I have resisted all the annoying inadvertent auto invites from my friends because I’m already connected to them, I can find candidates without a Facebook app and I have been down this path with other well intentioned similar apps – most recently BranchOut, which I was slightly interested in at first, have never used and have stopped accepting invitations to. It shares many similarities with BeKnown.

The only other piece of critical analysis I have seen this early in the ‘game’ is from Jason Buss at TalentHQ. By the way, the comment left on his post left me with a funny feeling, kind of like when I post something positive about my Blackberry Playbook and the iPhone squad converges on me.

Giving credit where it’s due, I applaud the great timing. Many of my peers are holed up on a man made oasis in the desert collecting vendor swag and blogging away between speakers, many about BeKnown (and doing other things that I’m sure will stay in sin city). Monster can count on them to recruit plenty of joiners. Like cult members, my contacts are joining, joining, joining…

You’ll have fun competing with your connections to see who has the best badges.

Seriously?

Facebook is fun, or serious, or fun and serious depending on how you use it – but do we really need to earn badges and compete with our friends based on work history, education, size and composition of our professional network and endorsements we’ve given or received?

I have mental images of a swarm of bees.. I’m going to stay behind this time I got stung once and it meant a trip to the ER. If it turns out I’m being ridiculously narrow minded I’ll put my big girl pants on, self-inject some epinephrine and blog an apology – but I highly doubt that will happen.

You guys have fun collecting and comparing your badges for being professionals. Been there, done that in Brownies.

At first thought the concept of having conversations with all the players involved seems like a simple no brainer. However, generally we’re so focused on our niche areas of expertise and professional intelligence we tend to guard industry and insider information closely and not think to invite others around the table for coffee.

But not Paul, that’s not his style. He plans to get candidates involved and talking about their job searches, recruiters about the industry and employers about their expectations. Chatting with him he said that one of his professional highlights is memories of when he was recruiting and would get a rush every time an applicant was made a job offer and accepted. He said it wasn’t just because he made money but because he had a hand in giving someone a fresh start in a position that they really wanted.

He has a lot of questions to ask, kind of reminds me of Larry King’s style. Ask questions, sit back, listen and learn. Questions like:

What has happened to full life cycle recruiting (recruiting has become like a production line)?
Why are candidates the forgotten equation in everything?
Why are people judged immediately because of what a social media profile says or what they look like?
Have Baby Boomers spoiled their Gen Y children to a point that most can’t find employment after graduation because they don’t have any prior work experience?
Is the recruiting field over-saturated?
Should recruiters be credentialed (with something other than SPHR or PHR) like used to have to be in NJ when it was mandatory for recruiters to pass a state test?

Whoa… those are some heavy questions for contemplation and discourse. I’ve been invited to be a guest on November 3rd to discuss one of today’s hottest recruiting topics, social media v.s. picking up the phone. Sounds intellectual, I like it.

When Paul started his new business he said that from day one the company pledged to give a percentage of earnings to charities helping people less fortunate and unemployed. It’s posted on the recruiterreqs.com website that they are part of the Agents Paying Forward Network. Visit the site and on the related links tab you’ll find there are a number of helpful networks for both recruiters and job seekers. I expect to see The Ex-Recruiter posted there very soon!

The Ex-Recruiter debuts live October 20 at 12:00p.m. EST with a half hour introduction. The weekly show moves to a 1 hour time slot on October 27th from 12:00p.m. to 1:00p.m. Up and coming episodes feature Candidate Uproar with guests  Janice and Jeremy Worthington, Job Search Coaches,   Gen Y advocate, J.T. O’Donnell and in case you didn’t catch it above, yours truly.

Good luck to Paul Paris on his new venture and be sure to call in with your questions and comments!

Dorothy Beach, MBA CIR PHR got me thinking. She posted a question on the discussion board of the LinkedIn Social Media Recruiting Group asking for opinions on the effect of social media on recruiting in the far future, 5-20 years down the virtual highway. My mind immediately took a journey to Wish List Lane and Technology Square. If you repeat something enough times and really believe it that makes it reality, right?

In my vulcanesque way of thinking, most everyone on Earth will be digitally literate and have their own domain which will seamlessly be linked to the various networks they choose to participate in. Job seekers and passive candidates  open to opportunities will be able to open their networks to candidate searches so they can be found. Job seekers will no longer need to proactively apply to openings.

Companies will conduct searches not job seekers. Recruiters will be consultants to companies hiring and perform more of a job profile / company fit identification role, write the job keywords and parameters and set up the newfangled ATS which will be on a cloud. Software will be coded to meet the requirements of highly specialized queries and it will crawl to find candidates profiles base on the distance you wish to search and import them into your database where you will be able to further refine your search. Boolean strings will be old fashioned and systems will be user intuitive and friendly.

Recruiters will narrow the candidate pool by refining matches and conducting 1st virtual screenings, recommend the top 3 candidates to hiring managers, co-conduct the interviews and assist in the decision making ad placement process. Recruiters, in their expanded consultant role may see new hires through their first 3 months taking an active role in the new onboarding process.

What’s your vision?

Cyber-vetting is an important area of study for employment law and organizational communication because of its potential to affect identity(ies), work and organizational practices, including selection and socialization.

Cyber-vetting is a process by which organizational representatives use freely accessible information gathered from online tools or sites such as search engines or social networking communities to gather information about (potential) employees.

What Recruiter or organization wouldn’t want to save time and money and have a third eye?

Having insight above and beyond a background check has always been a painstaking process. Calls to employment references no longer yield the results employers look for in our litigious society. Employers are too afraid to speak and all you’re likely to get are dates of employment, title and possibly a salary.

However, it’s not illegal to ask an employer or ex-coworker about the work ethic, quality of work, and any other habits you would care to know about before further considering a candidate. So, what’s the difference in getting the information from a voice over the phone or digitally? In my opinion, not much. If a Hiring Manager or HR type does decide to spill the beans of undesirability you’re liable to get a dose of subjectivity that will leave you with your eyebrow raised just as high as might the hairy scary things you find staring you in the face on your monitor.

However, your monitor isn’t likely to have duct tape on it like the Manager’s lips do.

What’s important is what you do with the information you learn.

Recently 2 very telling studies were released. Peopleclick produced a complimentary eBook, Social Networks and Employment Law, by Dr. Lisa Harpe of the Peopleclick Research Institute and CareerBuilder partnered with Harris Interactive to survey over 2600 hiring managers and HR professionals about their use of social media.

While I recommend you take the time to view both studies, in a nutshell as they pertain to cyber-vetting, they both confirm what we already know. It’s happening. In fact, CareerBuilder.com reported an increase in Hiring Managers pre-screening applicants from 22% last year to 45% in 2009 and another 11% planning to start in the near future.

So why the controversy about cyber-vetting?

Take a look at your organization and where within it you find the least progressive, most conservative element?

While some are maverick cybernauts in the Wild Wild West of social media recruiting, the majority are voyeurs holding back, peeking out from behind a thinly veiled recruiting cloud waiting for corporate attorneys to give the go ahead or the first publicized lawsuits to put a complete cabosh on cyber-vetting.

Have no fear…..

In the U.S., Federal anti-discrimination regulations provide the guidelines you currently follow in your recruiting and hiring practices, right? Apart from providing for what they are intended to do, guarantee fair hiring practices, the cool thing about these regulations is that they do not stipulate how you attract or screen candidates, just that you treat them all the same. Just like you do now, if you are still using more traditional methods.

To ensure you don’t do something potentially career damaging, unfair to to candidates and illegal, no matter how you source, attract, engage and screen candidates, follow these laws enforced by the Equal Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to the fullest extent.

• Title VII of the Civil Rights Act – prohibits discrimination based on race, color, sex,
  national origin or religion. This federal law covers private employers, state and local
  governments and educational institutions with at least 15 employees. Protections
  have been extended to include discrimination on the basis of pregnancy, sex
  stereotyping and sexual harassment.
• Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) – prohibits employment discrimination
  based on disability. Employers may not inquire about disability prior to an offer of
  employment and must make reasonable accommodations to persons with disabilities.
• Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA) – prohibits employment
  discrimination based on age, particularly protecting individuals 40 and older.

Federal Contractors additionally need to adhere to this law, enforced by the Office of Federal Contract
Compliance Programs (OFCCP).

• Executive Order 11246 – prohibits discrimination based on race, color, sex, national
  origin or religion. Also requires federal contractors to monitor their personnel
  practices and take affirmative action where indicated.

If you are not working under U.S. law, it would be ultra prudent to check out the regulations in Timbuktu or wherever you happen to be. I don’t know, I feel compelled to say that. It’s a CYA thing.

Optional digression: Do you think there is benefit to checking out Tahitian employment law? If I’m blogging tomorrow about cabana boys bringing exotic tropical drinks to my hammock strung between 2 palm trees you’ll know that osmotic transport is not strictly endemic to science, it has practical applications  too.

Now that job seekers know that we’re out there looking at them (and I don’t believe that even one doesn’t), many make tremendously good use of social media to market themselves as viable and desirable candidates. In fact, Recruiters and HR are out there tweeting and blogging tips on how to maximize a job seeker’s social media presence.  Are Recruiters and Hiring Managers to ignore these gems too, or just the transgressions? To see one you must see the other. Why would you think it’s OK to attract and source but not look?

There may be things you are not thinking of in regard to documentation. For example, if you are asking candidates to friend you on Facebook and connect with you on LinkedIn, are you documenting that? Aha! It’s a form of communication and just like you would document phone calls and save any other electronic communication with the candidate this isn’t any different.

Tip: Screen captures are a lot easier than typing.

Read the reports and do some searching on cyber-vetting, check with your corporate attorney, find out how companies with corporate policies on this subject are managing it. In other words, educate yourself to CYA, and protect your company and candidates.

Have fun, be fair, and check out socialseek, a cool new downloadable app I recently came across and like.

P.S. Thanks to Carmen Hudson, aka. @peopleshark for the suggestion to blog on this topic.

These callers were an HR manager, a seasoned independent Recruiter, and 2 small business owners. With the exception of the seasoned Recruiter who in all fairness was doing his job turning over rocks looking for referrals, the comments were all very similar in nature.

It’s been so long since we have hired the resumes we have on hand are no good and the newspaper ad isn’t working. I can’t find the talent I need, can you help me?

I’m presenting on this very topic at THE Conference on October 6th here in Nepaland but the troops are needed now. So, I began each conversation asking for basic information and asked to be emailed job specs. Then I went down the path of breadcrumbs like Gretel did.

Do you have an employee referral program? No.

Did you ask the applicants you had on hand for referrals? No.

Have you tried non-traditional means of recruiting? What does that mean?

The one hour conference gig isn’t going to cut it. I was planning on a series of job seeker seminars to teach them how to use social media to aid in their job search but I see I have to get more involved with those responsible for hiring them first…

Are your IRL colleagues taking advantage of new recruiting techniques and practices or are they still hanging on to the tried and true and missing out on where many of today’s jobseekers are hanging out?