Recruiting in social media

Rather than tag one of his posts for the second time in a week, let me just recommend that you check out Jim Durbin's new blog, Social Media Headhunter. More companies are creating social media specialist positions (whatever the title), and Jim's combining his experience in both recruiting and social media in a way that promises to be valuable. It's something we're going to see more of.

Today's post is a list of social media interview questions for employers to ask. It reminds me of John Bell's social media score from a little over a year ago, but with a new set of questions that assume a clue. I won't steal Jim's thunder by copying them here, but question #3 made me pause—it's definitely not one of the usual suspects:

Name two social media sites/softwares/tools that have no business value.

That'll get you past the inside-the-bubble happytalk, won't it? But it's a good question that invites a lengthier discussion on how you would determine whether a new toy has business value for different types of companies. And remember, it's hard to prove a negative proposition—a single counterexample disproves it.

Two reminders in one day
On the same day, I get an alert that one of my posts is in Jim Stroud's list of articles on social media recruiting. If you haven't thought about how recruiters may view and use social media in their work, there's good material there.

Using social media for intelligence gathering in my job search is how I got into this stuff, and I used to keep up with the recruitosphere. I've known that some recruiters use social media. As more companies start looking for people to run their own social media programs, it shouldn't be a surprise that the same recruiters would take the lead on helping clients find their own social media people.

Speaking of recruiting
My schedule doesn't permit me to attend ICWSM, but I did join the network, and I have to say, there are a bunch of researchers affiliated with universities attending. If I were looking for research staff for a social media analysis company, I think I'd send my CTO to Seattle at the end of the month to meet people.