Facebook or Die!

The latest peer pressure fad or a permanent cure to our “just too busy to have friends” blues?  From politicians to your parents, internet social networking has in some become small way touched everybody’s lives. You just have to go to Barak Obama’s Facebook profile to see how this cool new tool is being used to its maximum potential. With approximately over 700 000 Facebook users in South Africa today, mainly from the generation x group, its no wonder businesses are starting to pay attention to this new phenomenon.

And of course, has head hunter what I am interested in is the fact that Facebook is also fast becoming one of South Africa’s newest weapons of choice in the war for talent. It was certainly just a matter of time before some opportunistic recruiter realised that using a Facebook profile was going to be an easy way of searching out talent fast. The debate, however, rages over the use of a social networking tool such as Facebook to promote products and services such as recruitment. Already several large business brands have started to throw their weight behind using this internet phenomenon as a branding tool. Issues such as personal confidentiality remains a topic for discussion, the problem of confidential access to a possible future employee’s personal information is always going to be a hot topic.

But let’s examine facebook a little bit more detail. Generally speaking job sites at the moment have the unfortunate label of being the PR ground for all and sundry regards looking for work. In a matter of fact in the United States, a lot of companies discourage the interviewing of candidates from job sites as they feel that candidates using these sites prostitute themselves to any and all jobs. Of course in South Africa, we find ourselves in a different situation. However, there remains a very important difference regards the two options. Facebook allows you the user to choose before replying to any approaches that are made on you. Most job sites on the other hand seldom allow the same level of control. So actually being approached through Facebook is not unlike being interactive headhunted. As a head hunter, I think I like that idea.

The use of social networking has actually been around for many years but in smaller versions and normally appealing to smaller groups. Information technology specialists have for a long time, because of their global spread, communicated via blogs and groups to each other regards work opportunities. One of the more recent success stories, also knows too many South Africans, is that of SAReunite.

But how can companies use Facebook to their benefit in the war on talent? I am sure like myself you have been drawn into the trap of taking a peek into another person profile to see what hobbies that may have or what funny family pictures they may have put on their profiles.  Our natural instinct to acquire information is just too great.

Herein lies the potential for companies to promote their best asset, a company’s brand. For many years I have been pushing the fact that companies need to start selling their brand and corporate culture in a more progressive way. And here is the opportunity. Large businesses such as Deloitte have already started to establish a presence. I still believe that most businesses fail in promoting their true corporate culture identity during interviews with their potential talent. Either missing good fit talent or attracting the wrong talent. This type of social networking tool starts to create better transparency regards a company especially for potential new employees of that company. With Facebook, there is an opportunity to open the doors of the company in a way that a normal website would not. I believe most people see a traditional website as a corporate tool to promote their services or products to potential customers, however, new employees often do not want to know about product benefits and BEE facts, all typical information found on these corporate websites. Here Facebook has a distinct advantage to be able to breach the gap and provide details to prospective candidates on experiences of employees and actual real things that happen in the company and some of the interactions that people have experienced after meeting with that company.

And for all of us opportunistic head hunters Facebook provides the ideal hunting ground for the seeking out of skills, especially those scarce talent skills that we like to talk so much about here in South Africa. Through a simple search or a posting, you can attract skills from all corners of the world.

I maintain that it will be a version of a social networking tool that will ultimately put the agency recruiter into the dark ages and that the recruiter will always have a place in the marketplace but to do what they are supposed to do and that is hunt scare talent. And with improved telecommunications infrastructure planned for 2009, South Africans can only look forward to benefiting from a more aggressive internet based marketing strategy.

Recruiters, however, continue to place candidates from job sites, rather focusing on trying to undercut their competitors through quicker and often more unprofessional shortlisting practices. Recruiters will need to broaden their horizons regards the hunting of talent else faces exclusion for laziness. Facebook seems to be very much a step in the right direction regards taking the recruiter out the loop. It seems inevitably I believe that company and candidate will meet this type of medium without the advertised recruiter at all.  The company on the other hand now has an opportunity to harness this tool and to create awareness of their successes without the broken chain of communication that includes the recruiter. And what remains for me a major advantage is the fact that all you simply need to do is click the “private” button to exclude yourself from what I believe will become the next super communication tool.

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