The following is a post I contributed to Careerealism's Professional Emancipation Project (P.E.P.).
There is a lot of discussion about how, where, and why one must use social media in today’s digital economy. It can be a bit overwhelming for some. The following myths and truths are intended to demystify some of the ways in which you can utilize social media as a job search resource.
I am thinking that the online/paper resume used in our ATS will be archaic in 5 years. This is a great infographic.
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The long and winding road of recruiting never surprises me. Over the last 20 years I have watched it evolve from a paper pushing function into a sophisticated group of people finding fanatics. Sourcing and talent networks/communitiesare at the heart of matter as companies begin growing again. We are expected to keep up with best practices, latest trends, etc.
The expectations are not only coming from organizational leadership, but also from what Talent Leadership reads/hears about.
The long and winding road of recruiting never surprises me. Over the last 20 years I have watched it evolve from a paper pushing function into a sophisticated group of people finding fanatics. Sourcing and talent networks/communitiesare at the heart of matter as companies begin growing again. We are expected to keep up with best practices, latest trends, etc.
The expectations are not only coming from organizational leadership, but also from what Talent Leadership reads/hears about. Unfortunately, the “doers”cannot keep up with the pace and do not know where to start.
When I spoke last Wednesday to a group of Recruiting Specialists, we discussed how to build successful talent networks. It amazed me how many companies were still forbidding the use of social media to recruit talent because a policy was not developed. What the what?!?!?! There were also question about how to get their recruiters to engage in social recruiting because they didn’t think it was a valuable use of time. When someone asked, “how do I get my recruiters engaged in social recruiting? Where do we start?”. My answer (to myself)..”Really?”. I was trying to think back on how I got started…i started playing around in twitter, Reading #mashable religiously, googling the topic, talking to my network and then began building from there. I even read a book by my friend Jessica Miller-Merrell called Tweet This! Twitter for Business. Go to blogging4jobs.com or tweet jessica Very basic but extremely helpful information on how to get started. There is a little more to it than that, but all I thought was that as a Talent Function that we sure have quite a ways to go. There is no end to this long road, but there are quite a few people that are sitting at mile maker 1 with those who jumped in 5 years ago and are further down the road at mile marker 25, 50, and some at 100.
Companies are saying “Don’t keep me waiting here, lead me to your door”. As a talent leader you have to know where the door is to lead them there.
I was headed back to Dallas from Phoenix after attending an amazing SilkRoad users conference #silkroaduc. After a great presentation on #talentnetworks and meeting some incredible people such as @recruiter_gee @hrbartender, and many others. But as luck would have it, storms passed through Dallas, my first flight was cancelled, my second flight was delayed and 5 minutes late…you guessed it. As good American Airlines flyers do, they start to bark and moan about the lack of customer service. I started talking to one guy whose name is Mark, a Systems Engineer for a defense contractor in Fort Worth. Mark and I start talking, we end up at the same hotel and decide to grab a bite to eat. In the interest of building my network and being the recruiter that I am, I began to dig into his past. Mark spent 25 years in the Army. He told his dad that he was headed to the Army when he was 16. Talk about focus. After talking about his military training and moving around the country as an RF Engineer, he began a stint as a Drill Sergeant. Needless to say his career was interesting but this is where it gets good. Drill Sergeant is a mindset that takes the nicest person in the world and turns them into the meanest SOB for two to three years. Mark told me that he would pick the biggest and meanest looking recruit and focus on making his life miserable to the point of tears on the first day. He did this with every recruiting class and his methods never failed. What I already knew but he confirmed is that the Drill Sergeant has an agenda: To take a group of people and turn them into soldiers. The job of a Drill Sergeant is that simple. The pride and satisfaction that I saw and heard as he told several stories of how he turned boys who came in with zero confidence then by the end of Basic Training..men who could do and would do anything they put their minds to. Absolutely incredible The principles are the same in Talent Managemen and Talent Acquisition.
And in the end, the employer wants the employee to “sign on the imaginnary dotted line” again so that they make a career move and stay with the company until it is time to retire or seek a new life outside the organization. Even though my day took a detour, I got to meet a great guy who told great stories and who knows how to make a difference in a person’s life.
SuperRecruiter’s Blog
