Holoom

Not so long ago the story of a job posting by Best Buy created a small buzz in the blogosphere. What was so special about this job posting? It required applicants to hold a minimum of 250 followers on Twitter and at least one year blogging experience.

Recruiting has forever been changed by the social web and the cloudification (not a word yet, but give it time) of everyone’s information. And it has done so for both employers and employees.

“Recruiters have been forced to reinvent themselves” say the founding members of Waragon, an Argentine based recruiting firm.

For recruiters (whether in-company or specialized firms like Waragon) information is no longer their biggest asset. Nowadays a lot of people share their information on LinkedIn, Namyz, Xing or any business social network. Professionals that do not have a seat in resume cloud are at a distinctive disadvantage, so more and more people are joining in.

As a consequence channels are now full duplex. This means the passive player (e.g. someone who is on LinkedIn but is not job hunting at the moment) is now a candidate for a job offer push. Something unthought-of, say, ten years ago except for people targeted by head hunters. Back then, you used to answer job postings from a newspaper. It was a one way channel, no exposure of your persona if you did not want to.

Given this new scenario, recruiting teams had to adapt their craft dramatically and write a whole new rulebook. The information they amass as a result of candidate analysis (e.g. interviews) is still a very valuable element, but the unprocessed information used as an offset is now public and really abundant.

The new elements at play in recruiting 2.0 place the focus on the how (to use the information) as opposed to the previously predominant what (the information in itself). Some of them are:

1. Using tools for fast search and match of candidates to positions. Companies like Linkedin have pretty cool services for recruiters. They are exploiting the precious information amassed during the years and making a profit out of it.
2. Getting creative. There is an amazing tilt in the scales when recruiting with Google style campaigns. Although eccentric, they are incredibly effective and more and more companies are starting to copy their methods.
3. Brand-streaming. Communicating your company values, positive that is (you obviously tend to hide the dirt. Duh!) This often means a candidate already knows your company, even before you pre-select him.
4. Crowd-sourcing. As a result of the buzz in the Best Buy example presented at the beginning of this post, Best Buy quickly became, by word of mouth, the apple in the eye of many a professional seeking a job with matching characteristics. Money could not have paid for that kind of publicity. That is what crowd-sourcing your recruiting is all about: getting the buzz to do your work.
5. Taking advantage of the new channels. I’ve seen a lot of recruiters posting on Facebook, Twitter, etc. Besides being directly related to crowd-sourcing, it implies learning how to use these new tools efficiently.
6. Listening to the social alerts. Whenever I get asked for a recommendation, or see someone getting them; whenever I see someone polishing his online resume beyond the obvious, then I know… this guy is moving from passive to active job hunting. That gets to the HR staff in your company too. I recall a number of times when as a manager I got calls from HR saying: “John Doe is on the move”. This is an advantage for employers because they are allowed pre-emptive damage control. If they are attentive that is.

On the employee side of things, aside from the obvious new jobs created by the cloud and the web 2.0, things are also significantly changed. A few things that caught my attention:

1. New skills. As the Best Buy experience suggests, job requirements have additional social skill-sets in demand: Blogging, tweeting, etc. These are a plus in certain job descriptions, even if not related to social marketing positions per se. For instance: If you have a big network, you are a potential recruiter of your friends and colleagues once you are in.
2. Everyone is a networker. In the old days networking was reserved for sales people, hr people, high management types and public relations professionals. The new model increases your chances to find new jobs by word of mouth or, as mentioned before, be targeted by companies seeking to fill a position.
3. Decisions are made in a much more informed manner. You can find opinions of your potential new employer in blogs, forums, comments, or other formats. Here is where an appropriate brand-streaming is important on behalf of employers. If your brand is shot down in the blogosphere, then you will be hard pressed to get candidates to hop on board.
4. Personal brand-streaming. You can build a pretty decent online persona even if you are not one in actuality. The right amount of bullshitting in the right places can get you a long way these days. Before your true self catches up with you, you can be comfortably seated in your new office.
5. Odd situations. People in my teams were sometimes called by HR people in our very company to offer them the same position they held, with a higher pay! It was hardly an isolated incident, as this story suggests.

Waragon dixit: “What hasn’t changed is that if you are good, you will have options”

Maybe nowadays you will have a lot more options without looking for them. Deciding what to do with them is a test of character.

Welcome to Recruiting 2.0

Shuje

On my next post I will tell you who dah man is. I can anticipate this much: It’s not you. In the meantime, tell me your experiences in the new recruiting era. Post them below or mail me at shuje@holoom.com