I observed an interesting discussion between an HR Director and his team yesterday on the ethics and legal consequences of looking at social media pages of candidates as a part of employee selection. The discussion arose from the article in the Young Island Blog I had pointed out earlier.

Facebook was a particular area of discussion simply because many people are more relaxed over the content they post on their Facebook pages. Specifically, some employers are requesting applicants to provide access to their social media accounts as a condition of employment.

Prove they weren’t discriminated against
His comment to the team was, “I’m waiting for the first gay, Muslim or another religion where the candidate hears about an employer accessing their Facebook activity, then not getting the job and making the
employer prove in court that they were not discriminating against their sexual
orientation or religious beliefs when they failed to get the job”.

Examination question
Although this topic has been discussed ast great length on-line and in the media I’m not sure that there’s been a satisfactory conclusion. Doubtless it’s a question in some HR or Law examinations. Certainly the more I’ve thought about it the more complex the answer seems to be.

Any thoughts?

despite the high levels of unemployment many of the businesses that I talk to are finding difficulties in hiring gifted and talented people to join their teams.

This is backed up by the recent research from the CIPD talent planning survey 2011 that found that 52% of businesses are finding it difficult to fill vacant positions with the talent they need to do the job. The CBI suggests that more than half of their members aren’t confident of finding talent to meet their needs.

So what can a business do to find gifted employees?

1. Consider using job boards such as those on LinkedIn and Facebook
2. Consider using on-line groups and forums to say you are seeking talent
3. Ensure that you are looking for the talent that will match the business strategy
4. Consider internal candidates
5. Consider if the job, benefits and profile of your business will attract the very best and if not then restructure the position so that it will be attractive to the talent you are looking for
6. Calculate your talent needs for the present, medium and long-term and create strategies to deliver these
7. Don’t be too rigid in recruiting the “very best”. The perfect employee doesn’t exist. But make sure you capture the “best available” before your competitors.

It’s tragic that at the start of the summer, nearly one million 16 to 24-year-olds in England were out of a job, not in education, nor in training. Known as Neets, this group seems to be growing and growing and doesn’t include school leavers this year, according to the latest official figures and reported by the BBC.

The BBC highlights Jordan Millward a 24 year old from Stoke-on-Trent who has two degrees, a 2:1 in politics, and a 2:2 in law, as well as a post-graduate law diploma.
He says “I’ve had no replies to more than 100 applications to different law firms looking for both jobs and work experience I’ve made over the last year, and only two interviews from the 90 plus applications I’ve made over the last two months”.

Little advice from Universities
Why is finding a job so difficult for this group? In discussions with students at my local University it seems that there is very little practical advice is given on how to find a job. I’m told that there is the “odd talk” about developing a CV (Resume) but very little else! Doesn’t this place too many in the area of “working it out for themselves”.

More practical help could and should be given! For instance, why is it that most students know how to use social media to find friends and entertainment at the weekend but they find it difficult to use when looking for a job? Why is it that so few place their details, qualifications and interests on the business pages of LinkedIn, Facebook or other SM sites?

Meet the employer
Perhaps organisations such as the IOD (Institute of Directors), Chambers of Commerce, FSB (Federation of Small business) could help more by regularly offering FREE places at their events for graduates or students to meet people in business and thus potential employers.

A small contribution of my own is given below:

Questions you should ask the interviewer

I’m fed up and tired with the number of emails that I get offering to share the secrets of on-line riches and how to earn $2000, $4,000 a month or more by using Twitter, facebook and other social network sites. Proof of their success is always provided by testimonials and their Paypal or Clickbank account statements and it all looks very impressive and plausable.

Indeed some people are running weekend long sales seminars where a troop of people all explain how they have made a fortune on-line and promise to share the same information with a small group…for a fee and it’s all guaranteed!

However, I work to the rule that one of my friends, who runs a hugely successful social media site, who said “When considering products on-line, the one thing to remember is that no one has a goal to make you rich”

I must admit to being fed up of attending a business meeting and to have to listen to a pimply faced executive that is out to impress colleagues whilst saying nothing that he can be blamed for.

For the most part the use of such phrases are pompous and meaningless. Examples that I’ve heard in this last week include: “Targeted cost initiatives”, “Client care identification programme” and “Positioned service excellence programme”.

Coupled with this is the language from the internet such as HMU (Hit me up) meaning text me or email me that Facebook has revealed is the most used terms alongside “World Cup” and the only person in the top ten list “Justin Beiber” (for the benefit of my older readers and those without young kids he’s a Canadian teen pop idol).

Actually I tend not to keep up with the language and just pretend to be stupid. At the end of the talk I raise my hand and ask for an explanation of how the “Service excellence programme” will work and how, exactly, it will be positioned” and what “data” was used to identify the need in the first place.

Generally the individual is so confused by the request that the information is repeated using clear, everyday language that everyone can understand.
 

So many of my friends and VIP clients have asked me how they can use social media to find a job that I’ve written a 40 page e-book to give them the information they needed. As a reader of my blog I’d like to offer you the same package.

Included is how to use Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin as well as many other sites.

The film explains more and the whole package can be ordered HERE

Social media ebook

A friend of mine that I’ve been working with has received three job offers in the past two weeks. One of these he was told was through networking and only 8 people were approached.

He’s encouraged me to post the advice. So whilst I am definitely NOT a head-hunter or run a search firm here goes.

Most job roles are now only advertised on-line and the role of newspapers in attracting job applicants has almost disappeared, along with the advertising revenue that such adverts produced. However, most job roles  use personal networks and aren’t even advertised.

Indeed it’s said that 60% of roles are filled through networking. At one time this meant using ‘the old boy network’ or ‘the golf-club’. Nowadays, however, this is mostly via networking sites such as linkedin.com where professional recruiters source possible candidates and reference them before any formal approach is ever made. The advantage to the employer is that it avoids receiving thousands of applications through the post.

So how do you position yourself to be identified as someone to be “networked for the job” on sites such as linkedIn and Facebook?

Here are my top ten tips to being networked for a job through Social Media:

1. Have a large network. Most people on social networking sites have less than 300 people in their network. When looking to be sourced for a job your network needs to be as large as possible. This also means researching the membership each network will give you. For instance Linkedin will connect you with individual professionals mainly based in UK and USA. Twitter gives you the opportunity to connect with businesses as well as individuals.
2. Have a good mix of people in your network. Link with friends but also link competitors, people in other industries and professions, head-hunters and those in search companies. If you’ve not got a Twitter account then consider doing so. This will allow you to connect with search companies as well as individuals.
3. Communicate with your network. Having a large network gives you no visibility if you aren’t contacting them on a regular basis. Send personal messages and responding to questions and contact a few people each day that you haven’t connected with for some time.
4. Link your Twitter account to your other Social media accounts. This allows your tweets and updates to be read by your entire network
5. Become an expert. Answer questions on Linkedn to be seen as an expert. As a result of answering questions on Linkedin and having 14 best answers logged I’ve received emails and connections from USA, Canada, Middle East and Malaysia.
6. Post slide-shows on Slideshare. This is essentially a PowerPoint slideshow. This also promotes your expertise and link these to your linkedin profile. Linkedin allows you up to three slideshows.
7. Have a facebook profile.Though be careful about your on-line reputation. Lots of people are making a lot of money on Facebook. Those that have used it to promote their drunken parties have often come to regret their posts.
8. Don’t over-promote your products and services. Remember that social media is like “going to a party”. You wouldn’t make many friends at a party if all you did was to talk about work. Create a personality. You also don’t want to be Blocked for spamming!
9. Have a YouTube film about you and your products and services. Place it on your website as well as other Social Media sites.
10. When posting be complimentary about people. Avoid criticism and  try to sound motivated and upbeat. No-one wants to offer a job to “Mr Grumpy”. However also consider that you are wanting to share expertise so be as generous as possible with the advice you offer others.

If you would like further news and updates about using Social Media then subscribe HERE

As you can see from previous posts I’ve been investigating how people work on the internet.

The main surprise is just how sophisticated the medium is becoming in allowing people to trade and make money (or perhaps I’ve missed). The ability to have  a website designed in Thailand, upload one’s own or others products (by becoming an affiliate), take payment via Paypal or Clickbank and have a cheque for all that you sell sent to your bank and all within a few days has posed some interesting questions on the future of work.

Let’s first deal with the Hype! An awful lot of people are currently trading on the web and some of them are doing very well. Indeed at a seminar in London last month a parade of such people told an audience of over 800 how they were making anywhere between $2000 a month on Twitter to $20,000 in one week on Facebook. The audience were given titbits of information on “How it was done” and then offered to purchase whole programmes of products where they could do the same by following the speaker’s step-by-step fast cash formula!.

Now, before we go any further, let me say that I have the greatest regard for the organisers and what they are doing to inform people about the possibilities of making meoney on the web. I did, however, fiund the American way of selling through hype, the promise of easy riches and the buy NOW part of the sale because of product scarcity rather galling.

The problems for work and the individuals, as far as I see it, are these:

• I suspect, that it’s going to be a very few in his audience that actually succeed! This may bring depression, feelings of failure and loss of a lot of redundancy money. (More than a few in the audience were seeking to plough their redundancy money into web based sales)
• Trading on the internet is likely to become a “bubble”. Like any other bubble people are believing, being told, that having a product on-line is a path to instant and easy riches. The reality is that those who realise those riches will be the early adopters such as those on the stage at Mark’s seminar, whilst the majority will find the marketplace so saturated, with other traders as well as FREE items, that there are just cents rather than dollars to be earned.

• Another possibility is that Twitter, Facebook, Amazon and possibly governments will find a way of monetising the trade for themselves more effectively and thus reduce the potential for huge incomes.

I later attended another seminar on making money from the web where some in the audience had been selling products on the web for up to five years and barely scraped together a living wage. A few seemed depressed and disheartened and quite possibly were making themselves unemployable in the long run!

Perhaps working solely on the web should carry a health warning?