Kennedy Information is having me host a live Facebook recruiting webinar this Thursday at 12:00 CST.  Those who know me and have been through my training before know this is something to add to your schedule - we cover strategy, sourcing, marketing, branding and integration unlike any other trainer out there.

My background in social media and the fact that I run a desk makes a difference in my training.  I'm you.

So check it out, sign up, and join us for the new, new Facebook training

RecruitingBlogs.com has a bunch of information up on Twitter for Recruiting - and it's for free.  I love those guys, but you get what you pay for.  Between people complaining that it's worthless, and others giving you technical details about hashtags and twitter search, the elemental issue of human contact is completely ignored.

And like all bad systems, recruiters who don't understand this will find the community routing around them.

Twitter for recruiting is best used in three ways.

Of course, the reason most people don't get this is they only want to post jobs and magically have candidates appear.  That doesn't work. In fact, the posted jobs have the same problem they do on job boards - it's so easy, that most posts are worthless.  Twitter is not a job posting service.  If that works for you, count those days as numbered.  Anything that easy is going to get overused to the point of being irrelevant. 

What is the difference between posting on a job board and posting on Twitter?  Very little.  It's just garbage in and garbage out.  Do you really want to post a job on Twitter and have everyone follow up with you?  Didn't we learn our lessons from posting to job boards and getting hundreds of resumes from unqualified candidates?  Learn this - identifying a candidate is not the same as recruiting them.  If you put little value into your tweets, you're not going to get much value out of it.  And the community will route around you.

Social Networking is an easy target these days, and one of the complaints is it's growing so fast you can't keep up. It's a valid argument, and let me explain why.  Let's say you follow 500 people on Twitter.  There are 7,000,000 people and growing on Twitter.  No matter what you think of Twitter, you're getting only a tiny, non-representative portion of the community.  Like blogs before it, Twitter is already to big to really understand.  Your perspective is going to be shaped by who you spend time with.  Thus your statements will be true only for you and some of your followers.  You cannot understand the entire matter.

Thus we are left with one simple choice when it comes to Twitter (and all things social media).  Does it work for you, or does it not?  Does your time online yield a useful result, or does it not?  Yes, this means there is no one right way to use Twitter.  But there are hundreds of wrongs to use Twitter.

Twitter for business can be boiled down to one simple question. 

Are you making money from your actions, and are you making money for other people?

If you can't figure out how to do that, the problem is between the seat and the keyboard.

I'm not sure what to think about Salesforce adding Twitter and Facebook into their dashboard. It seems like a good idea, and if I used a CRM instead of an ATS, I'd want fields to add social media id's and handles, but not everyone is so excited about it.  Mike Troiano of Scalabe Intimacy (who writes a great blog, btw) chats with me on Twitter.

I agree with Mike that social media has the potential to get really ugly in the sales world, but it's going to happen, and I think those who are responsible actors will do a lot better than those who segregate social media from their sales efforts.  Now I have a vested interest in this - my new social media for small business store teaches salespeople how to make money using social media.  One of the first titles is Using LinkedIn To Generate Sales Leads. If all we were going to do was treat LinkedIn like a database, that would be a short training, consisting of a few Boolean searches and a note about vanity url's.

But that's not how business is done.  Spammers may use sites like LinkedIn to beg for business, but competent salespeople use it to make the very connections that bring new business.

It's the same for Twitter.  My view on Twitter is that if you're not making money for someone else, you're not doing it right. Whether that's a recommendation to a restaurant or a dry cleaners or a SaaS project, Twitter is the ultimate referral tool. Does that mean that anyone can jump on Twitter and be successful?  Of course not.  But the community can clean up bad actors on its own, and that's much different than calling or email lists.

So I welcome the Salesforce integration.  There might be a period of rough time as new users come on, but that's already happening.  I see the integration as just another proof that the impact of social media has gone past newspapers and government, and is moving strongly into the business sector.

I woke up this morning to a nice little story on ReadWriteWeb on the prevalence on Web 2.0 applications on company systems.  FaceTime Communications, a security provider, did a live traffic survey of applications on company servers, and found that everyone, yes, everyone, is involved in Web 2.0 in some way.

Interesting enough, of the surveyed IT managers, only 60% thought some application was on their users computers.  There's a lot more information at the link (written by Sarah Perez).

What does this mean for recruiters?  It means that if you don't know how to message people on the platform they use, you're missing out on the ability to contact them at all.  We make the mistake of looking at LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace and others as just sourcing tools.  That's part of it, but the users you find on these networks don't necessarily respond to traditional email or even phone sourcing.  If you're not figuring out these tools as messaging platforms, you're not using them very well.

Of course this is all self-serving, as I sell products that teach you how to connect, market, and sell using Web 2.0 tools, but the reason I started doing so was no one was stepping up and showing how. We just talked about why, or made grand proclamations about how social networking was transforming recruiting.

Social networking is not transforming recruiting.  It's transforming the way we work.  It's touching every aspect of business and our social lives, and we have no choice but to catch up with the public. 

The LATimes runs a story on Jobshouts, one of a number of initiatives put forth by enterprising Twitter users looking to help friends and followers find employment in a tough economy.  It's a great story for publicity, and it signals something that the Times runs with it, but after a DM from a follower, I felt the need to share some expertise on how to get people hired.

JobShouts sounds like a good idea.  It's possible that it could find some people work.  It's just as likely that it will just be a waste of time, cluttering up the Twitter stream.  Don't get me wrong.  It's heart is in the right place, but it's a longshot to think that pushing some content out to your followers will lead to a hire.  Employment is more complex than that, and we do ourselves a disservice doing so little and thinking it will be helpful.   The LATimes, to their credit, addresses this point and points out that evidence of new hires isn't available, while the person who did get interviews tapped his own network to do so.

Twitter users in general seem not to be aware of the large network of recruiting, job, and human resources sites that have been spreading information on the economy and hiring since at least 2004. It's not their expertise, but if we haven't solved the problem of job dissemination, it's doubtful Twitter users will do so with 140 characters.

But enough of the negativity.  I actually applaud the spirit of http://twitter.com/jobshouts and http://www.twitter.com/jobangels.  Let's take that spirit and really apply it.

1) If you know someone out of work, and you think they would make a good employee, get their resume and walk it into a hiring manager.  Sending an email to human resources, or posting it on your site is a low touch, low impact approach.  If you really want to help someone, call them up, find out what they can do well, and then go in-person to a hiring manager and ask them if they would be interested in speaking about a candidate.

That's a high-risk strategy, but it works a lot better than sending an email.  You're putting your personal credibility on the line.  You're also cutting through the clutter of the day and if you're done your homework, saving the manager time.

Things to look out for:  In going directly to a manager, you're breaking a number of corporate rules, and possibly violating federal discrimination laws (or if the person is hired, the company is breaking those laws).  Twitter users are disproportionally white, and by virtue of their access to mobile devices and high speed links, aren't poor.  That's a discrimination issue.  I bring it up because it's important to recognize there are legal reasons why companies hire the way they do.  Some HR folks might even decide not to take the referral, simply because Twitter profiles have pictures.  It sounds ludicrous, but it's true.  Just be aware. 

2)  Help the Twitter user connect with your network.  Speak with the unemployed person, and find out what they can do.  Then make personal phone calls to people in your network that might be able to help out with #1.  Again, be aware that this kind of networking puts you at risk. What happens if the Twitter user turns down the job?  Asks for more salary?  Turns out to be unstable?  Online connections don't necessarily give you enough depth to judge a person.  Make sure you know them before you put your own network at risk.

3)  Don't take the referral money.  Publicly acknowledging that you are just helping out, and not taking a referral, is an important step.  You may still get one, but if you don't let people know that you aren't doing this for money, they may assume you just want the company bonus.

Each of these steps requires time and energy, but they are far more advantageous than simply pushing our jobs.   We have systems to do that.  Indeed and SimplyHired and Monster and Dice and CareerBuilder all push out jobs - if that worked on its own, no one would ever be unemployed longer than a few weeks.  Instead, invest some of your private capital.  Make it personal.  You'll do a lot more good, and you might learn something about the best ways to recruit, hire, and network.

Update: You can usually identify how successful someone will be by how they react to criticism.  JobAngels leaves an intelligent comment you can see below, while one of the founders of JobShouts gets snippy with me on Twitter while the other writes some rambling post insulting my childhood upbringing.  Good luck with all that JobShouts.  The next time you want some free press, don't complain if you get honest answers.  If you think this mild blogpost is an attack on everything you hold dear that can only be met with vitriol, you've lost perspective, and maybe, just maybe, aren't ready to run your own business.

My Web 2.0 Tools training DVD discusses the use of Instant Messaging in recruiting. Dan over at Recruiting Blogs asked about the best ways to use these tools, and I figured I'd share my comments here.

That last sentence is important because IM is a messaging tool. Messaging tools include IM, Twitter, Facebook, while sourcing tools would include MySpace, LinkedIn, and blogs. There's an important distinction between the two.

Messaging Tools: Candidates use messaging tools to talk to each other.  Much of the information useful for recruiting is shallow in these systems. It's difficult to tell if someone who is listed as a director of marketing of Twitter is the right fit, versus on LinkedIn, you can pull up the full background.  Messajing tools are often seen as these wonderful places to connect with candidates.  We assume that because users are talking to each other, they'll know how to talk to recruiters, and will be open to sharing job information. That's a poor assumption.  Users share information with each other, but get a little freaked out when we approach them as recruiters.  The right way to use these tools is to connect to someone first, then introduce the idea of a job search through pull marketing tactics.

So on Facebook, you don't source a name and then send a message asking them to friend you as a recruiter.  You find someone you want to recruit, and once they've acknowledged you, you send an invite to make them a friend.  Once you've established who you are, you can message them, though you still need to respect the channel and not broadcast jobs (broadcasting jobs is for opt-in email lists. rss feeds and job boards).

Sourcing Tools are large databases online of people that may or may not connect with you.  MySpace, LinkedIn, and blogs are great targets for information that you can utilize to fill your database with leads.  Based on their activity level, these sites are also good places to determine if someone is the right fit.  You can reach out to a candidate after reading their activity on these three sites (MySpace is a mix of sourcing and messaging, so be careful), and they tend to be more receptive, as long as you make it clear that you have read them.  Recruiters often don't bother to do this, which is why each of these sources has a bad reputation among candidates, but done correctly, it's a lot easier to build passive talent pools and referrers.

All web tools are not equal.  Each requires a commitment to learn both the language, but also the system.  And of course, you have to build a profile in each.  The reward, is a large group of networked contacts eager to help their friend. Their friend who recruits.

I've added a snippet of the video we use for Facebook Recruiting training, available at the SMH Cafe.  I'll be adding better video and an introduction, but thought this was a good way to showcase the quality you'll see when you purchase one of the DVD's.

Funny enough, this is an embed from RecruitingBlogs.com, but I've also uploaded the file to Vimeo.com, which I joined through Facebook Connect.

Find more videos like this on RecruitingBlogs.com

One quick note on quality.  Uploading the video to these sites compresses the file, which fuzzes the screen a little.  The quality on the DVD is much higher, and plays through the Flash Projector (good for both Mac and PC). 

Are you making 10% of your hires through social networks? According to Workforce Management,  William Uranga is, and he's surprised Facebook hasn't caught on.  William is pretty well-versed in social media, but his work is no surprise to third party recruiters, who have dug into the LinkedIn bonanza and made big bucks off the network.

If you're an independent recruiter, LinkedIn is a must. I'm fond of saying that if you're not making $100,000 more of your LinkedIn account, you're not doing it right (which is why I have this beautifully packaged training DVD telling you how to hire using LinkedIn).

For corporate recruiters, and also for recruiters working in third party firms, using LinkedIn can come with hassles.  Owners and Executives are very nervous about allowing recruiters to build networks that leave when the recruiter leaves.  Some are even foolishly trying to get employees to sign statements promising to turn over the LinkedIn accounts if they leave (it's a violation of your TOS, if you do, btw).

Well, with the new services being rolled out by LinkedIn in the next few weeks, that problem is solved.  Using the corporate account called Recruiter, companies already have the equivalent of a TopLinked recruiter completely under company auspices.  The new services promise to solve the problem of how to connect with candidates.  After all, it's not who you know, it's who you can get to respond, right? 

It took me four years to get to 1800 connections.  With LinkedIn's new service, you'll be able to have the same reach as a super-networked recruiter with none of the drawbacks or having to build the network over time.  It's quite the deal. I don't know the cost, although anything they charge is going to be well worth in it hiring costs.  Workforce Management has a story on the proposed new services, which will be rolled out in a few weeks, and I can tell you they are going to be super fat, yo. 

And for those owners and executives nervous about empowering recruiters to use LinkedIn and leave, you now have the solution. Drop the cash on LinkedIn Recruiter, and you'll have the account internally.  As I said, problem solved.

Are you rude in person? Do you ignore people who speak to you when in public, or only speak to those who can somehow benefit you?  Do you post signs in people's yards without their permission, or take their work and pass it off as your own?

If you're rude in real life (meatspace, as it's known), then you'll probably never be successful in social media.  That's a given, with the exception of the flaming trainwrecks and gossip hounds we follow in moments of weakness (yes, Wonkette, I'm talking to you).  And their success is the success of Tila Tequila.  Fleeting and somewhat sad.  

I expect to find the clueless and the a**holes in social media. They're everywhere else, and the strategies for ignoring and punishing them are the same.  What baffles me is how kind, otherwise normal people can go online, and turn into rapacious trolls, content thiefs, and SEO comment spammers without a hint of personal remorse.

Much of it has to stem from ignorance.  They don't value social media, and thus they have no concerns about peeing in the social network pool and littering on the Information SuperHighway.

If you have feedback on the Hireability Webinar on MySpace Recruiting, please leave it here.   I won't delete anything, and want your honest thoughts.

And for those of you who didn't attend, check out these videos I did for TalentDrive.