavily on referrals from relationships that were developed over years.

Notice anything? As Nick says, "the more things change the more they stay the same". The only difference is speed, accessability, more tools and the ability to use the ones that work without getting bogged down by realizing the objective is drain the swamp. Ask me about the time i sent out 500 personal letters to the CEO's of every manufacturing company listed in the Thomas Registry in the city of Fort Worth, Texas. It had about the same result as tweeting a job to 1500 connections. Social networking is not new...taking pen in hand just went on for more than 140 characters but stamps were a lot cheaper at that point. Nobody was more excited about a computer than those of us who had blisters on our fingers from creative writing to sell a candidate.

May i suggest gentle readers that recruiting is effective interaction with people. Any interaction with people is social networking and it always has been. The question is..is it effective?

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Permalink Reply by Paul Alfred on November 4, 2010 at 12:29pm

Well Said Sandra .... You are quite right Recruiting is a form of Social Media .. Today we incorporate newer tools. I just wanted to point out to Nick that Surfers spend all their time scanning through Job Boards looking for candidates that every other recruiter has access to then making presentations of those candidates their clients have themselves because of their investment on the same Job Boards.

LinkedIn requires a large personal network if you are not a paid member and bigger and smarter investment of time to tap into resources if used wisely it can provide intelligence on Client hiring Activities, Client's Competition and key resource movement within a given industry so on and so forth .... in addition to a great recruiting ground.

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Permalink Reply by Sandra McCartt on November 4, 2010 at 12:42pm

Good definition Paul. Sometimes i think i am a surfer on the sea of life and that triangle i see behind me is not a sailboat.

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Permalink Reply by Michelle (Shemenske) Hagans on November 4, 2010 at 1:43pm

We got a new order at 2:01 ET on Tuesday. As we're primarily an IT staffing company and the order was for a Jr. level product marketing candidate, our database was of little help. We quickly set up ads and then I personally jumped to LinkedIn to do a search. I contacted 3 previously unknown to me potential candidates with what appeared to be great background. By 2:36 PM I had a response from one of them. She was employed but not in her chosen field. She emailed me her full resume at 3:16.

I spoke with the candidate Tuesday morning at 9:30. We met in my office Tuesday afternoon at 3:00. She was a great candidate. She was submitted to the client before 5:00 on Tuesday. We're waiting for them to set up interview times. I'll let you know how it goes.

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Permalink Reply by Karie D'Amico on November 4, 2010 at 2:06pm

I have a candidate in the 2nd stage of interviews who saw my post on LinkedIn and sent me her resume. :)

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Permalink Reply by Sandra McCartt on November 4, 2010 at 2:21pm

Linkedin is working big time it seems for all of us. Michelle and Karie are rockin and rollin with it.

Will it change the dynamic if the cost to use linkedin for recruiters goes up to 5 or 6K a year? And will it then become a job board?

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Permalink Reply by Michelle (Shemenske) Hagans on November 4, 2010 at 2:25pm

It's an interesting question. I now have a paid account that I got during a recent promotion but I found my candidate using the same methods I used two weeks ago before I ponied up for extra features. As much as like the extra capability, I don't think I'd consider it at $5,000 a year.

Sandra McCartt said:

Linkedin is working big time it seems for all of us. Michelle and Karie are rockin and rollin with it.

Will it change the dynamic if the cost to use linkedin for recruiters goes up to 5 or 6K a year? And will it then become a job board?

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Permalink Reply by Jerry Albright on November 4, 2010 at 2:32pm

Just a thought here - I do not consider LInkedin to be in the general category of "Social Media" - which in my opinion is a highly overrated recruiting avenue (for the people I recruit)

At this time I view Linkedin as an interactive job board that I'm not currently paying for.

All the Facebook, Twitter recruiting nonsense is just that - nonsense.

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Permalink Reply by Sandra McCartt on November 4, 2010 at 4:30pm

That was my take when i started this post Jerry, it seems that many people regard Linkedin as social media, i tend to agree that it is more as you have described. I have a paid subscription but don't see that it is much different than the free listing other than i have received a message that as long as i keep it i will be able to see full names instead of only first name as seems to have happened.

Based on no one coming forth with anything about Facebook and Twitter here i would say that those might be considered as "socializing media" with perhaps a little marketing value but no revenue generation that i have experienced. therefore not a serious venue for recruiters. ie; nonsense.

I have also noticed that many companies in an effort to jump into the social media cesspool are adding stuff to their career sites that is many times painful to read in terms of being just "Pap" with some asterik disclaimers added by their legal departments indicating that the glorious benefits described may not be the same for every position and are subject to change. However, i have recruited some candidates by looking at the testimonials that companies are publishing from some of their employees. Now there would be some "passive candidates" who are not even aware that their company is giving them exposure to headhunters.

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Permalink Reply by Nick Lagos on November 4, 2010 at 6:08pm

Thank you Jerry!

May I return the compliment! Your blog on How to Get a Counteroffer caught my eye a few weeks ago and I loved it! Well written with humor; just a marvelous gift.

I’m new to this group (joined a while ago but just focused elsewhere till now) and I’m looking forward to learning from the ground-swell of thought leaders like yourself contained herein, while also contributing wherever I sincerely feel I can (for better or worse).

Thanks again Jerry!

Jerry Albright said:

Nick - this is perhaps one of the most well written responses I've seen in quite a while. You have a gift. Thanks!

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Permalink Reply by Nick Lagos on November 4, 2010 at 6:26pm

Sandra- Twitters an enigma to many of us because we’re tempted to “buy into” the hype… Guess we’re secretly wishing for a “recruiting utopia” and we’re disappointed when we realize none’s to be found.

LinkedIn only works so well for recruiters because as aptly alluded to by you and Paul (and I’m sure many others), recruiters have lived in the world of “social networking” before the term was coined. “Recruiter’s” today were “match-makers” in yesteryear and if not “the oldest” profession, it’s in the top 3 I’m sure. LinkedIn is the "logical" extension of the “town square”.

Your explanation of the “days of snail-mail and typewriters” (remember “onion skin” paper?) I’m sorry to say are in my closet as well.

Success then as now uncompromisingly relies on hard work, not the tools we used to achieve it!

Twitter’s, a tool (and nothing more) which will someday be equivalent to the “typewriter”, but to get back on-point, I do believe Twitter can be effective in recruiting because there are too many examples of successful business that launched using a multi-sensory approach which included Twitter.

Alone Twitter’s akin a “one-armed paperhanger”(sincerest apologies if this term is considered socially incorrect, but the imagery makes my point better than any words I could conjure).

But combined in a cohesive marketing plan that incorporates (to stand on Paul’s shoulders) ALL the tools we as recruiters have at our disposal…

I predict recruiters that do not adopt the many tools available them today (including Twitter), and excise from their arsenals “the typewriters in our closets”, will simply follow the natural order of things, as they should.

If however you dare to “stay in the game” (or, you’re an early entry), don’t expect massive gains day one… but do expect massive losses in the future, if / when candidates (and clients) stop communicating with some because they're living an old paradigm, and "the fish" have simply… moved on.

I personally didn’t get “texting” (at all), till it became the only form of communication opened to me with my 10 and 12 year old kids when they were out of the house.

Today, it’s a primary tool in communicating with my candidates and a few select clients used daily, and I (we) love it!

Sandra McCartt said:

Nick,
An erudite response that begs reading, digestion and contemplation.

I bet you can write one hell of a cover letter. We would all be better served if we indeed recognized the "subtitle" differences, as well as what really happens when a good recruiter, a candidate and a client triangulate.

So what do you think of Twitter and the viability of talent communities?

Paul,
As to mossy old headhunters who have evolved with several revolutions. I was having a conversation this week with a sophisticated recruiter who has been in the industry a bit over 10 years. He was astounded when i described typing a cover letter on a typewriter, sticking the copied resume and cover letter in an envelope, adding a stamp then waiting 3 to 5 days for the client to get the resume but he did giggle when i mentioned that it was so much faster than that tray of letters that had to dipped in ink and hit with a mallet when they were pressed to the paper.

He asked, "How did you find candidates?"

I had to think a minute, it's been a long time. "We advertised in newspapers and trade journals but the real treasure trove was the little room in the office that contained the yellow page phone books of every major and many minor cities in the United States". "We joined professional groups, wrote letters to people talking about positions that we were working on and to introduce ourselves and our services, we made "warm" calls, cold calls were as irritating to people as they are today, we built our reputations without using a bevy of trendy buzz words by proving our knowledge of business in general and learning enough about an individual business to be able to make a judgement call as to who would fit in that organization." We learned to sell and negotiate and close. We depended heavily on referrals from relationships that were developed over years.

Notice anything? As Nick says, "the more things change the more they stay the same". The only difference is speed, accessability, more tools and the ability to use the ones that work without getting bogged down by realizing the objective is drain the swamp. Ask me about the time i sent out 500 personal letters to the CEO's of every manufacturing company listed in the Thomas Registry in the city of Fort Worth, Texas. It had about the same result as tweeting a job to 1500 connections. Social networking is not new...taking pen in hand just went on for more than 140 characters but stamps were a lot cheaper at that point. Nobody was more excited about a computer than those of us who had blisters on our fingers from creative writing to sell a candidate.

May i suggest gentle readers that recruiting is effective interaction with people. Any interaction with people is social networking and it always has been. The question is..is it effective?