Social media and recruitment: a match made in heaven...or hell?

 
Whilst, unbelievably, some companies have still to be convinced of the efficacy of online recruitment, at the innovative end the spectrum employers are increasingly looking to the social media as a way to engage and attract talent. Indeed, in the last couple of weeks the wires have been buzzing with Ernst & Young's Facebook recruitment drive, whilst TMP, with some fanfare, launched TMP Island in Second Life.

Whilst there is inevitably money to be made - and kudos to be earned - for those of us involved in getting companies to embrace these new worlds, what benefits are employers actually deriving from their efforts? And what is our target audience - candidate talent - making of this sudden clamour for their attention in hitherto "social" non-commercial environments?

The first thing to point of out course is that - without even counting non-stories like this -  this is a big subject area, encompassing Blogs, RSS, Business Networking ( like linkedin.com, xing, viadeo ) Social Networking ( myspace, youtube ), Virtual Worlds (SL and the like) and beyond....

As we meander through these topics over the next couple of months, the second thing to bear in mind is that there are really no gurus out there - it's all too new and fast moving for that. Whilst we can look at what's happening in the US, there really is no substitute for getting out there and mixing it up. The only rule of engagement that Carve has is to be honest: the last thing you need is a flogvertising scandal or feedback like this....

 

Until next time, how about a small quiz? Answers in the Comments section below please...  My word is final...  Global recognition and peer group kudos for the winner...

1. The average age of a LinkedIn user is __
2. The average age of a Second Life user is __
3. The average age of a Facebook user is __

 

PS Logging into SL for the first time? Yes, I know it's surprisingly ****** - but remember the internet back in the day? Here is Monster in Nov 1996. Its, like, a miracle we all earn a living from this stuff...

Paul H

Technorati tags: Social Media Marketing Carve Consulting recruitment 2.0

Comments

[Matt]

Finally Paul escapes from his virtual Web 2.0 world long enough to post! Nice one and welcome to the blog proper. Nice Monster link...certainly puts things in perspective. I'm off now to Google the answers to your quiz.......

[John Whitehurst]

How do you want the average calculated?

mean
mode
median

???

[thomas delorme]

american
american
american

[Sinead]

Welcome Paul!

I am most impressed with the use of the word 'efficacy' in the blog.

I, of course knew what it meant and did not have to immediately go to dictionary.com

Honest!

[Sinead]

on a less facetious note....

I completely agree that this area is all about exploration, it really is unchartered territory.

Which is, I guess what makes it so exciting and the reason why this blog may have many more posts and shared experiences to come.

[Matt]

1) 39

2) 32

3) 21

Do I win the prize?

[Matt Burney]

The whole social media and recruitment thing is an interesting one. All of us involved in the industry are excited about it and trying to work out how to monetise the idea (whilst suffering from shiny new toy syndrome) while those not involved in selling anything seem to be a little hacked off with corporate facebook apps and entities on myspace et al.
How it grows in the next 12 months (successfully)is anyone's guess.
BTW.. I still don't get second life... really, what's the point?

35?
32?
24?

[Jenny]

I know this is an old blog, but it's coming up tops on Google! Some good SEO at work here! I'm doing a survey at the moment about Social Media and Recruitment (mainly from an Irish perspective)
If anyone would like to take part in my thesis research: http://bit.ly/SocialMediaRecruitmentSurvey

Thanks and love the old Monster link! I'll never complain about their updates again (well...!)