Mary Anne

@Susan Ensey – you wanted another example, look at Inside EA on Facebook.

nice overview. I agree, the job boards are in trouble and so far I’m not convinced they get it or care.

Sean – I like your thinking.

My 2 cents. Let’s not all get too fixated on the tools/networks/gadgets/doodads. Sure, they’re cool and present never before possible ways of connecting with people. However, in one sense that’s the problem. What I’m seeing a lot of out there is taking a job board approach to social media. In other words, social media and its attendant applications and tools are just seen as another channel to broadcast jobs. Yes they can be used for that, but that is barely scratching the surface of what is possible.

My opinion; its not about the tools. Oddly, its also not about the jobs – at least not at first. Its about making connections with relevant professionals on a much different level, in a much different way. Whatever social technology or “arm of the starfish” to use follows from understanding the crowd you’d like to connect with or engage. Not the other way around.

So understand the people you’d like to gather around your brand, learn about where they naturally connect with each other, stop recruiting for a moment and go just connect with them. Be the ball. Then once you understand what makes them tick, their natural habits and places online, then pick your tools, your methods, and gradually introduce opportunity. Like Sean said above, “take the recruiter label off of your forehead”.

Understanding the tools is important, absolutely. Yes, matching someone to an open role is the end goal, or at least one of the end goals (others could be branding, referrals, future opportunity, employment brand champions, et al). But if you’re going to build a house, you don’t go to your toolbox and say, “ok, I’m going to start with a hammer, because I really like hammers, and everyone is talking about how great hammers are. Did you see that Shaquille O’Neal and Ashton Kutcher are using hammers?” I think not. You’d look at the landscape of the lot you have to build on. You’d decide the design of your house from there. Considering your budget you’d think about materials, and the timing given the season. In short there’s lots of forethought before actually starting. Then you say ok, given my goals, materials, budget, here’s the tools I’m going to use. The one directs the other.

Its easy to get worked into an enthusiastic froth about social media and then just apply the same old job board mentality, I’m guilty as anyone of that. We can all think bigger. I agree with Chris, lets get away from job boards as our only method, so logically, we shouldn’t apply job board mentality to these new areas.

Be well!

Great post. I truely believe that social media will soon replace job boards as well. Regarding twitter, do you have a tool you like best for searching for candidates. I find it a great tool for branding and exhaning ideas, but hard to search.

Best –
Chernee