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 Steven Guine on January 6, 2014 at 2:24pm: :-) Knowing where to fish comes with time and experience. It is not as easy as it looks. :-P However, today's resources do make it much easier to do than at the dawn of time when I started my agency adventure. :-)

Comment by Ron Pobuta on January 29, 2014 at 1:20pm

Comment by Ron Pobuta on January 29, 2014 at 1:24pm: Just came across this post. Cleary, you are out of touch. Facebook lost 3 million users last year....they opted out. The largest growing sector of new Facebook users is 55 plus year olds. 55 plus. That is exactly the demographic that we are trying to attract. Conversely, the largest new signups amongst all social media sectors was LinkedIn.

The joy of just posting something for the sake of posting. Oh, and Denver will KILL Seattle this week. 35-13....

Comment by Amy Ala Miller on January 29, 2014 at 2:35pm: Hey Ron, thanks for commenting! Let's break this down - I don't want to miss a learning opportunity.

Cleary, you are out of touch. - How so? What am I missing?

Facebook lost 3 million users last year....they opted out. The largest growing sector of new Facebook users is 55 plus year olds. 55 plus. That is exactly the demographic that we are trying to attract. Conversely, the largest new signups amongst all social media sectors was LinkedIn. - Mmmmkay I don't know about losing 3 million or gaining 6 gazillion, but I'm sure the stats are out there. When you say the 55 + is EXACTLY the demographic YOU are trying to attract (I'm assuming you're referring to yourself and who you work with/for) does skill set factor into this at all? I'm personally looking for app developers. They can be 22, 62, or any age really. And they're telling me directly they hang out on Twitter.

The joy of just posting something for the sake of posting. - Nonsense. I post because it's cheaper than therapy.

Oh, and Denver will KILL Seattle this week. 35-13.... - HA!

Comment by Derdiver on January 29, 2014 at 2:51pm: Set and match, Ala.

Comment by Dane Anar on January 29, 2014 at 3:53pm: Wait, so you're saying that if I want to be a cool kid I have to get rid of my Facebook? B-b-but, what if I don't wanna??

Comment by Amy Ala Miller on January 29, 2014 at 4:02pm: come back when you're 55+ Dane. I think that's the message. But I'm out of touch so I could be wrong ;)

Comment by Dane Anar on January 29, 2014 at 4:28pm: Wait, since you're so active on Facebook, does that mean you're older than 55!?

Damn, Amy, you're pretty rockin for 55.

Comment by Kelly Blokdijk on January 29, 2014 at 5:17pm: So where do we stand on snapchat?

Comment by Matt Charney on January 29, 2014 at 5:20pm: @Kelly: I don't get SnapChat. I mean, if you want to share content that someone glances at for a few seconds before it totally disappears forever, I'd highly recommend becoming a B2B blogger.