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What did you find? Did you cringe? Did you even show up in the results?
We’re living in a world where the weekend’s festivities spread like wildfire throughout the working week, and no one wants to get burned.
Check out the tags. Is your name there? And what does this have to do with your impending task of searching for people to work for you? In truth, it matters as much as you allow it to. Without a doubt, social media is a powerful tool for connecting with others and learning about one’s capabilities.
Opportunities galore exist at the touch of your fingertips. Not only is the online world the go to for most people in search of a job, but it is also a resource for employers to search for job candidates. There are no hard and fast rules for the search process, so how does one go about conducting such a search?
Twitter and Tumblr
If the person you’re searching has their name or email attached to Twitter or Tumblr, those are fair game too. Twitter allows for snippets of thoughts in 140 characters or less, while Tumblr is a blogging site that incorporates an aggregate of media forms and allows the integration of different blogs.Now you’re possibly looking at the person outside of their professional persona. Not everyone has work on their mind at all times, and so not everyone is likely to constantly blog about professional achievements or tweet about future ambitions.
If nothing alarming appears on one’s Tumblr or Twitter, it’s probably best to limit personal judgements made on the basis of what movie one is tweeting about, or what celebrity they’re reblogging.
What information do you look for?
So what kind of information qualifies as a deal breaker? Keep in mind that what’s out there on someone’s Facebook profile isn’t necessarily an accurate representation of the person’s abilities. That girl holding up a Corona in every picture who can’t seem to keep her eyes open just might be a business prodigy on weekdays from nine to five, or at the very least, perfectly competent.
The man whose “likes” show an assortment of humanitarian institutions and academic associations might be a different man in the office.
The point is that social media ought to be used as a starting point. One should seek obvious qualifications via social media, such as an ability to write well, or an ability to maintain readership. It’s a disservice to both the employer and the prospective employee if the former uses the hire or fire approach right off the bat.
Don't make a snap judgement
A person’s life on social media is just one of many facets of the person’s overall persona. Not that it doesn’t matter at all- you can tell a lot about a person based on what they choose to share about themselves.
But can you tell enough? After all, there’s more to you than you let on in a working relationship with your employees. And those employees you chose on the basis of what they could bring to the table are hardly angels themselves.
All those not-so-professional things you wonder if they do in their spare time, that you’d rather not know about? They probably do them anyway. So keep in mind that social media outlets have their limits as starting points, and that a working relationship can exist outside of one’s existence outside of work, and search away.
Shannon RyanAbout the Guest Author:
This is a guest post by Shannon Ryan. Shannon is the Social Media and online community manager for the Nusite Group, a specialty trades group in Toronto.