About Me

Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Len focuses on helping small and new businesses succeed through developing appropriate marketing and sales strategies. Len enjoys mentoring, relishes in getting both arms and feet wet in addressing technology, marketing and sales issues. He understands the drivers impacting business results for today and tomorrow including time-to-market, time-to-revenue, marketing, sales channels and social media.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Your Social Network Profile May Get You Hired

Social networks are mined by HR and recruiting firms today as a primary recruitment source according to Jobvite, a U.S. company that monitors hiring by companies. In its June 2010 survey nearly 75% of organizations indicated that they were using social networks to find candidates and almost 60% reported successfully hiring someone they found through social networks.


What does this mean for sites like Workopolis and Monster? They are still a primary source for recruiting but new hires increasingly are coming from site searches in places like LinkedIn, Facebook and even Twitter.


What does this mean for anyone posting information to a personal profile, a discussion group, or fan page in Facebook or other popular public social networking sites? If employers are finding new hires through personal pages online, those pages need to present individuals in a professional manner.


When HR or recruiters come calling what will your social networking profile say about you? Here are 7 points to ponder.

  1. Are you professional?
  2. Can you be trusted to act responsibly?
  3. Does your profile reflect positively on you and therefore the organization that hires you?
  4. Are you sharing information or joining groups where what you say and contribute could reflect badly on you?
  5. Do you have pictures on your site that demean you?
  6. Are your Tweets and Wall postings fatuous or a positive reflection of your work ethic and values?
  7. Are you linked to friends and associates that positively reflect who you are and who you know?