Social Media Headhunter

Pittsburgh Social Media Manager Search B2B

Those of you who've been around know that my job descriptions aren't exactly, standard.  Here's another one. 

I'm under contract to find a social media manager for a software modeling software company in Pittsburgh. It's a great position if you're into the business side of social, and you even get to work with a team of content creators.  The challenge is in Pittsburgh I'm mostly finding retail and ad agency experience. This is a different beast.  

As I expand the search across the country, if you think this might be something you'd look at, drop me a line on Twitter or the other hundred ways to contact me through social media (not interested in blind resume submissions), and let's talk. 

Basic Duties:  LinkedIn Groups, YouTube channel, Blog, other channels as we justify them.  

Experience: 5-10 years business experience, social media for a solid two years, and multiple enterprise clients if a consultant.  Background in software sales, engineering, or technical writing industry would be great, but I can be flexible.   

No egos on this one.  I don't want to hear about how hard it is to create change in a company when they don't buy in. It's our job to convince managers, sales people, and executives to buy in.  They're hiring for the job, right?   Also, while strategy is a key component, I've a need for a real player/coach here. It's a large company with a lot of opportunity to make changes, but you have to earn that right with your work.    

The position reports to the Director of Marketing and Communications, who runs the website, content, event, marketing ,and corp communications.  The department has 45 staff, with about a third of those reporting to your manager.  This is not a management position, despite the title.  You'd also be working with and have access to lots of SME's, a necessity as their audience is primarily technical. 


The successful candidate will have to lay out the strategy, execute it, and bring others along who can benefit.  Metrics are easy at first.  Right now, they aren't focused on Sales or Conversions, but rather figuring out where social fits, and justifying its use. Clarity of message in the right social channels is a big deal.  

One last thing.  You have to live in Pittsburgh.  Flying in and out is not going to work this time.  But we can talk about getting you there.  

Wanted: Social Media Recruiting Experience

Thanks to the magic of Twitter and the sharing savvy of Maren Hogan, I read this article in Human Resource Executive Online about "social recruiting" as a core competency for the hiring of new recruiters.

HR occupations most commonly seeking these skills are recruiters and training specialists, according to the platform, created and monitored by Wanted Technologies Corp., headquartered in Quebec City, with primary U.S. offices in New York.

"We've heard the 'buzz' about social recruiting," says Bruce Murray, CEO of Wanted Technologies, "but the facts are showing that forward-looking companies are now expecting their recruiters to have mastered this core competency.

"Social recruiting," he says, "has moved beyond 'buzz' and is definitely mainstream."

 Awesome.  Allow me to step forward, and on behalf  of all the bloggers, dreamers, and trainers that dug into this over the last seven years, I'd like to say, you're welcome.  Thank you to all the readers and writers of Recruiting.com.  Thank you to Kennedy Expo and ERE and OnRec, and to folks like John Sumser and Jason Davis and Craig Silverman and Heather Hamilton and Recruiting Animal and Anthony Meaney and David Manaster and well, all of the Jason's, and Dennis Smith and Dave Mendoza and Shally Steckerl and Joel Cheesman and Maureen Sharib and really, anyone who started pitching this as "extra sauce" in the core recruiting function. 

And I'm sure I missed a whole slew of folks.    

But seriously, this is a good sign for the industry that social media is seen as  a core competency.  It is.

But what does it mean?  And how do you hire for it?

While we've taken great strides, there is still a fundamental disconnect between understanding social media and actually using it in the recruiting process.  So if you want to hire someone with social media skills, can I just a simple remedy? 

Ask them to demonstrate it.

If you know what you're doing in social media, it shouldn't be that hard to sit down in front of a computer and show it off.

 This is a screen shot of LinkedIn, and at the very least, you ought to be able to demostrate how to use LinkedIn to find candidates.  Show a trick or two. 

And when done with LinkedIn, you can show how Meetup can help you find active candidates whose online profiles are passive. 

Or perhaps you can demonstrate how you'd go about interviewing accoutants in Seattle when the job is in Tampa. 

Or maybe just show how you can get direct phone numbers off old resumes in the database? 

 

 

What you can't do is say that you know social media, put it on your resume, and then skate through the interview because your future manager doesn't understand what it means to be social savvy. 

I'd be interested in finding out if this is case.  Back in the old days, coders would sometimes interview by, you know, writing code.  Now that technology is such an important part of every job, you'd think that we tested for skillsets.  They used to give typing speed tests and number pad drills in an interview.  Why wouldn't you have a LinkedIn run-through in your hiring process? 

Say, that's not a bad idea.  Maybe I'll call Tincup.  

 

How To Hire A Social Media Strategist

The phone has been pretty busy lately, with companies calling to get advice on how to hire senior social positions to guide them into this new world. 

That's not surprising, as most social outlets are reporting an uptick in hiring, and executives realize a permanent onsite presence is important.   What has been surprising is how clear-headed these callers are.  They have fair salaries (some quite good actually). They've thought out what the position should do and have short and long-term goals in place.  The organizational structure is clear, as is the interview process. 

I say surprising because this wasn't the case just last year.  What it speaks to is a maturing of the social hiring process, and the mainstreaming of social into different divisions of the corporate world.  So why are they calling? 

The resumes are terrible.  And when they do get a good resume, the interviews are so poorly presented, the company just can't pull the trigger, even when they want to.  What's going on? 

Part of the problem is no one knows how to interview for a social position.  Even if you've done the work, interviewing and explaining it is harder than it seems.  Interviewing is a skill, both from the manager and the candidate side.  As normal people, we overestimate our ability to interview, conflating doing the work with explaining the work.  

So what do you do?

If You're A Candidate: 

Practice.  Actually Practice.  I've been selling for 14 years, and I still practice.  I practice phone calls, phone messages, and especially live pitches.  Recently I sat down with a company for a project.  It was a $30,000, three-month engagement for digital profile work.  I spent two weeks thinking about it, and 2 hours creating the presentation, and 6 hours rehearsing it with a timer, for a 20 minute presentation.  To me, that's standard.  It's standard because I know a $30,000 engagement will be worth $300,000 over the next five years.  Would you practice six hours for $300,000?

Imagine that tomorrow you are fired.  If you take a job, how long before you'll make $300,000?  And yet, how many of you have practiced for an interview?

You're winging it, and then wondering why it didn't go well.  So your answer is to take what you know, put it into multiple presentations, and practice selling yourself.  That's how you win big jobs.

If You're A Company:

You're in the position of power because you write the checks.  But what are you hiring?  Are you hiring a drone or are you hiring a specialist?  You have to let go of the power of the interview, and give the candidate the freedom to demonstrate their expertise.  To do this, you need a clear vision of what you think you need, a clear process of what it takes to get you to hire, and then the invested time in learning what you don't know.  And you don't know social media.  If you did, you wouldn't need to hire.  So here's your plan. 

1) Clear job description

2) Fact sheet on the company. 

3) Private fact sheet for candidates getting past initial screening. 

4) Written process of interviews.

5) Solid expectations of what you want

That's it.  Note there isn't much about social in there.  There are no fancy metrics or silver bullets. It's such communication protocols and setting expectations up front.

A good social candidate can explain what they do. A prepared candidate can provide an outline to you of what they need from you to be successful.  A prepared candidate is like an employee, showing you what it's like to work with them.  Most candidates are like salespeople, hoping to get you to say yes because you like them, but not knowing what the job entails after the signatures are done. 

You say you want to hire?  Expect more out of your candidates, but give them more as well.  A collaborative interview will show you what you're getting, and tell you who wants YOUR job, versus someone who wants A job. 

 

 

 

 

 

10 Reasons Surfing LinkedIn Profiles Is Like Panning For Gold

I love sifting through my LinkedIn account.  There's so much rich data in the system, and so much to learn, that a casual glance at a profile leads me to hours of contacts and websites. 

It helps that I'm a social media headhunter, but it's not just the search.  For every business I work with, LinkedIn remains my go-to application.  There's always something I can do to show off to a prospect that they hadn't thought of, or can't do with their own accounts. 

If this sounds a bit like a love song, it's because I've had a lot of occasion to be on LinkedIn in the last week, and even though the changes are frustrating to some recruiters, there really isn't anything like it out there.  A business database that is updated by the contacts. It allows you to contact them.  The expectations are that you are supposed to do business with others on the site.  And most important, all that is needed is the curiosity to explore. 

How do you use it? 

1) Identify companies to sell your products, hire you, or hire from. 

2) Learn market terminology from titles to jargon. 

3) Understand career paths from those who have gone before you, to better understand what led to their current titles. 

4) Find out what technologies partners and competitors are using, and how long they've been using them. 

5) Find out what alumni of your school are doing, or find out what alumni of the school you want to attend are doing. 

6) Find out if that MBA or Law Degree is worth it, by looking at profiles of recent graduates.

7) Use LinkedIn as a springboard to research a company and its microsites.

8) Find out when people leave jobs or start new ones, and where a company hires most, both geographically and from what companies.

9) Research a company to see if they're really engaged in social media, or if they are just posting a profile because others told them to. 

10) Find out who is looking at your profile, and reach out to them to see if they're looking to hire. 

All of these are free services that can be used with just a little creativity and a healthy dose of curiousity.  All of these are actually enjoyable for researchers. And if you dig long enough, no matter what you are looking for, you always find something that will be useful to you, from a remembered name to a lost contact to a company you should have known was there, but was not. 

And don't forget serendipity. Two weeks ago, I was giving an Advanced LinkedIn Webinar.  A friend of mine from college was asked to view it with the HR manager.  Imagine his surprise when he sees my name and hears my voice!  We just had a great dinner with his family, reconnecting after what must have been 7 years.

There's some good science behind why this occurs.  What matters to you is that you get curious about these social networks, and do some of your old exploring.  It may take patience, but do you think finding gold was easy?  You know it's there.  You just have to find it.  That's how LinkedIn is today.  I can't swear to it five years from now, but it's been a major contributor to my success, more than Facebook, more than Twitter.  Heck, more than blogs, if you want to tie a dollar figure to it.

Get curious.  Get a pan.  Head down to the LinkedIn River and figure out what you're missing. 

Going To Pittsburgh Next Week

If you're there, or know someone I should connect with, please let me know. 

Blogging has been light, but business has been brisk.   I'll take Nestea over fat-free cookies anyday.