Recruiters Not Only Check Social Media, They Use Them to Identify People

In the workshops I teach about social media and networking in universities I always stress that people need to take care of their online reputation because companies can and do google candidates to see what comes up. Many times I have been asked if they really do that. Well, yes they do. In fact they do more than that because some recruiters actively search social media to identify suitable candidates for positions.

I am reminded of this by a new job ad posted by Bombardier Transportation in Sweden, where they are looking for someone who will both search their existing candidate database and also mine social media looking for people who are a good fit for open positions.  Bombardier is certainly not the only company to think of this and mining social networking sites looking for candidates is normal practice for recruiters. They do not limit themselves to the people who apply for jobs but look for good matches even among people who have not applied and even some who are not looking for a job right now.

What you should be learning from this is that it is even more important today to manage your inbound marketing -- the way that you are visible in social networking sites -- whether or not you are actively seeking a job.  It is important to be there, it is important to highlight your positive qualities and it is important to hide or remove anything that might scare a potential employer. You should still be doing this even if you are not yourself an active social media user. Even if you never plan to participate in group discussion in Linkedin, chat with friends on Facebook, or organize hangouts in Google+ you should still have a profile there so that you will be found. You can still find jobs and be found without doing this, but it is much more difficult.

I have already written several how-to notes about online reputation. A good place to start would be Five Simple Steps to Manage Your Online Reputation.  After that you should try also Five Networking Sites You Should be Using.  These posts describe the basics, but there are also many other sites that might be appropriate depending on the kind of work you do. Coders, for example,.are usually found on sites Github and Geeklist. The best way to identify sites that work in your field is to ask other people who ae successful in that area of to try googling them. You will see most of the sites they are using just by looking at the search results.

Once you have a strong basic presence on the key social sites you will also need to watch for new developments that might be important. Once Myspace was the place to be until it was ousted by Facebook. Perhaps there is also a LinkedIn killer just around the corner. There are more than 500 social networking sites so it would take too much of your time to check them all, but if you watch this space I will post details of important new sites, methods and practices as I discover them.



Lectures, Workshops, Coaching, Writing
For lectures, workshops, coaching and writing about this topic visit http://andrewhennigan.com, email me at conseil@andewhennigan.com or call 0033 6 79 61 42 81.


Related Posts on Reputation Management
Five Simple Steps to Improve Your Online Reputation
Why Having Accounts on Photo Sharing Sites Is Good for Your Image
Sign Up Now: Joining New Networking Sites Boosts Brand, Reputation
Why Googling Baby Names May Be a Waste of Time
How to Separate Work and Private Networking
Professional Networking Five Network Sites You Should be Using


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