Social Media Headhunter

You Have A Lot Of Experience In Your Head

Sitting down with a client, my marketing firm brandstorming was asking questions about where the client stood on a new marketing plan for a new product. 

Of interest was the messaging they were going to use, and in the discussion, it became clear that their marketing messaging in their main business was very strong personally, but was not clear online.  Like many businesses, the quality of their work was much better than their online presence.  

They didn't need me to create a new way to market, they needed me to pull the right answers out of their heads and put them online.  We reached a point where we all started nodding, and realized that what we really needed was to give the owners the time to think about how good they really were. 

I got the idea from blogging. It's always been my idea that blogging is good for introspection.  It forces you to write more than you know off the top of your head, which forces you to think about what you do and why.  Many qualified people don't think about what they're good at, and instead look for slogans to short-cut their way to explanations. That's the whole point of a job title.  Job titles are marketing of people. 

Why does this matter to you, especially for social media?   One, you need more introspection about what you really do. Two, you need to slow down with the promises and instead figure out what you've done in the past that would be useful to a client or employer.  And three, you need to do a better job of finding people who need your particular skills.  If you don't know what those skills are, how can you figure out how to apply them to clients? 

I beat the drums quite a bit about experience being more important than social media skills, but that's just word play.  Social media is something that lets you do what you've done in the past, better.  If you can discover what you did, and why that might be of interest to a prospect or prospective boss, social media is easy. 

It's when you try to make social media the destination that you fail, and sound like a fraud.  Is there a social media future where "social media" changes everything?   Yes.  But you have to get there first, and if you're broke and unemployed, you won't be the one they trust. 

It looks like this.  $$$ now ='s success later.  

Or maybe look at it on this timeline.

What To Expect From A Headhunter: Video

Now that I have a fancy office, I figured I'd get into a little bit of video blogging, both for the practice and to see if I could build  a YouTube community.  This is a common topic - how to work with a headhunter, but maybe the message comes across better in video than text.

These were my previous comments in a blog post.  Compare and contrast that to the video.  Takes the edges off, doesn't it?

  

 

 

How Would You Work With Social Media Talent?

Social Media Talent is a staffing firm for social media.  Our goal is to fill in the gap between social strategist and social intern with a long-term contractor dedicated to a single company. We believe that a dedicated presence is needed to drive social business through a company, and we have the experience to know that $5000 projects to test the waters won't ever bring value to the company past some limited SEO exposure. 

So what did we do?  We started a company that backs up social consultants with a backoffice, including training, managing and support, and we're rolling out different programs. 

1) Craig Fisher @fishdogs, and Jim Durbin @smheadhunter are out selling staffing, working our networks to find out what their needs are and who might fill them.  As we get requirements, we go to our personal database of over 5,000 business professionals with social media experience and place them at the client. 

2) We also work with social media consultants who are currently billing their clients, but would like a little more stability for insurance, payment (every two weeks), and employment paperwork.  You retain your clients, but we're helping your back office, and hopefully, working together to drive more business in the execution of your strategy (hiring people to serve on-site with you). 

3) We still have the retained search business, which is for clients who are certain they need a permanent presence, and understand that retained search is the only way we can contribute resources for their plan.  Retained search includes elements of social strategy, training, job description and hiring.  With over thirty years of staffing experience, and 12 years of paid social media experience between us, we can tailor a search in a way no internal or contingent recruiter can match. 

We do talk to lots of candidates, but by necessity, we're focused on selling the services first.  Your best bet is connecting to us, thinking very hard about how you want social media to alter the business you want to work for, putting it on paper, and then asking us to work with you to sell into the client.  More on that in later posts, but be sure to check out JobsinSocialMedia.com if you're a social media professional. 

For more information, check out the Social Media Talent website, Facebook page, and of course, the RSS feed for the Social Media Headhunter blog. 

Is Social Media In A Salary Bubble? And If So, Who Cares?

If you're in the social media industry and you're not reading Tac Anderson at New Comm Biz, you're missing out.  His latest on Job-hopping Social Media Strategists is thought provoking and fair, and that's just the first of many gems on the site. 

I've asserted in interviews and on this site that a bubble exists for social strategy.  Strangely it is not in the upper levels of consulting, nor is it in the entry-level positions.  The high-level consulting, ranging from $150-400 an hour, is entirely consistent with other kinds of management consulting on the market, from techology to human resources to marketing and law.  The lower levels pay as low as $10 an hour, with most jobs in basic entry level range of $30-35,000 (not so great with inflation, but in line with other positions with that experience level).

The bubble exists outside of this range, with people with a year of more experience seeing large jumps in pay up to $75-85,000, and in some cases six figures.  When comparing resumes, the only thing that leaps out is social media experience, and in most cases this has more to do with pedigree and personal profile.  In other words, taking a job with a firm after working with name brands gives a large boost to your pay, as does having a large online following.   In these cases, the candidates do a lot of job-hopping, spending less than a year, and sometimes only 3-6 months at different companies, all with little to show for it and little in the way of impact. 

The middle of social media jobs is hollowing out, and there isn't much to replace it.

Tac discusses the problem from a senior level.

With very, very, very few exceptions, I, and every one of my friends working as social media strategists, have changed jobs *at least* once or twice in the last 5 years. Some as many as 4 or <cough> 5 <cough> times.

Why have we changed jobs so many times? Those of us doing this for the last 5 years got an early start at developing a critical skill set that few people had and every major company all of a sudden needed very, very badly. This placed us in the *star* category and has lead to a ridiculous number of job offers, made even more ridiculous when you consider they came during the worst job market we’ve seen in our adult lives.

Changing jobs twice or even 5 times in 5 years, especially in the last 5 years, isn't bad.  The people Tac is talking about are literally cutting edge, and they're experiencing a high degree of dissatisfaction.  Ultimately, they will move into consulting on their own, or enter domestic periods where job-hopping is too destructive to do. But they'll be okay.  They already have careers behind them that can be used to great effect in the job market.

Will there be fallout?  Sure.  The major failure of the social media consultant class he describes so well is their refusal to accept that there is no such thing as a perfect company.  At SXSW, I was barraged with people talking about finding clients and companies in line with your values.  That's a nice pipe dream, but if you're talking about revolution, you seldom get to carefully select the perfect manager at a rising company with money to pay you and compassion for your personal quirks.  And when you do find that perfect company, most of us make the mistake of leaving for more money elsewhere, regretting it only after it's too late to return.

This class will learn that fast enough (we all do - and it may just be life experience that teaches it), because they are smart and capable, and when they do focus, they are powerful employees.  They've built up an expertise that carries them through a new learning curve.

This is not true for those in the middle. The doers.  Jumping jobs early can help you boost your salary, but it also prevents you from learning lessons like, "sometimes just putting your head down and working solves your problems."  Lessons like "outside forces sometimes make managers assholes, but it's temporary, and if you keep your head about you, both you and the company come out stronger."  This isn't universally true, but it's very difficult to pick up expertise in an industry or company if you don't ride that company or industry through up and down business cycles.

What happens is you're always stuck in start-up mode, which is great if you're a rich entrepreneur, but sucks if you're a mid-level employee. 

Tac is going to be okay. The very fact that he's thinking about the choices he's made suggests a mental state of learning, which is hard to achieve both when you're desperate and when you're in a rut.  That said, he goes on to describe some very good long-term lessons about hiring superstars that are worth taking a look at.  I'm not sure his conclusion that building internal teams is yet applicable (and not that original), but it's at least worth exploring.

There is a salary bubble for the people Tac is speaking about training.  Sitting and waiting for him to train them is not good for their salary, but it is important to their career.  As I wrote in the comments:

Moving is certainly causing a problem, as fast moves tend to cut off the experience needed to succeed in the next job. Social business is about changing habits and altering the DNA of a company. If every time it gets difficult, you jump to the next company who is looking for "social talent," you're not boosting your resume, you're playing with your online profile. Eventually, the music stops and you're left without a chair.

The market is in flux, but that's normal based on where we are in terms of social media maturity.  When Java first came out, there was a lot of movement and a salary bubble.  Those who jumped around and never learned anything but how to interview suffered when the drop came in 2000.  At the same time, those who did not move found themselves well-educated, but with much lower salaries.  Those who jumped, but who kept working at their skills on and off the job were the best off.  They were able to improve and stay current, while boosting their income. That's the ideal for social media, which allows you to work both on and off the job.  Heck, it practically demands it.

So if you're in this situation, focus on learning the lessons of your industry, your company, and basic business lessons.  Your social media experience is more like sizzle, but basic business concepts (cost versus expense, hiring, supply and demand, cash flow, politics), and basic business skills (writing, presenting , research) are the steak.

Job-hopping isn't anymore of a problem than sitting at one place too long.  The problem is failing to learn what you can in your environment, and learning to apply those lessons in new environments.

Free Social Media Career Advice: Today at 3 CST

One of my New Year's Resolutions was to start giving some time back to the social media community, so to answer some of you who write and call in looking for advice on a social media career, I'll be setting up a free call using my GoTo Meeting account.

I'm open to any and all questions, and will answer them as they come in in the meeting or on Twitter.  There's no cost, but no follow up either.  Bear with me if there any technical difficulties.  This will be my first mass meeting.  

1.  Please join my meeting, Tuesday, January 25 at 03:00 PM CST.
https://www3.gotomeeting.com/join/633452614

2.  Use your microphone and speakers (VoIP) - a headset is recommended. Or, call in using your telephone.

Dial +1 (630) 869-1011
Access Code: 633-452-614
Audio PIN: Shown after joining the meeting

Meeting ID: 633-452-614

This is 3 pm CST, today, January 25th.  Depending on how well they go, I'll be trying to do a couple a month for the foreseeable future.  No need to RSVP, but if you can RT this using the   http://bit.ly/hR1gGS link, that would be great.

Fortune Magazine Talks To The Social Media Headhunter

There's a nice interview today in Fortune Magazine about the future of social media jobs.  Fortune reporter Anne VanderMey does a great job sharing the opinions of different sources about the future of the industy, but the big surprise was her inclusion of our new staff augmentation firm for mid-level social media strategists.

There are several levels of expertise within the social media profession. Most commonly, there's the community manager – the feet on the ground, so to speak, who oversee a company's online communities; the analyst or strategist -- who builds and monitors social media campaigns; the product developer – who is responsible for keeping the company's software up to date; the editor or publisher -- who oversees content and the brand; and the executive -- a rare position, usually filled by a public relations professional...

As the field matures, Durbin and others foresee widespread restructuring. To prepare, Durbin is opening a social media consulting and placement firm designed for mid-career professionals, where he sees the most growth potential.

Sadly, the site is not up. I was going to use the Brandstorming site and logo, but now I'm thinking this would be the perfect time to launch SocialMediaTalent.com (not yet up).

The most important thing is we've got the financial backing and pedigree to make this happen, and the growth is going to work for a lot of different companies selling and buying social media.  I want to carve out the middle niche and be a supplier of mid-level social media talent.  We've built a unique hiring structure with the help of some recruiting friends, and I intend to maximize our sites in pursuit of the hot talent and the companies that need to hire. 

January 2011.  What could be more exciting?

And read Anne's entire piece. It's well-written and well-researched.

Evaluating Your Salary As A Social Media Consultant With Math

The number one question from both clients and candidates in social media recruiting is "what should I be paying/making?"

It's an interesting question, and the person on the other line is always asking me to give them a definitive answer on what they're worth.  The answer is always "depends," followed by some questions and then a hard number that tends to fall in the target of what they thought they should pay or make. 

That expertise on my part comes from years of estimating salaries and positions, but if people already know the answer, why do they ask?  And what would they do if I gave numbers much higher of lower than they expected?

If watching comedies in the last five years has taught me anything, it's that all negotiation situations can be brought back to some kind of poker metaphor that usually boils down to "play the man and not the cards." For those of you a bit more erudite and mathematically inclined, we'll say "play the man and not the board (it's a chess thing), but it does come down to understanding that salaries not tasked to specific earnings targets are inherently subjective, and dependent more on what other people think they should make than on their actual, literal value. While the sheer sample size of salaries across the economy tends to create a mean value that represents a good starting point for negotiation in established skillsets, it is instead the mode value for salaries that drives acceptable compensations in newer positions.

Take note that none of these numbers has any relation to the actual value of the job.  They are instead rationalizations for why a salary is acceptable.  To the savvy recruiter, they are key to understanding the starting point for negotiation.

To understand this, we're going to have to go back to grade school math.

The mean of a series of numbers is the sum of those numbers divided by their number.  Take 100 salaries for 5, add them up, and divide by 100, and you'll get a good sense of what the market thinks is the correct salary for a position title.

The median number is simply the middle number for a series of numbers.  Take 99 salaries, line them up from smallest to largest, and pick number 50.  This is a terrible way to pick a salary, as the number trends to the low side when compared to internal positions, and to the high side when compared to outside positions.

The mode number isn't a fair number either, but it's the number you're most likely to pick.  The mode or modal value in a series of numbers is simply the most common number.  Take 100 salaries and the salary that is most commonly stated is the mode.  It has no mathematical reason to be the right number, but it does have a compelling psychological reason to be your benchmark.

Marketing experts know that you have to hear something six to seven times before you believe it.  Constant repetition, especially if seen through multiple mediums tends to convince human beings that something is true.  If a manager is looking around for social media salaries, and the same number comes up, you'll assume the number has to be the correct one.  And that mode of the salaries is how you'll judge both recruiters and candidates in their salary requests.  If your salary range is higher or lower, you'll adjust the responsibilities to fit the mode salary, assuming it must be the correct one.

In an established skill set, the mean of the salaries has a lot of power.  Time has proven the market value of the salary, and you can base your negotiations on the market average.  In an established company, the median has value.  When salaries are evaluated throughout the corporation, the relative value of each skillset based on its importance to the company has been established over time.  Starting at the middle of pack allows you to negotiate your importance in comparison to the rest of the company.  For most people, the comparison of what you make relative to another is all you need to be happy. 

So what does it mean to say play the man, not the cards?

In salary negotiations, its important to know which of these values is the starting point for the manager and the candidate.  Are they working off a comparison to other skillsets, the company structure, or are they working off a number they heard several times in researching the position?

During a recruiting call, I know right away which value to start from.  It's all in the response to the salary I give.  If they compare it to other positions, it's a mean.  If it's compared to what they or other employees make, it's the median. And if they cite other sources, it's the mode.  Based on clues they give me in the call, I can determine the approach to explaining the salary I choose.  Do I emphasize skills sets in relation to other positions?  Do I talk about experience?  Do I demonstrate the importance of the role?  Or do I bring in past placements with the right salary?  In each case, the goal is to suggest a salary range they already have in their head. It gives them the confidence that we are on the same page.

Keep in mind the goal of a recruiter is to identify the salary range that is most likely to result in a placement.  If I'm working with a client with too low numbers, I won't be successful, and will waste a lot of time with candidates who refuse offers.  If the number is too high, I might make the placement, but the candidate will fail miserably, and I will lose credibility and possibly the fee when the candidate is fired.  In searching for a suitable salary range, I'm trying to determine if the company and the candidate have enough common ground to bring them together successfully.

Some of you are asking what this possibly has to do with your salary evaluation.  The answer lies in understanding 1) your value to the company, 2) your relative influence in the company, and 3) your happiness in comparing your compensation to the work you perform. 

Salary negotiation is very important in establishing a healthy business relationship with your employer.  Undervalued employees jump ship or find ways to work less.  Overvalued employees turn to political games to protect their tenuous position.  In looking at your salary, try to understand the why of your salary, and that will help you better understand how much.  

 

Twitter, Twitter, Little Stars, SMH In BusinessWeek Article

Businessweek has an article out about social media directors and their uses in corporate social media.  It's a funny, but accurate opening.

Across the country, companies like Petco are going through a two-step process. First, they scramble to hire social media officers. Second, they figure out what it is, exactly, that social media officers do. Blending departments—promotion and marketing, customer service and support—and requiring the ability to be shameless boosters while maintaining a light, self-aware tone, the job category is experiencing a boomlet as companies try to keep up with the new media world. The chief social media officer may be supplanting the chief branding officer as the zaniest human resource innovation in memory.

At issue is the question of what a social media employee does - where to put them, what to pay them, and how to judge their success.  It's a complicated field, because social media touches just about every area of the enterprise.  Felix Gillette, the writer, does a good job of discussing the problem but also chronicling what needs to be done about it.

My contribution comes on page 3, where they discuss salaries.  

Jim Durbin, the creator of socialmediaheadhunter.com, says experienced social media directors—business strategists capable of identifying a company's needs and solving them using social media tools—can command $120,000 a year and up. Further down the ladder are community managers, who oversee a company's day-to-day social media operations and earn $60,000 to $80,000. Below them are cub Twitter managers, essentially copywriters with little business experience, who typically earn $30,000 to $50,000.

The salaries vary wildly, but they are settling down in the sense that the need for social media has been established, but the experience behind it is still lacking.  It's hard to make social media work, because you're essentially a dozen different jobs and skillsets running up against company processes that more often than not will beat you back.  Thus the key to a higher salary, is learning how to navigate a company's social and political structure.

Regularly people are asking me if I can get them a job in social media.  While I do have a site for that - jobsinsocialmedia.com, the answer is almost always no.  No company wants to pay for an unproven employee, and the people I do place have experience in their fields, but have shown some success in social media to complement it.

This a manager, a recruiter, a salesperson, and a marketer can and have been placed by me, but because they spoke the language of business, not of Facebook.  Well they spoke the language of Facebook too, but not as well as they speak the language of value. 

Of final note is the battle between social media skillset and social media job seems to be over.  The skillset won out, but those people are now demanding the job title.   That's funny.

Is There A Career Risk In Taking A Social Media Job

As you might imagine, I get a lot of inquiries from folks seeking and offered social media positions.  An interesting question that has popped up lately - will taking a social media job hurt me in my career?  At first glance, this seems laughable.  Social media is cutting edge, it's hot for the media, and everyone wants in.

But what if social media is a career dead end?  I'm not suggesting social media is a fad - it's clearly part of a broader trend towards transparency, connectedness, and personal publishing.  And yet the long term social trends have little to do with the actual positions being offered.

Community manager, social media specialist (entry level), and even social media consultant are fun titles that keep you learning and connect you to a bunch of other social media types, but if you need to make a career transition, will your skills in social media transfer?  Will they get you raises? Promotions? Will someone who graduates college and takes a job in social media eventually make it to the C-Suite?

My experience is pretty relevant here.  The people I place aren't top level strategists.  Mostly I work on two kinds of positions - social media doers in the 50K-80K range, and sales, marketing, PR and technology professionals with a good background who made some inroads into social media in their current position.  A social media doer is not a position with career advancement. It's the person who executes the strategy and serves as the face of social media, but I'm always very clear this is not a stepping stone, it's position set in stone.  Lots of people want to do strategy, but few want to lay the groundwork down and get in the trenches.  I hire trenchworkers. And I hire trenchworkers with a background in marketing or PR.  It's hard to imagine a company coming to me to find a social media anything who didn't have current experience in their industry.

Which brings us back to that question.  Is social media a career risk? 

These would be my three top concerns.

1) This is a temporary position with no way to measure success.  A lot of companies are hiring people to test the social media waters, or tasking internal employees to handle the social media duties.  Far too many of these people think time invested is invested time.  If you can't talk about what you learned, and how it applies to your career, you may be in a temporary position.

2) Social Media lends itself to fluff.  If you've spoken with me, you know I mock "engagement" and "transparency" on a regular basis.  I believe in those values, but I also believe that no company is going to pay you for some engagement metric.  Those involved in that fruitless search are going to be dissatisfied, or they're going to be selling snake oil.  Engagement is an intangible benefit of social media, but companies pay for tangible benefits.  If your job is leaving comments and interacting with people on Facebook, your job just isn't that important.  Make sure you're actively engaged in solving business problems if you want to avoid this trap.  Find out how your efforts make or save money, and you'll be in good spirits.  Simply being the social media person in a company that wants to "engage" customers is a dead-end.

3) Don't get trapped on an island. One of the best benefits in social media is the networking, both in and outside of the company.  A good social media person is not a standalone division, but an integrated part of their division.  Connect all of the disparate contact points in a company (recruiting, sales, marketing, customer service, tech support, corporate communications, event planning, philanthropy) and make each one of them aware of company strengths.  Be a good networker, and you may find yourself eventually as a power broker. 

Ultimately your goal is simple.  Companies like employees that get things done.  That skill is in short supply.  If you can leverage yourself into a position where you are an effective manager of resources and a go-to person for information, then the position you hold is not as important as your value to the company.  When being recruited, look for opportunities to make decisions and hold responsibility (especially for budgets and personnel).  The career risk lies in taking a job where you don't see the future, not the position itself.

Lots Of Work Up In Minneapolis

If you're up in Minnesota, I want to talk to you.  I have a number of positions up there for different companies (one of the reasons I haven't been blogging much), so please contact me and I'll say hello.  The experience I need is Social Media, but only with Marketing or Public Relations experience.  There just isn't much I can do for folks who want to break into social media.

And if you're in St Louis, and you're one of those folks who don't tend to go to the Social Media events but you are indeed working in Social Media, contact me confidentially - I've got some good things here in the River City coming up on deck.