Comments on: twitter followers a job qualification?

By: Pete

Pete — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 00:57:09 +0000

This is a great about using twitter to find clients. I particularly like they way the author tries to backdoor or trick people use subtle suggestion to get their attention so he can sell them job postings.

http://phoenix.jobing.com/blog_post.asp?post=20276

By: Joshua Kahn

Joshua Kahn — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 20:59:33 +0000

Hi All, I was responsible for this posting at Best Buy. There’s an update to the story. We got so much commentary and buzz from that one qualification that we decided to ask those who are social media savvy out there to help us write the job description. Best Buy’s CMO talks about it here. http://barryjudge.com/help-us-write-the-job-description-sr-manager-emerging-media-marketing

By: jen

jen — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 20:10:57 +0000

I think there are alot of things to take into consideration here.
- The length of twitter usage (more contacts)
- The quality of information posted (more contacts)
- Ability to promote your site through other social media forms (more contacts)

I think it’s a valid idea to take twitter followers into consideration because it shows the future employee is well-versed in social media because they joined before twitter was cool, created interest in their thoughts and created a consistent brand for people to follow.

However, Best Buy could be missing out on some good catches by setting a specific required amount of followers. I think the most important thing to look at is what is going on outside of twitter? Does he/she have a close network, other social media networks, professional portfolio? Something like joined.com that showcases your work, link social media tools, create a blog, and join career networks.

By: Josh Greenfield

Josh Greenfield — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 15:10:56 +0000

I love digital marketing and social media. 2 absolute passions of mine, however I’m just not into Twitter. For me, it’s a bit egocentric and I don’t believe I am constantly up to things that others NEED to know about.

It’s good in theory to have this ‘asset’ when beginning a new position. BestBuy gets a bit of credibility from the 250 followers that think they just made a quality hire, but my primary problem is that a manager should understand the space, teach the space, and manage subordinates. If my ‘emerging media manager’ is supporting a community of followers on a few social networks…when are they going to be doing their actual job?

By: Ted

Ted — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 17:44:02 +0000

Best Buy wins. They took something that is usually boring (a job post) and made it into something people can’t stop talking about – this is the point. Innovators love companies that think like this. It’s not about 250+ followers as a qualification, it’s about the fact that they wrote it.

By: CommonSense

CommonSense — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 21:41:49 +0000

Sorry, but this is the most asinine thing I’ve heard of in a while. DavidGroup hit it on the head – qualitative ‘metrics’ are what’s important. Funny – adding this as a preferred qualification for an Emerging Media Marketing position is probably the best way to actually drive away savvy social media marketers. Utterly stupid idea and I hope it doesn’t catch on…b/c my head might explode.

By: kcneon

kcneon — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 19:20:22 +0000

In general, I like this idea. 250+ is not an unreasonable number for someone to have in that type of position. And anytime an employer gives specifics in a job posting I think it’s a bonus for both employer and potential employee to have as many benchmarks listed prior to interviewing.

By: Eric Caron

Eric Caron — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 16:53:47 +0000

TheDavidGroup is exactly right. The going rate for 1,000 followers is 87 dollars (see uSocial dot net – I don’t support that practice so I don’t want them to get any more traffic than necessary). Its a silly metric. Also, the other half of the requirement was a blog that’s been active for over a year!

Best Buy is doing great at being progressive and innovative with this – and good for them to trying something outside of the box. Sure they missed the mark with this prerequisite, but we’re all luckier having learned from their mistake.

I, for one, will be phrasing any Twitter-related requirements as simply “Must have active, engaging presence on Twitter”; anything more measured than that is as bad of an idea as standardized testing.

By: TheDavidGroup

TheDavidGroup — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 14:02:02 +0000

Wouldn’t you just pay an auto-follow service to pad your numbers before you even applied? This is just one of those instances where management, who doesn’t get social media but do get numbers, sees something and thinks, “We can measure this in followers.”

Bad, pointless idea from people who don’t get it.

The Facebook measurement is a little better, but not much. I’ve seen tons of people online who’ve had tons of jobs (because they can’t hold one for very long) but they friend everyone they work with who is on Facebook. So they have 450 friends, but what’s the qualitative measurement here? That they introduce themselves a lot? Again, not really an accurate assessment of whatever it is they’re hoping to assess.

By: Idealpeople

Idealpeople — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 13:27:54 +0000

Yeah, but come on…we know loads of people with thousands of followers, and we wouldn’t hire any of them! Now, if companies started looking at the quality of followers an individual has, then that’d be a bit more interesting….