Social Media Headhunter

Personal Training Is A Great Analogy For Social Media

Social Media Marketing isn't easy.  It's also substantively different than other forms of online marketing like e-mail, mobile, website, and video.  Other types of interactive marketing are services that can be bought and outsourced.  The client pays a fee, and MAGIC happens.

Well, maybe not magic, but you can pay someone to do your SEO-focused, E-mail-centric, integrated interactive multichannel marketing effort complete with a new branded website.  You write the check, they do the work, you reap the results. 

Social media,, not so much. SM is very difficult to outsource, and the only kosher way to do it is to assign someone to a company as an outsourced social media specialist working on behalf of the company (like a contractor - still speaking for the company, but not employed by a W-2).  Lots of companies, I'd say the majority, do one of two things.

1) They hire an intern or a college grad with a Facebook account and tell them to do something with Social Media.
2) They hire someone to execute a social media campaign, and wait to hear the results.

Here's the problem. It doesn't work that way.  You simply cannot hire someone to perform your work in the traditional sense and expect anything other than results based on cotton candy sugar and marshmallow fluff.  Social Media is accused of being fuzzy, and there are metrics you can use to measure results, but there's a difference between using SM tools to affect your online profile, and actively engaging in the communities where your customers hang out.

If you want a good Page Rank, lots of links, and bragging rights for the number of Twitter followers, by all means hire a social media company to do your work for you.  If you're looking to maximize profits by using social media tools to drive sales, create thought leadership, brand your company with influentials, and monitoring for damage control, your company has to do the work.

It's like personal training.  You can hire the 20-something athlete to work you out, but if he gives you a training regimen, you have to perform the exercises to get fit.  Paying Sven to do your workout for you isn't going to help you, it's only going to enrich Sven.   And for far too many of us, purchasing a 3 year membership at the 24 Hour Fitness of Social Media hotspot is a subsitute for actually exercising.

Should Social Media Be A Skill Or A Title?

I made the prediction last year that by 2012, social media specialist would be in every PR, Marketing and Advertising firm or department, or the list of skills for those positions would all include social media.

So far, the corporate world seems to be asking for social media skills, but hiring people who are specialists.  All of my evidence is anecdotal, but if you read job descriptions regularly (and I do daily), you'll see that many companies are asking for information on blogs, social networks, Twitter, Facebook, and the every popular "Web 2.0."  Social media positions tend to only be advertised on social media boards, but the broader population is seeing the language of social media show up in their job postings.

Salespeople, marketers, executives - even customer service, reporters, and writers are finding companies hoping to hire someone with social media experience.

The problem is that social media isn't something that can be measured on a corporate level if it doesn't have clear goals.  Hiring a salesman with experience on Facebook isn't something managers are measuring, so it's impossible to know what the effect of hiring someone with/without Facebook experience has on job performance.

As social media moves like a pig through a snake through the general population, it will be interesting to see what's more important - the Title or the Skillset?

SEO And The Social Media Headhunter

I've been very pleased with the response on this site - in addition to over 100 subscribers, the traffic has been fantastic for a two month old blog.  And the conversions for placements haven't been too bad (I'll share those at the six month mark when the checks clear).   Maintaining something like my tenth blog isn't easy, and though this clearly has the traction, I wanted to bring in some expert help from people who know more than I do in the realm of SEO and SEM.

My view as a social media headhunter is pretty simple - I can do most of the jobs I recruit for, so if you can teach me something, or can show that you're better than I am, then you're probably a great match for my clients.  I'm a six in most areas, and I want 7's, 8's, and 9's for candidates (unless the client wants a 4).  How do I find 7', 8's, and 9's?  Why - through the blog of course. These people monitor the web, and they've seen my results, and so they drop me a line.

One such example is an SEO expert that I'm going to add as an author on the site.  He works internally for a company, so he can't exactly share his stories on his own blog, so he's graciously accepted writing on mine.  I'd like to welcome Nigel Thermopolis as an author.  You can expect to see some of his writing grace these pages over the coming months, and if you have SEO questions, please forward them to me.

**And I'm still open to an SEM author, especially if you've worked with large budgets and have made a profit for your company (internal only, please).

Adding Yourself As A Candidate To The Social Media Headhunter

I'm adding a new page, but if you're interested in forwarding me a resume and setting up a profile in my database, follow this link to my Sendouts database and upload your resume.  A word or text resume is automatically parsed into the database, but you also have the option of building a profile.

Here is the link to update.

Why build a profile?  Because you can update it, which means if you change jobs or add new skills, you can make those changes and I'll see them.  Sendouts automatically notifies me when someone uploads a resume or changes their profile, and it's the best way to contact a recruiter.

All information is confidential, and only used to help place you. You should receive an automatic e-mail thanking you for entering information, but I won't be contacting each and every person who sends in a resume.  If your resume fits something I'm searching for, I'll definitely be in touch, and if you'd like to discuss a project you're working on, that's a different matter, but the sheer volume of responses would make it impossible for me to actually do any recruiting.

Social Media Hiring: An Interview With Jason Falls

Jason Falls recently hired a social media expert for Doe-Anderson.  He posted the job on his blog with specific instructions on how to apply, and then went about filtering, interviewing, and eventually hiring Kat French.

Doe-Anderson is an advertising agency in Louisville. They do branding, and they blog.  And so it made a lot of sense for me to ask Jason the specifics of how he went about hiring Kat.  The following is a lengthy interview with Jason on how to hire from a corporate standpoint.  It's remarkable both for how much information he gave us, and for the care he put into hiring.  Try to think of another industry where a manager would give out the secrets of a great hire.  In social media, it's not as difficult, because you either get it or you don't.  If you get it, then these aren't secrets.  If you don't, nothing you read is going to give you a competitive advantage.

What you can take from this is that if you're looking for a branding agency, you now know at least one who takes social media seriously, and you would be well advised to put your account into their hands.   Now, the interview:

Questions:

1) Did you write your own job description?  Was it tough to get through Human Resources?  And did that description change as you went through the interview process?

I wrote my own job description and had our HR director (a Sr. VP and board member) approve it. The description didn't change at all. In fact, when I first told her I wanted to post the opening on my blog in such a way, she said, "That's great. I'm always looking for new and innovative ways to find good people."

2) Did you get better resumes from job postings or from your blog and other social media avenues?

Most definitely from the blog and social media avenues. However, I expressly said in my posting that I didn't want resumes. We also pointed all of our official job postings (LinkedIn, Louisville AdFed, etc.) back to my blog post, so most people who reached out about the job got what we were shooting for. Thankfully, I only got a couple of real resumes, which were immediate rejections, of course. If you're online and you connect with me about the job, your LinkedIn profile and a Google search is really all I need.

3) What was the most common error that candidates made in applying to this position?