Staffing professionals are all over the board as to whether Facebook has any relevance to their business. One will say nah it’s just for sharing pictures of the kids, another will say she finds her best candidates there. Personally I’ve recruited some of our top employees via relationships on Facebook, so my bias is to consider it an important business tool.
Either way, there are three Facebook trends that will increasingly nudge out marginal network players like LinkedIn and make the service increasingly compelling for recruiters.
TimeLine
Paid candidate advertising on Facebook is about to get a lot more productive with Timeline, a relatively new layout app provided by Facebook itself that ostensibly gives users a more clever way to share but whose actual purpose in life is to give advertisers a better opportunity to get some valuable, context-sensitive eyeballs from Facebook’s 800 million users.
I do a fair amount of Facebook recruitment advertising myself. If you’re an HTML5 programmer in the Twin Cities, you’re probably going to find our ads off on the right hand side next to those for eHarmony or Viagra (sigh). My problem with ads though has less to do with their proximity to undesirable ads than the simple fact that almost no one looks at them and damn near no one clicks on them.
Unlike the traditional Facebook layout that is basically a top to bottom view of your activity, Timeline makes your friends dart left-to-right to follow a sequence, an unnatural flow meant to push the viewer into a more cognitive state, that is to say more observant of advertisements placed in the Timeline.
Impact on recruiting: paid candidate advertising is about to get more productive.
Open-Graph Expansion
I’ve tried explaining open-graph to people at parties, and maybe that’s why I keep on NOT getting invited back. With the open-graph expansion announced today, I will have better luck in the future.
Basically, Facebook is letting other sites play in its sandbox. That means your recruitment job board can be Facebook connected. Sam can tell his friends in a simple click that he’s applied for your high-paying lifeguard job.
The open-graph expansion is not a slam dunk though. Programmers like myself who code against the thing (get my free open-source Facebook job board system here) are all too aware that while Facebook’s fast rise to the top has been good for blowing competitors out of the water (think Myspace), that hasn’t left time for Facebook to get its core software architecture sound. Bugs abound, documentation although improving is weak, and apps get blown out of the water with each internal Facebook tweak.
Impact on recruiting: Facebook components will become an integral part of your recruiting software.
The Facebook IPO
The Facebook luv bubble is about to get punctured by the cold economic reality that its entire ecosystem and infrastructure have been paid for with future dollars. Master Zuck has been taking notes from our social security system I guess. Fortunately for him though there is this big payout coming in the form of investor dollars via an IPO, probably in May of this year.
As it prepares its IPO filing documents, CFO David Ebersman is looking hard at how to make its revenue numbers look as good as possible. Higher advertising prices. Charging users for access to private data.
“Not cool” Justin Timberlake would say, but absolutely necessary if the shit hits the fan when the current revenue numbers get plugged into the underwriter’s investment model.
Recent Facebook related Zynga’s IPO has sputtered, and the mood is grim. Already rumors are circulating the Facebook shares aren’t doing so well on Second Market.
For a taste of what’s to come, look at what’s happened with LinkedIn as it also has struggled since its IPO. It’s had to abrogate previous agreements it had with 3rd parties that let them pull data out via an API. And the service has had to engage in unsavory business practices like making it impossible for someone to cancel their paid service.
Impact on recruitment: not clear, but turmoil is ahead. Cash remains king.
{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
I absolutely agree that FB’s timeline can be used in a truly creative way for company branding and businesses should be jumping on it now – it is an empty canvas – the possibilities are there. Also through FB chats partnership, one can use video chat and video messaging to really fine tune business image and message. To dismiss FB as a place for kids to share photos is naive and archaic and will produce old and archaic business results. Businesses who do not utilize social media are doing themselves a HUGE – repeat HUGE disservice and if they remain ignorant to social media will fall behind and/or become stagnant – hit a wall – wondering what others are doing that they are being passed. With mobile use at its peak and ever increasing, social media has become – note – it isn’t becoming – it has already become king focus in advertising and social interaction of a business. Social media searches are pretty standard when reviewing a company, who they are and what they have to offer. If a business doesn’t have social media, how am I to believe that they are cutting edge and progressive when they don’t even cover the basics. Who wants old shit service? No one! Each social platform provides positive results when used correctly. Except for maybe Klout – which could very well be the herpes of online social interaction. FB isn’t going anywhere and with changes to compete with Google+, it is only becoming better.
The Open-Graph Expansion is HUGE – repeat HUGE for integration and getting things from websites integrated into FB and vice versa – also for developing creative minds this means much much more. FB developing freedom to get in and really cater and personalize to the business persona.
FB IPO – will have more affect on business services than everyday users, I believe. Regardless though, it isn’t going anywhere – is still very much relevant and is not a fad like Myspace or Friendster – which is mostly compiled of spam bots and craigslist sexual deviant rejects.
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I’ve talked with some staffing professionals who are at a loss how to even use Facebook. Of course they use FB in their personal lives and use that just fine but they fear responsibility of social media. The higher ups simply don’t have the time for the up keep but they do need to make the time to draw out a clear and concise online social media plan (themselves, with their marketing director or through an outside service) and then delegate. In reality, businesses need a specific person who focuses on the personified business. Think of them as the company cheerleader. They ignite from within and then just capture and share the happenings and news. This person needs to be someone who can also understand the difference between developing collaborative relationships and divulging of information. They keep balance and a positive motivational forward focus from within the company and relay that to online platforms. Many companies fail to recognize that they probably already have that potential person right in their midst. If they delegate some of that person’s current tasks to free up their time to focus on the company’s internal and online interactions, the company will have an employee to fill that existing internal void. No company cheerleader? Do your entire business, current customers/clients, and future employees/customers/clients a favor and hire one! You really can’t afford not to. As for Facebook, it is tried and true. It is one of the many places that real life businesses can get social and engage with their client base. I prefer Google+ personally.
StaffingObserver I have to disagree with you about Klout! You have a point about Myspace though but I have to admit I do use Myspace still for music. I would only ever admit that anonymously!
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@JaneDoe
As i travel around the country meeting staffing company owners, I’m struck by those who say they don’t engage in social media because they are ‘private’ people.
Private people!? If you run a networking company which is what a staffing or recruitment business, then you are not a private person. If you want privacy, be a bookkeeper not a staffing company executive. If you don’t want something that barks, then don’t buy a dog! And so on.
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“Think of them as the company cheerleader.”
That’s exactly what I’ve been calling them!
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Like the Linkedin IPO, there is a big to-do being made about nothing
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Much ado about nothing alright. After all, what’s nine billion here, or $100 billion there amongst online friends.
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If you recruit on Facebook – you are crossing a line (in my opinion). Facebook is where people post pictures of themselves and their family swimming at the beach. Dad, in his far too tight Speedo, hugging his daughter – does not want some Recruiter peering into his personal life and contacting him about a job. Mom who has a picture of her and her 3 friends having a great time at a local bar (and obviously a little intoxicated) – does not want some recruiter calling her about the latest Director of Marketing job.
Job ads are fine. Fair game. But “hunting” on Facebook crosses the line. It’s the modern version of driving over to someone’s house and knocking on their door to see if they are looking for a new career opportunity….maybe worse.
Let me ask you this: How many people do you think, when they created their Facebook profile, thought, “oh gee, I hope I get lots of contacts about a job!” Not many I suspect.
You wouldn’t post personal things on LinkedIN (like pictures of you at the beach or updates on your cat).
Continuing to tell people why they should recruit on Facebook isn’t going to change the fact that people KNOW it’s wrong – they KNOW it crosses a line and therefore will not adopt it as a “tool”. There are plenty of other great tools available – including good old fashioned networking – we don’t need to exploit every damn medium.
The public already has a low opinion of “Recruiters” (ranked every so slightly above used car salesman I suspect)…..do we need to make it worse?
Facebook is for personal networking
LinkedIN is for business networking
….end of story.
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If the data is there then recruiters are going to look, if for no other (practical) reason than to further minimize placement turnover risk – a fuller and more complete picture of a candidate makes betting the farm on their success in placement less risky. One’s reputation is enhanced with better human-org fits, and if data exists to help make that happen, well then… Optimizing human-org fit means better service, results and ROI for the client AND the candidate.
If people are using facebook to share “life” then those more complete human flavors, textures and idiosyncrasies that we express about our “Self” (that are intrinsic to us in reality) in that “life” will ultimately find their way into the work space, and within the team and company culture. There is not hiding one’s Self for long in the workplace. So, if the quality of “fit” can be ascertained more effectively with more personal data then so be it.
Now, in counterpoint, if for example a recruiter chooses to NOT share a candidate because that candidate is obviously gay via their Facebook page then that is way out of line… ESPECIALLY if their bias is personal. This is a particularly insidious scenario if the recruiter “assumes” the company, and all companies they service for that matter, are better off without hiring any gay employees. Yikes!
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Brian…i enjoyed your human-org fit line here which I haven’t encountered before…would welcome a guest post from you on the topic. Thanks!
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Thanks Gregg. I’d love to… I have used this “form” of language as early as the late 80′s, but not pub’d per se’, more in lectures in org-design, org-behavior/transformation, and via aberrant human correspondence
I do enjoy the crossover between the accepted notions of human “fitness” and the potential uses of fit + ness; with fit referring to quality of alignment (in multiple dimensions) as well as “complementarity”, and the resultant, (hoped for) of great human-human and human-to-org synergy… while the “ness” refers to the “quality” of the thing. So fit-ness applied to human-org fit offers a host of novel descriptives. For me the quality of human-org fitness is the baseline for productive human systems/cultural synergy
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I think you’re missing the point Brian. Just because it’s there – doesn’t mean we should be using it. We can also have a candidate “followed” by a PI for a few weeks to make sure they have no skeleton in the closet too – but that too, would be wrong. If you see a picture of a candidate whooping it up at a party on their Facebook page, are you going to think twice about submitting them? Probably. Maybe. Who knows? But that would be wrong. I still maintain that Facebook is personal. People post their political views. Music tastes and much more. These are private matters and should not matter for any job.
I still believe we cross a line when we poke around on a persons Facebook page.
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Mike, I’m gathering from your perspective that you see Facebook as a product that is yours and therefore entitles you to rights like privacy similar to other possessions like your home per your PI example. Is that correct?
However, Facebook is not your product. In fact, we the users are the product that Facebook will inevitably seek to use as it sees fit to generate revenue.
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Gregg,
An individuals Facebook page is personal and meant to be shared between friends and family (read: the opposite of public/business). Have you noticed that even LinkedIN has “public profile” and “full profile”? And their main objective is business networking!
People did not create their Facebook pages so recruiters could peer into their private lives looking for the smoking gun. There is a lot of personal information we can find out about someone – if we want to – including property tax info, street shot photos of their home using Google, etc. It doesn’t make it right. If the consensus is that Facebook pages are a free-for-all for recruiters, then we have crossed a dangerous line and we will need to quickly prepare for the invasion of privacy wrath that will be bestowed upon us. Are you telling candidates that you are looking at their Facebook profile? Likely not – because you KNOW it is wrong. Why don’t you advertise, “we look at all Facebook profiles before we submit a candidate” and see how popular you are.
If I had a recruiter call me and talk to me about something on my Facebook page, I would consider it “creepy” at a minimum.
I want to know candidates on a business level. Attitude, years of experience, education, work accomplishments, teams they have lead, etc. I don’t want to know whether they prefer Kettle One to Segrams or prefer Country to Rap or are a member of the Socialist Party or square dance or love to bake cookies or hate basketball or just broke up with their girl friend or whatever. Facebook is 99.9% personal and was NEVER indented for recruiters to exploit.
Business is business, personal is personal and never the twain shall meet. If Recruiters chose to exploit private, personal information for financial gain – so be it. But I will not be one of them. Enough is enough. I’m drawing the line for decency and human dignity.
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I couldn’t disagree with this last statement more. If someone I’m about to hire is a raging alcoholic or a possible PR nightmare I’d rather know BEFORE hiring them. So I suppose you think we shouldn’t do background checks either?
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Seriously? – so you can tell all that from someone’s Facebook profile? Yeah, right. Quit making excuses to peer into private lives. It’s wrong. You have enough tools without exploring someone’s privacy.
….and by the way, you need CONSENT from the candidate to legally check their background, verify education, etc. So trying to compare the two is a fruitless attempt to justify your behavior. Stick to the other tools and good old fashioned networking.
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If its private it shouldn’t be on Facebook. Everybody knows that. And if someone is stupid enough to post something incriminating on Facebook you can hire them. Please, hire them all.
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