Tag Archive | "BeKnown"

Tweet The social media tidal wave has changed the way we think, interact, work and play. And nowhere has its impact been greater than with the emerging workforce. This group that includes college graduates and who are often referred to as Gen Y have embraced social media in every aspect of their life – including their work [...]

Besides the obvious fact that none of us should appoint ourselves judge and jury as the “character police” – when that much information is available about job seekers, when we go poking around in their personal space (public or not) we are opening creating an unnecessary opportunity for liability and general risk. Why is that? Let’s use an exaggerated example for simplicity sake: Let’s say we’ve been interviewing Jane Doe and then decide not to hire her. Jane also happens to be pregnant and about the time we rejected her is when she announced on Facebook and Twitter that she was expecting. Even if we never looked on Facebook, the burden of proof lies on the employer to prove they didn’t discriminate.So that being the case, there’s a reason we should be cautious in how we use social to recruit.

In our digital age, all employers recognize the importance of maintaining a slick, up-to-date corporate site. After all, it’s often the first point of contact between a company and key constituents including clients, partners and job seekers. However, smart companies are looking beyond the confines of their own sites, and are recognizing that engagement via social media channels offers a dynamic way to connect with key audiences, including potential talent.

Without laboring over a definition, labor can be back-breaking, invigorating, tedious or inspiring. Labor can be a mere chore, or something borne out of passion. Labor can be a spouse cursing their partner for the better part of a day (or two). And as it replies to the hiring process and matching candidates with opportunities in which they, and the organization, will flourish, it takes arduous months of, well, hard labor on the part of HR and recruiting professionals.

A large, diverse, and engaged professional network is an important part of a job search. And part of maintaining a professional network means adding to it on a regular basis. Don’t wait until you need a favor or are desperate to get your resume in front of a hiring manager! Right now, valuable contacts are on the perimeter of your social circle — they’re the parents of your kids’ chums, they’re in your school’s alumni association, and they’re your friends’ friends. So how do you turn these people from relative strangers into valuable network contacts?

Now that the dust has settled a little bit with the launch of BeKnown behind us, I wanted to take a step back to provide even more context for why we introduced our own professional networking app on Facebook, and perhaps more importantly, to discuss our intent for BeKnown’s growing user network.

Monster has made a big splash – and some waves – with BeKnown, its job seeker app for Facebook. It’s the latest (and boldest) move into social media for the job board, and I think it has some lessons for all of us. So without further ado, let’s begin…

User experience is the tech world’s equivalent of offensive linemen: a thankless job of immense complexity and precision whose ultimate goal is to go unnoticed. In UX, like blocking, people only really notice when things go wrong. When things go right, a sleek, intuitive user experience can mean the difference between mainstream consumer acceptance or the short path to the large heap of has been (BetaMax, MS DOS) and never were (think: Sharper Image) technologies. We spoke with Andrea Facini, Monster’s Vice President of Global User Experience, to get a glimpse into this critical element of the way we experience technology – and, by extension, life – every day. In case you haven’t noticed.

You might have heard about LinkedIn’s recent decision to shut down API access to certain developers, including Monster – earlier this week we launched our BeKnown professional networking app for Facebook. We are disappointed by this decision. Why? It’s not good for LinkedIn users: blocking the API effectively limits LinkedIn members’ ability to import their own profile data or invite their own connections to another environment, whether BeKnown or others.