Tag Archives: Social Media

Problem: Job Seekers Use Social Media, HR Does Not (Video)

AKA Who’s Driving This Freaking Thing?

(Subscribers may need to click through for the video. The transcript is below if you’re the reading type!)

I see articles every single day teaching job seekers how to use social media to get a job. On the other hand, I also see a lot of legal types doing their best to scare the pants off HR/recruiters who use social media to find candidates.

I\’m sure you\’ve heard that the headline sells the newspaper. Well, I was sucked into watching a recorded webinar the other day based solely on the title. How could I resist something called Blogging, Social Media, and the Workforce? :-)

Anyway, I realized my mistake pretty quickly. I spent 75% of the webinar listening to someone ramble about laws, phones, and email. Ugh. The last few minutes dealt with what the whole webinar should have been about–blogging and social media. Just a few gems I picked up from the webinar, if I might paraphrase:

  • If you go to a blog and you decide not to hire because you find out that they are of a specific race or religion, that can be a problem. Whoa, you don\’t say! Wasn’t that already illegal?
  • Don\’t let the people who make hiring decisions be the same ones who are using social networks like Facebook. Going to these sites can provide too much information. Huh? That doesn’t even make sense!

Those quotes make me a little queasy. Thankfully I have an antidote in this great comment by Mike Haberman.

When HR people tell me they are too busy in their jobs to use social media, I tell them it should be part of their jobs to use it. The tools are just too valuable to ignore.

I agree completely. Constant growth is a big part of this profession, and putting your head in the sand isn\’t exactly a strategy I\’m a fan of. Think about it. If coaches and other career professionals are telling job seekers to use social media to connect with companies, and you\’re hiding in the basement hoping it will blow over, where does that leave you in the long run? Yeah. Not good.

What are your thoughts?

Understanding Social Media Use

I had the opportunity to speak with Mike Haberman yesterday, and one of the big takeaways (other than a few really sweet quotes for later posts) was that HR people really need to be persuaded to see the advantages of social media.

So many of us see the benefits, but so few of us are making the effort to be active in this area.

After our conversation, I ran across this fantastic image on the DIYSEO blog that I just had to share. The blog post is a good one, and I encourage you to look over the information in the image below. Continue reading →

HR Ninja Course Week One

Social Media NetworkingIn an effort to bring more people to the free HR Ninja course, I’m going to go through the lessons myself and post my updates as it goes along.  Enjoy!

Weekly Topic

This week was all about networking and making connections. The final challenge of the lesson was to take advantage of the social media tools available to crank networking up beyond the ordinary “here’s-a-business-card-now-we’re-buddies.”

Weekly Challenge Continue reading →

Why I started blogging

I absolutely love blogging. It’s one of those activities that I can just lose myself in. I’ve wondered for a while now about whether I should do any blogging about, well, blogging! In that vein, I did an informal Twitter poll the other night and asked if anyone wanted to see more posts about blogging. There were quite a few responses (both public and private), and I think it’s worth a shot. While some of you aren’t bloggers, the information should be interesting and it could give you some helpful tips if your organization is attempting to make headway in the social media space. Plus, this is my house. I make the rules. :-)

I’ll kick it off with a nostalgic post about why I started blogging.

In the beginning… Continue reading →

How to Sell Social Media

How to Sell Social Media

How to Sell Social Media

In a previous post, I talked about using social media as a competitive advantage. Today, I’d like to take a look at why people like me attempt to push  or sell social media on those who are not yet participating.

  • Is it because I feel a bit awkward and want others to join me?
  • Is it because I have benefited from its use and want others to do the same?
  • Is it because I\’ve been suckered into a fad and don\’t know any better? Continue reading →

Social Media as a Competitive Advantage

Fads. We have all fallen for one at some time or another. That is why many businesses and people are wary of tools like social media.

What if we put a lot of time and money into this idea and it turns out to be a fad?

I have a question for you: what if you looked at social media not as a fad, but as a competitive advantage?

Many people (I freely admit my own participation) have made it their mission to evangelize and convert people and organizations to social media use. I have an interesting suggestion. Continue reading →

Reader question-Facebook at work

If you\’ve read much in recent months, it\’s probably had some flavor of social media running through it. It seems like there\’s no way to get away from the topic, no matter where you turn. But every once in a while a great question comes up that can\’t be ignored, and that\’s what happened this week. Check it out:

We want to let our employees know that we have set up a Facebook page, but we don\’t want to give them the impression that it\’s okay to use Facebook at work. What should we do? As the HR rep at my company, my boss is waiting for a response. Help!

-J

My take on Facebook

  • I think it\’s a great tool for your business to interact with people on a more personal level (assuming you\’re maintaining it once it\’s set up).
  • If you\’re worried about employees spending all day surfing the web, that\’s a problem with your own culture and leadership, and it\’s not affected by this decision.
  • How many of your employees have personal cell phones? They can access Facebook at any time, even if you block it with your company firewall/filter.
  • If the point of your Facebook page is to get the word out about your company, then make use of your employees. They know a lot of people, and they are your marketing team to the world. Turn your employees into champions for your brand.
  • If you want to encourage the use of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social media sites at work, but you don\’t want it to be completely out of control, why not create a social media policy? Here\’s a site with 40 examples of social media policies.

Anyone else have an opinion they\’d like to share with J?

If you have a question you\’d like to get an answer for (whether publicly or privately), just shoot me an email.

Photo by daveynin.