CareerCurve™

With the advent of social media a new truth has emerged.  Companies no longer own their brand.  Back in the good old days (the 90’s, ha ha), a company was responsible for the message and image it displayed for the public.  This came in many forms such as attending conferences, controlling mentions in news and editorial pieces, creating press releases, and by working to earn awards.  These attempts at controlling employer brand are not obsolete but they now hold a lot less weight than they used to.  The people who now control your brand are people out there that you cannot control. 

The most common groups that have control over your brand include past and present employees, vendors, and current clients.  The world of social media has ensured that any experience, positive or negative, can be shared instantaneously and widely. 

Think about your options if you have something you want people to know:  You can send out a Tweet (from your phone, no less), post a status update on Facebook or LinkedIn, comment on an article (including articles on credible sources like newspapers or TV stations), post a picture – the options are practically limitless.  And accessibility to these platforms via handheld devices means the person posting doesn’t mull it over until they get in front of a computer and potentially edit what he or she was going to say.  We’ve always had gut reactions but these are instincts that many times we didn’t act on.  Now the odds are higher that this will become THE reaction.

In addition, a sad fact is that these types of comments are considered more reliable than any good PR your company puts out.  So what if you’ve won an award as one of the greatest places to work?  A few disgruntled employees who are verbal on social media platforms can make this award almost meaningless.  There is skepticism that messages sent by a corporation are true and a desire to embrace the messages of people who have actually “been there”.

This is where Human Resources is so important.  It has long been known that productivity is directly related to happy employees and HR’s job is to make sure their people are happy.  But have you considered the effect of a strong HR department when it comes to company brand?  What if everyone who worked for you, with you, sold to you, or bought from you only had good things to say about you? 

This starts with HR and moves outward.  If the employees are happy and well-treated, they will support you to other employees, both past and present, spread the good word to your vendors and prospects, and reiterate it to current clients.  Now you are taking all the worrisome effects of social media and using them to your advantage. 

Realize that how you treat your employees will be shared instantaneously and often and encourage this.  Spend time on these platforms and learn what people say about you.  Humbly view this material and use it to make improvements when the comments are valid.  Get technologically savvy enough to follow alerts, bring the positive to the forefront, and bury the bad.  But know what is being said.

HR is about supporting people and people are controlling employer brands now.  Start a movement in your organization where you commit to treating your employees right, watch it grow and then show the company owners the effect this will have on your brand.  Soon HR may be the most valuable department in your company.

Social Media is creating quite the stir for businesses on multiple levels and bringing up a lot of questions that haven’t had to be answered in the past.  There is the challenge of how an organization can use social media to boost sales, how it can be used effectively for customer service, how to not only institute policies and governance for your employees but then how to enforce these rules. And then there is the question of ethics and acceptable usage in the hiring process.

Many human resource departments consider it unethical to Google a potential recruit.  I don’t really understand this position mainly because each candidate has a fairly decent level of control over what information exists about them in social media.  If a candidate chooses to put something out there, why would you, as a human resource employee, have an obligation not to look at it?  I understand that there are times when things may appear about an individual that he or she doesn’t want on the web, but it is possible to take steps to remove these things, or at the very least, hide them from view.  My position is that if you put it out there, I’m going to read it and I don’t see how that is unethical.  I also use common sense and understand that it is the internet and you can’t believe everything you read.

That being said, I do think it is absolutely unethical to try to “friend” someone for the purpose of being nosy and attempting to learn things that are none of your business.  A candidate may feel obligated to accept a request whether they want to or not to get a job and that is not a fair position for the candidate to be in.  There is a line between things that are work related and things that are personal and using your “power” to cross over that line and use personal information to screen someone’s ability to do a job is wrong.

Maybe the issue isn’t as simple as whether it is ethical or not, but whether the intention when it is used, is ethical. This creates a whole new challenge.  If an hr person is viewing the accessible information for the purpose of getting the “dirt” on someone, that is wrong.  But if he or she is doing research in the hopes of finding documentation that supports the information they’ve been given by candidates or seen on a resume, I just don’t see a problem with this.  So how in the world can you assess this with your hiring managers?

Even given the issues surrounding the ethical usage of these platforms for screening candidates, isn’t a large part of this whole equation the candidate’s responsibility?  Where is the accountability?  Is it with the person who is doing the reading, or with the person who is announcing their personal information all over the web? 

I vote that each potential hire is an adult capable of making choices.  If he or she chooses to call in sick to go to the beach and announces it on Twitter, or chooses to bad mouth their colleagues on Facebook but NOT ensure that this information is not viewable by anyone in the free world, I am not going to feel bad about reading it.  And it will color my impression of the candidate in a professional sense.  This provides a lot of relevant information about this candidate that I would have to take into consideration.  At the very least, he or she is irresponsible in using social media at all, whether due to ignorance or just plain lacking the common sense.  Edit yourself!  This is not an ethical concern for me but a responsibility concern for the interviewee.  Although common sense by the reader does come into play here as well.  Was it one tweet out of a hundred?  Or is there a constant stream of disparaging remarks about the employer or the co-workers?

What do you think?  Do you use these tools when screening potential hires?  Do you feel bad about it if you do?  Should candidates be held accountable for what exists about them in the world of social media?  Are you obligated not to use these tools for ethical reasons?  Do you have hiring managers on your staff that use social media for the purpose of evil rather than good?  How do you handle that if you suspect that is what’s happening?

Lately it seems like everywhere you turn, there are articles and blog posts discussing using social media to find a job.  This can be very overwhelming, particularly for job seekers who have never used social media before.  I have summarized some helpful tips on using SM.  It can be a lot of fun but like anything else online, if there is not a plan, you can get lost for hours and not really accomplish anything.  I hope this will help someone  to be less intimidated by social media and use if effectively in the  job search.

1.  Just get started and don’t worry if it starts slowly.

First, set up profiles on Twitter, LinkedIn, and maybe Facebook.  Then think about who you would like to reach.  Realize that this is not about asking for jobs but getting to know the right people.  Read blogs that pertain to your area of expertise and just make comments.  Search for both people and subjects on Twitter and respond.  Search for subjects in discussion groups on LinkedIn and join those groups. Use these comments and discussions and tweets as a way to reach out on other forms of SM.  

2.  Remember the culture of SM is to give.

Give information, give product or industry knowledge, give suggestions.  You search Twitter for relevant subjects and follow the people who are discussing these subjects.  Most of the time they will follow you back.  Read blogs on your industry and comment on them.  Then search for the bloggers on Twitter, etc and use your comment as a way to connect with them.  If you can come up with valuable information for people it provides a springboard for many ways to build up your network.   Answer questions and provide solutions using your own network if possible.  All of these things are important but the most important thing to remember is to try to be connected to people at the organizations where you would like to work or who are hiring managers in your industry.

3.  Use SM to demonstrate your knowledge.

If you know a lot about something in your industry, follow the people in your industry and respond to tweets, comment on blogs, participate in group discussions relevant to the type of job you are looking for.  Anything to make yourself more visible and demonstrate your knowledge to the crowd that will be hiring you.

4.  Define your target audience.

It doesn’t matter if you have 10,000 followers on Twitter if the people who need to be impressed by your knowledge are not in that list of followers.  Also, remember that everything you do on SM is visible so be careful of political posts and pictures or status updates that you wouldn’t want a potential boss to see or read.

5.  When builiding your network, personalize your invitations to connect. 

Write something like, “I read your blog and commented about your most recent post.  This topic is very interesting and I thought you brought up some great points.  Can we connect?” in a LinkedIn invitation.  

6.   Set a strategy to leverage your network.

 An example of lack of strategy and incorrect use of SM would be for a job seeker to ask their networks if they have job openings.  That is not really the best way to utilize networking of any kind.  The best way to take advantage of your network using social media is to target companies who have the type of job you are looking for, and then use your connections to figure out how to get in the door of that organization.  Or target specific people (hiring managers) and try to connect to them through a SM platform like LinkedIn or Facebook.  Your networks can help you figure out who is connected to whom to help you with personal introductions. Think of it as a people or company search, rather than a job search. 

7.  Use a number of sites together. 

I consider LinkedIn and Twitter a must.  LinkedIn is the professional platform and Twitter is a great tool to search for organizations and people.  This allows you to follow them, read the things they are reading and find other ways to connect.  There are also a lot of niche SM sites out there that can be found by reading blogs and learning about the people who comment on those.   Subscribe to these blogs and comment regularly.   Once you are doing it, you will see how different names pop up repeatedly and different sites will be referred to consistently.  All of these things will tell you what you need to be reading and where you need to participate to build a following in your industry.

 8.  Be creative and aware that you can touch TONS of people.

I think the best thing about using SM for a job search is that you are able to demonstrate your knowledge and interact with many, many more people than you can using traditional job search methods.  Also, it demonstrates that you are progressive in that you have taken the time to learn how to use it.  It  allows you to include links on your signatures in any format – traditional cover letters, emails, your resume, etc.  For example, you can create a minute and a half video resume and post it on You Tube and then post that link all over the place.  Or include the link to your video resume on a cover letter, or in your email signature.  Use your profile links on all your correspondence.  Using SM for a job search allows you to be very creative.

9.  Do not disregard traditional job search methods.  Instead use SM to augment your search.

 The best job search strategy is a combination of the old and the new.  If you can engage in SM with employees of a company you’d like to work for or hiring managers in your industry, you can then take it to a personal stage with a little bit of trust and credibility already in the bank.  You can use whatever means possible to connect and engage with your target audience to turn a cold call or cover letter type of situation into a quick conversation between two people who already know each other.  For example, you may follow someone you need to know on Twitter.  They follow you back.  You comment back and forth and start a relationship.  You then use that to connect on LinkedIn.  There you see in the profile this person likes golf and so do you, so you now create conversation about golf.  The natural progression is the ability to call this person on the phone and have a conversation.   What would have been a cold call to try to meet someone is now a warm call because some conversation has already taken place. 

10. Have fun and use SM to keep your spirits up. 

You will also find that there are a lot of other people in the same boat – searching for a job.  Connect with other job seekers to share experiences, learn from others’ mistakes, and stay motivated by reading success stories.  Provide assistance everywhere you can and you will get the same in return.