News Tag Archives for Social Media

Think Before you Post

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The New Background Check, The Most Revealing Yet?

This is for you under 30 crowd.  Remember all those times your parents got on your back about minding your P's & Q's online?  You know what I'm talking about.  All those reminders that it probably is a bad idea to post all the various times you've woken up hung over, or those pictures of you acting like a fool in Vegas?  Well turns out they were right...again.  Trust me when I say I feel your pain. 

You all probably suspected that prospective employers may Facebook stalk you during the interview process, but I'm hear to assure that they do.   In a regularly cited survey released by Microsoft Research last year 70% of recruiters asked said that what came up when they googled you lost you a job.

Reppler, a start-up tool for monitoring your social media usage, recently conducted another survey to see how 300 recruiters are using social media to screen candidates.  The results are astounding.  A whooping 91% of them are using social media tools to pre-screen candidates.   About half of this 91% screens before they even met you and the other half screens during the interview process.  69% of these recruiters said they had denied a candidate employment based on what they saw.  The biggest fault they identified,  lying about your qualifications for a position.

It isn't all bad though.  68% of recruiters also said that more than once a candidate's Facebook profile landed them the job over someone else. Why?  Because it showcased their honestly, relevant qualifications, creativity, and personality. 

All this in mind it shouldn't come as a shock that in June the Federal Trade Commission approved a company called Social Intelligence which runs background checks of web content.   The FTC determined that the company is in compliance with the Fair Credit Reporting Act allowing them to operate.  Their service uses data mining to compile full records of what you have said and posted to Facebook/Twitter/Flickr/Craigslist/Blogs/etc.  If something job threatening shows up in your report it is saved on file for seven years.  This certainly makes posting things to the internet a bit more risky.  You do have to sign off on this the same way you would a criminal background check or credit report, but none the less think before you post.

Google + : Leading us into the Future of Networking?

Google + is the future, or well it may be for job seekers anyway.  I’m sure you’ve all heard the hype about the new social media site.  It was rolled out in limited use a few weeks ago and the only way to get involved is to be invited.  The exclusivity has rubbed some people in the wrong way, but it wasn’t too long ago that Facebook operated on the same principle.

Right now Google + isn’t for everyone, or all job seekers.   Currently it is mostly populated by those in technology, marketing, social media, or internet.  Despite the narrow present narrow market there are already 20 million users on Google + and it is rare to not see it pop up in one news feed or another.

The big question is how will Google compete with the likes of Facebook and Linkedin?  They have the market corner.   Linkedin is your professional online identity and Facebook is your private one. Google+ is capitalizing on being easier navigate and control than its two predecessors.   

You’re probably wondering what I mean by control.  The Google “circles” concept allows you to create numerous different viewing groups such as school, work, family, etc and then chose which content can be view by which groups.  This means that you can post the pictures of your weekend cookout for your friends and family to see and then in the same breath post your updates resume for employers to view.  No more switching between Linkedin and Facebook to post different content, now it’s all in one place.

One of the other perks is that on Facebook a follower must be accepted as a friend while in Google + it is more one sided.  If you want to follow the company of your dreams you can, but they do not have to follow you.  Depending on what circle you place the company in you can control what, if anything, of your content they are able to view.

With all that in mind lets go back to the topic of job searching.  As I mentioned early on Google + is currently populated by mostly techy folks and is only in the trial phases.  It lacks the job listing section that Linkedin has and obviously the population diversity of Facebook.  This means that people in accounting or healthcare for example probably shouldn’t jump on right away expecting to find work, but those in marketing, PR, and tech should definitely get on early and begin building their network. “Google+ invitations are currently scarce, so active users are generally well-connected. In my use of the service, it seems that the vast majority of early adopters are people related to the technology industry and Silicon Valley,” said Jon Burgstone, founding faculty chair, Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology, University of California, Berkeley. “I expect job-seekers, at least for now, would find more and higher-quality opportunities on Google+ than LinkedIn.” Eventually, he continued, Google+ will appeal to “a broader population. People who should know, report that Google+ has a very, very large number of people waiting to be invited to user the service. If accurate, Google+ could grow very quickly.” 

Want to get involved? Send me an email at bbert@citypersonnel.net and I’d be happy to send you an invitation.

Looking For A Job? Try Linkedin

We all know that looking for a job is a much different process than it was ten years ago.  No longer do you just pick up your local paper to see whats open and send a resume.  Now you have to check numerous job boards, have various different file types of your resume, and fill out additional online applications to companies you often times don't even know the name of.  Well all that may be changing again.  Accolo, Inc has released the numbers and it appears that Linkedin and social networking sites like it are about to become the leader in new hires.  Linkedin alone has grown by over 466 percent in the last quarter.  Although it has been suspected that social networking sites have changed the landscape of recruiting this is the first empirical proof we have had.

Why the switch?  We can only speculate however social networking sites offer some advantages that traditional recruitment methods may not.  For one they make the referral process considerably quicker and easier for both applicants and employers and they are able to reach a much broader audience than they once were able to.  They also give an applicant a canvas on which to paint a much more vivid picture of who they are and what they about as an individual.  With this in mind companies and recruiters are better able to identify those that would be a good fit in the open positions and within their respective institutions.While in the past much emphasis has been put on skill set alone, ones "fit" with a company is equally as important because it is one of the greatest projectors of longevity and therefore return on the company's investment. 

Based on current trends, it is highly likely that social networks will surpass even the largest job boards as the primary source of hires within 36 to 48 months.  Start composing your profiles now.