BranchOut: Do you need to care?

Posted April 20th, 2012 in blog_news, For Employers, For Job Seekers

Some call it ‘The New LinkedIn’.
But did we need a new LinkedIn?

I don’t know about you, but in the past few days I’ve had a whole bunch of invitations to connect to people on BranchOut, the “#1 professional network on Facebook“.   It’s strange, because after an initial flurry of invites when BranchOut launched last summer, I hadn’t heard much about it, from job-seekers or recruiters.

According to yesterday’s media release, however, BranchOut has just raised $25 million in funding, has 25 million registered users, and is signing up new users at a rate of 3 per second.  So someone thinks this application has potential.

BranchOut is supposed to make it more easy to connect to professional contacts by leveraging your Facebook contacts, and by providing a more ‘sexy’, user-friendly interface than LinkedIn.

There’s no question that BranchOut’s look and feel are more appealing than that of LinkedIn, and if you’re the sort of person who has a lively Facebook profile, it’s easy to import/invite your friends to your network:

(I borrowed this screenshot from this website.)

But…

That’s still a far cry from LinkedIn’s 150 million users.  More importantly, it’s not clear what BranchOut offers that LinkedIn doesn’t.  Yes, there’s a theoretical efficiency in having your professional network connected to your personal network, instead of having to visit Facebook and LinkedIn separately.  Except that:

  • Until everyone in your professional network switches from LinkedIn to BranchOut, you’re still going to have to use both
  • Lots of people are uncomfortable with merging their personal (i.e. Facebook) and professional (i.e. LinkedIn or BranchOut) networks
  • Facebook doesn’t have a great track record when it comes to privacy.  Even if BranchOut is a ‘separate’ application, the fact that it’s contained within Facebook makes many people nervous

Some bloggers have suggested that BranchOut may make it easier to access professional information of friends – people you often interact with via Facebook but not via LinkedIn – but that seems a limited use at the moment, given the disparity in numbers.

What this means for recruiters and job-seekers

If you’re a recruiter who specializes in recruiting social media and communications specialists who tend to be early adopters of new social media channels, BranchOut may prove useful – but not to the exclusion of LinkedIn, at least at the moment.

If you’re a job-seeker, well, BranchOut says that they have 3 million job postings. And I’m all for spending an hour or two populating a profile, because you never know when a recruiter may be searching BranchOut for someone with your skills and experience.

But overall, I think it’s safe to say that BranchOut’s status is a lot like Google+’s status at the moment:  Keep your eye on it, but don’t feel compelled to spend a whole lot of time there, because they just haven’t achieved critical mass yet.

 

Are employers really demanding social media passwords? Not so much.

Posted March 27th, 2012 in blog_news, For Employers, For Job Seekers

The media loves a juicy story, but employers aren’t as obsessed with what you’re doing on Twitter as you think.

In the past week or two we’ve seen a whole lot of media coverage of a supposed new trend:  Employers demanding access to the social media profiles of job-seekers as part of the ‘vetting’ process for new hires.  It’s gotten so bad that Facebook, in a somewhat ironic defense of personal privacy, issued a statement reminding users that sharing usernames and passwords was actually a violation of their Terms of Use.

But is the practice really so widespread?  According to a new study by Employee ScreenIQ – and, frankly, our own experience – employers haven’t suddenly started demanding Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter passwords:

  • 52% of employers say their screening process never includes social media channels
  • Only 9% say they always use them
  • That 9% doesn’t mean ‘asking for passwords’ – it could mean just doing a Google search or checking a public LinkedIn profile for accuracy compared to a resume

In Canada, particularly, recruiters have to be concerned with PIPEDA (privacy laws) and the Human Rights Code, which prohibits discrimination based on race, religion, gender or sexual orientation.  A recruiter who spends a lot of time researching a candidate on social media and thereby learns that a candidate is GLBT or a person of colour could find, when they don’t hire that candidate, that they are accused of discrimination.

The exception: Social media on behalf of an employer

Where things get a little tricky is when an already-hired employee is responsible for managing social media channels on behalf of an employer.  If you’re the Sales Manager for an organization, and spend a lot of paid work time building a large LinkedIn network of sales-related contacts during the course of your employment with that organization, it’s possible that when you leave, the employer could ask for those contacts.

If you’re the social media manager for an organization and spend a lot of paid work time building a Twitter following that is associated with the company, who owns that Twitter account when you leave?

These questions are a little tougher to answer – and probably won’t be, definitively, any time soon.  Best advice?  If your employer asks you to start tweeting on behalf of the organization, open a new account – don’t just do it from your own personal Twitter account.

 

Social media tips for new grads

Posted August 28th, 2011 in For Job Seekers

The other day I was listening to the BBC World Report and they had a feature about recent university graduates who had just been to a job-seeking training program.

“What did you learn that you didn’t know before?” asked the BBC reporter.

The surprising response?  Almost all of the kids said that they hadn’t realized how important social media was when it came time to look for a job.  Maybe, because they’d grown up using social media for social reasons, it just hadn’t occurred to them that they should be using these networks to help their job hunt.

So here are some basics.

1.  Get on LinkedIn.  Right now.

Almost all of the kids interviewed by the BBC said they’d never even signed up for LinkedIn before the seminar.  But make no mistake:  95% of recruiters say that LinkedIn is their #1 source of candidates these days, so if you aren’t there, you may as well not exist.

Sign up, populate your profile with as much detail as possible, check your writing as rigorously as you would your resume and cover letters, and then start connecting to as many friends, family members and colleagues as you can.  Update your status regularly, and join some forums or discussion groups related to your industry.

At the very least, you’ll raise your profile and get a feel for who the other players in your field are.

 

2.  Use Twitter to raise your profile

Twitter can be a good way to connect to recruiters in your area, find out about new job postings quickly, get to know the movers and shakers in your industry, and even raise your profile with interesting information.

If you already have a Twitter account, now may be the time to transition it from a gossip-sharing channel for your friends to a networking vehicle for your new career.  Follow recruiters who regularly post jobs in your area, and tweet links and information related to your field or industry.

(My recommendation is not to have a Twitter bio which indicates you’re desperately looking for a job, but saying you’re a ‘recent grad’ or ‘new [your field] specialist’ is okay.)

 

3.  Use Facebook to remind your network that you’re in the market

Many people think Facebook is just for ‘personal’ stuff, but remember:  Your friends and family – i.e. your Facebook friends – care more about you and your incipient career than average people on the street.  So using Facebook to remind them that you’re in the market (and what you’re looking for) can be a good way to keep yourself top of mind when they come across a possible opportunity for you.

Those interesting industry-related links that you’re posting on your Twitter feed?  Post them on Facebook as well – a few articles about your new field will help remind people what you’re hoping to do for a living.

 

4.  Other social media channels

Some recruiters will tell you that ‘video resumes’ are all the rage these days and that you should post them on YouTube, but to be honest we haven’t seen a lot of that for new grads.  If it’s easy for you to make and post a video about yourself, then go ahead – but in most cases it’s unlikely to make a huge difference in whether or not you get that first great job.

Google+ hasn’t yet taken off with the mainstream – recruiters are going to be there at some point, but so far they haven’t  started using it as a sourcing tool the way they have with LinkedIn.

Blogging can be a good way to indicate to a potential employer that you are really interested in a particular subject or have the kind of extra passion that indicates you’re an ambitious go-getter.

And don’t forget corporate blogs.  Make a list of companies you’d most like to work for, and then check out their blogs – you never know what opportunities may turn up, or what information you’ll find that’ll help you write a killer cover email.

 

Drinks with a friend may be the best professional development you’ve done all year

Posted October 10th, 2010 in blog_news

No matter what you do for a living – and especially if you’re not currently doing anything for a living, because you’re looking for a job – networking is crucial to your success.  The more people you know (and maintain relationships with), the more likely you are to receive the 3 Rs:  Recommended, Referred or Requested.

As we’ve discussed before, ‘networking’ doesn’t just mean ‘people in your industry, role, or profession. Your personal network, including friends and family, can also be a powerful network – after all, your friends and family are more invested in your career success than that VP Finance you met last week at a conference.

However, if you’re the sort of person who keeps their ‘personal’ and ‘professional’ lives separate – in other words, if you don’t believe in talking about work when out at a pub with your friends – you may not have realized that your friends have more to offer your career than just the 3 Rs.  They may have all kinds of job-related skills, knowledge and insights that would be relevant to your professional development, but which simply don’t come up around the dinner table.

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6 Ways to Use Facebook to Get a Job

Posted August 2nd, 2010 in blog_news

I Love Facebook

If you’re like most people, you’ve made 2 erroneous assumptions about Facebook:

  1. It’s only for kids – real grownups aren’t on there
  2. It’s only for personal stuff, not work-related stuff

In fact, the 30+ crowd is the fastest-growing group on Facebook, and seems to be losing the teenagers – who, now that Facebook is so ‘mainstream’ even their parents are using it, are quite naturally looking for other online places to hang out.

And while Facebook is definitely a social media tool for managing personal (i.e. friends and family) relationships, consider this:  90% of referrals and job leads come from personal relationships (friends, family, current and former co-workers who have also become friends).

We all know that ‘networking’ is crucial to a successful job hunt.  Don’t discount Facebook’s ability to cut your job-seeking time in half.

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Current employees don’t know you’re hiring? Your recruiting costs just doubled.

Posted July 16th, 2010 in blog_news

Word-of-mouth is the single most effective way to get consumers to try a new product or top talent to apply to your organization.  Leveraging current employees to help build word of mouth can cut your recruiting costs in half.

word of mouthSo, your organization needs to fill 32 junior/intermediate roles in the next 3 months, but your recruiting department consists of 2 juniors and an intern who are already working 50 hours a week.

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