I get a lot of these types of requests and I’m limited on time so I often think that’s nice and move on, as much as I would love to have my hand constantly in the candy jar.. but Pete’s email provoked chemistry.. I had to check it out.

The principle is simple yet genius, the add-on (Firefox only right now) allows you to highlight a name on a page and instantly find the person on multiple popular social media sites recruiters commonly use –>LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and others.

This is what I have been missing…

No more copying and pasting URL’s, searching sites and search engines for profiles. It also allows you to send a message to the person from the application which sneaks into the profile messaging system of the site you are on. In other words, it carries a set of extremely useful sourcing tools to each social media site with you.

Good bye LinkedIn paid InMails – You’re the weakest link!

Yes – you can do these things manually, but now you don’t have to so my recommendation is that you fire up this add-on, watch the video and continue doing what you do best, but now in a much more efficient and dare I say fun way! It took me only a few minutes to install, watch the video and get the hang of it – less than the time it takes to brew a pot of coffee.

I like it so much I stopped what I was doing to write this review. What are you waiting for?

Hey….. come back after you check it out, I want to hear your thoughts. Are you excited about this as I am?

Johnny, you’re our star Admin Assistant and as part of your “other duties as assigned” I’m giving you a new project. I need to hire an Account Manager and we don’t have a budget to hire an agency to do it for us. You’re always on Facebook and Twitter, do some social networking and find me one…

Here is the job description. I have highlighted the keywords that are important.

Just set up a Facebook Fan Page – stream good stuff about the company, it’s free. Then, create a company Twitter account – tweet about it and search and follow similar people, be friendly and say good things about us, it’s free. Join some LinkedIn groups – post the job in the jobs sections, it’s free. Google free job boards – post it everywhere, they’re free.

Have the resumes sent to you and scan them for the keywords and 3 years of experience. Put the ones that match on my desk. I’ll review them and give the ones I like back to you to set up appointments for an interview.

Do a good job and I’ll take you out for pizza to that place you like down the street.

Does this sound far fetched to you?

The TechCrunch Europe post How free social media beat the recruitment consultants to death gives quite a blow by blow account of how companies are doing it. Though it may sting to read it at first, it brings up an excellent point for discussion.

“I think what the recruitment industry should take away from this is that prospective clients really can beat them at their own game, if they want to make the effort. The recruitment industry needs to recognise this and innovate… find ways of adding value… and justify/rationalise their proposition.”

Get out your value proposition.