Using social tools with an Agenda

August 21, 2009

Often these days I come across articles that say “Here’s how you use Facebook for Recruiting” or “17 ways of effective job hunting using twitter”

The problem is, if you merely use the tools with an agenda to recruit/job hunt or whatever, then you’re headed for disappointment.

That’s because these tools are social in nature. And whether you are a marketer, PR person (see post on PR hires must be social media savvy), Recruiter or job seeker, using them badly will not just turn off the very people whose attention you strive to seek, but might also backfire on you.

Remember, as Chris Brogan keeps saying on these sites “it’s all about them, not you”

So if you want to use the tools for social recruiting, or job hunting, here are some basics:

On twitter, focus on conversations when you are starting out. If you are interested in a job in the paint industry – connect with other folks from the paint industry (using the @ sign), tweet interesting links about paints and grow a community that you can help. Give help without expecting any. That’s the way it works.
Blog about your passion. In this case- paints. Hunt for other painting blogs, link to them. Grow a community again. That’s always the way to go about it.
I really don’t advocate using Facebook to hunt for jobs, but some people might. Use facebook notes to pull your blog posts – and that way you can get your non-blogging, non-tweeting folks to read your thoughts. Here’s how you post your blog posts to Facebook.

Notice that I didn’t ever say “approach x person for a job”. That won’t work in these environments.

You have to sow and invest time and energy, before you reap. That’s why when you read articles of examples of people who got a job “using social media” it’s usually not true

They were on social media to connect, share and network. Recruiting just happened by the way.