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Social Media for Job Searches: Why Less is More
Donn LeVie Jr. Strategies
The One Hire Authority for Talent Acquisition and Strategic Career Designwww.donnleviejrstrategies.com
“Is Social Media (SM) Effective for Job Searches?”*
* One of most popular search questions on Google for “social media” + “job searches”
Hiring managers say: “Don’t drink the Kool-Aid yet…”
Social media proponents say “Yes!”
“Is Social Media (SM) Effective for Job Searches?”*
The question should be: “Is SM an effective tool for hiring managers to use to locate candidates?”
“Nearly 50% of hiring managers like me use social media sites to exclude candidates from consideration; but most hiring managers will use professional NETWORKING sites to further assess a candidate for hire…”
Here’s the breakdown…According to a recent survey of hiring managers:• 65% use SM to see how candidates present themselves• 51% use SM to see if candidate is a good fit for
organization• 12% use SM to screen out candidates• 60% prefer Facebook and LinkedIn• 16% also use Twitter• 34% have used SM to rule out a candidate due to
questionable content• 29% hired a candidate based on SM pages• No one reported using YouTube for screening candidates
What Hiring Managers REALLY Want to Know
Social media searches by hiring managers simply reveal your social persona when everyone is watching….
…but hiring managers really want to know away from the SM posts and all the selfies:
What Hiring Managers REALLY Want to Know
The very nature of social media makes this a difficult task, which is why there will always be a need for the job interview
Factors that Influence Hiring ManagersHired through Employee Referral Source: SilkRoad.com
What’s the Rest of the World Doing for Job Searches?
• Most who are successful and continue being successful are not active on the Internet.
• Many do not have a LinkedIn profile, and the ones that do are not very active; social media use is restricted to interacting with a very small group of friends they know personally.
• They are not jumping on SNSs for career purposes, but like to explore career-related apps on smart phones and other devices.
• They build a strong profile (brand) before graduation and continue adding to it once their careers begin.
• They prefer face-to-face networking to virtual networking.
Source: Ray Van Es, International Placement Consultant
The Future of SM and Job Searches
• Researchers (reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) used a computer program to assess subjects’ personalities based on Facebook “Likes”
• Computer excelled at judging people’s personalities — better than the subjects’ friends or coworkers• Researchers tested program’s ability to predict 13 “life outcomes” tied to personality, health, political
affiliations, and general life satisfaction: computer predicted 12 of 13 outcomes• Program performed better than the subjects’ self-ratings on predicting four outcomes: Facebook
use; number of Facebook friends; use of alcohol, tobacco, and drugs; and field of study.
What This Research Suggests…
Important implications for data analytics playing a more comprehensive role in the hiring process, particular in upfront candidate screening process
Results of predictive analytics—and not your content/posts—may drive hiring decisions in the future because…
What This Research Reveals…
…SOCIAL MEDIA is a benign Trojan Horse; it is a personal information capture industry where the front end is packaged as a free social application while the data/metadata you provide is the prize to advertisers and marketers who pay for it or hackers who steal it.
Why Less is More
• You focus your time and effort on driving depth of expertise in those networking sites that hiring managers frequent rather than spreading yourself too thin and wasting time over those they don’t
• The fewer SMSs you have a presence in, the lower the likelihood of posting conflicting personal information that may cause a hiring manager to question the “persona” you are trying to project
• The fewer SMSs you have a presence in, the less risk (generally) to your personal information being hijacked
• Drilling down into tools with a limited number of networking sites lets you leverage your expertise to a higher degree, especially when a hiring manager is pre-screening you as a potential candidate
What This Research Reveals…
• Doesn’t mean SM is ineffective for job searches—just that SM is primarily a business application designed to generate revenue, and only secondarily as a “social” application for sharing photos and other information
• Key to successful SM use is to narrow and focus your effort to those one or two networking sites that offer the biggest payoff potential from the hiring manager’s perspective (getting hired is never about you, it’s about the hiring manager)
• Be sure to post only content that moves your professional brand forward and promotes you as a knowledgeable expert
What This Means for Your SM Job Searches• Realize the business truth behind social media model
—don’t embrace the groupthink that SM is the “new hiring model”—networking sites are but another tool to help you get into the hiring process
• Limit your exposure to only a couple of sites frequented by most hiring managers and become an expert in their use
• Build a solid profile and build a strong presence with your choices and drill down deep and wide
– Join forums and participate– Post links to articles about your industry/your blog– Endorsements
• Recommendations:
– LinkedIn and Twitter (and/or Google +)– Facebook business page if you are
self-employed/own a business
Can a Strong Social Media Presence Influence a Hiring Decision?
“Favorable first impressions created by candidates during the rapport-building stage of job interviews (that is, small talk) influenced interviewers’ subsequent evaluations.”
Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology
All expertise being equal among short-list candidates, the job offer more often than not goes to the person who was most likeable personally and professionally during the job interview(s)
Best Device for Connecting with Others…
Books by Donn LeVie Jr.
Winner of the 2012 Global eBook Award and Winner of the 2012 International
Book Award for Jobs/Careers
Available September 2015
Donn LeVie Jr. has more than 25 years in various hiring manager positions for Fortune 500 companies. He has reviewed over 1,000 cover letters and résumés, involved with hundreds of interviews, and hired countless numbers of technical, marketing, and communications professionals.
Free articles, tip sheets, videos, and podcast interviews at:
www.donnleviejrstrategies.com
