Tag Archive | "Facebook"

Tweet Today, Monster announced its participation in Facebook’s new application for the Social Jobs Partnership, a collaboration between the U.S. Department of Labor, the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), the Direct Employers Association (DE), the National Association of State Workforce Agencies (NASWA) and Facebook. As a worldwide leader in the online recruitment industry, [...]

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.

In 2006, I wrote a blog post entitled, “10 Reasons MySpace is Better than Facebook.” You can imagine the verbal abuse that rained down on me, compliments of the Digerati and devoted Millennials.

Amusingly, I had planned for a follow-up post outlining why Facebook was better than MySpace, but why poop on a hater comment party?

Five years hence, inspiration for a similar article entitled, oh, something like, “10 Reasons Facebook is Better than Google+” seemed too good to pass-up. Such an article, oddly enough, seems a bit reversed. If you listen to the universe of blogging heads, Facebook’s tombstone is already being chiseled out somewhere in Palo Alto.

The short history of social media is littered with tools and technologies that were, for a brief moment, the “next big thing” for business, the proverbial ‘killer app’ that would justify, and expand, the investment of brands and organizations in the social web. From MySpace to SecondLife and a thousand other already obsolete platforms in between, only Facebook, so far, has proved a legitimate contender for the title, as ensconced in popular culture as it is in public consciousness.

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?

This week’s announcement of our BeKnown professional networking app for Facebook is the latest example of our drive to provide career minded people and our employer customers with solutions that help them grow and succeed. We believe the value proposition is clear: BeKnown brings the worldwide leader in connecting people to job opportunities to the world’s largest and most active social network. But it’s one thing for me to extol the value of our offering. The experts are now weighing in on the power of BeKnown:

Now, via social channels like Facebook and Twitter, private thoughts shared among a few are becoming very public statements broadcast to the world in real-time. Should employees be allowed to bash the boss on Facebook? More importantly, should they be legally protected when they publicly disparage their boss in social media?

Which situation is more uncomfortable: the boss who friends an employee on Facebook and receives no response, or the employee who receives the friend request and feels obligated to accept? Many would argue each situation can be equally unsettling.

A recent survey conducted by Liberty Mutual’s Responsibility Project found “56% of Americans think it’s ‘irresponsible’ to friend your boss on Facebook, while 62% of bosses agree it’s wrong to friend an employee.” There are certainly enough blog posts written about why employees shouldn’t friend the boss on Facebook, but what advice can we give the boss?