45% of Employers Using Social Networking Sites to Research Candidates

A June 2009, 2,600 hiring manager survey from Careerbuilder found that 45% of employers are examining your online, social networking presence (especially Facebook) to learn more about you before they make a hiring decision.

Well, we probably knew that this was happening. Apparently, it's up from 22% last year. Again, no surprise that it's rising. But still...

More interesting is that 35% claimed to have found information on a site like Facebook that caused them not to hire someone. 35% is huge!

What kinds of things caused them to reject a candidate?

• Over 1/2 found inappropriate photos or information.
• Almost 1/3 said they found evidence of poor communication skills (What? Do we need to ensure we use 'you're' instead of 'your' and 'its' instead of 'it's' appropriately, or never use slang or PG-13 language even when we're casually writing with friends?)
• 14% said they rejected someone for using an emoticon (:<

But, 18% also said they used online content about candidates to justify their hire. They liked what they saw, and found it to be a major positive influence on their hiring decision.

So, lessons learned? The careerbuilder article has a list of 5 dos and don'ts. Basically,they say be very aware of the messaging you're putting out there about yourself - your personal brand, and maybe your next job, is at stake.

Which Social Media Sites Would You Pay For?

Techcrunch's Erick Schonfeld reports on a survey by Abrams Research that shows which social media sites over 200 social media elite say is best for business. It's interesting, but maybe not surprising, to see Twitter on top, beating out Linkedin, for social media services they'd recommend a business pay for.

"...if you ask, which one would they recommend for businesses to pay for (if they had to), Twitter beats Facebook by more than two to one (39.6 percent vs. 15.3 percent). LinkedIn again comes in second. Why did Twitter come out on top. It is seen as an efficient way for companies to get their marketing messages out there. One typical response:

It’s the quickest way I’ve seen to spread information virally to a wide scope of people attached in a lot of random ways.

The survey was taken at Social Media Week 2009 and included “founders, bloggers, journalists, entrepreneurs and members of the Twitterati.” Basically it is the opinion of the insular social media elite. So what they say may just be wishful thinking, but the results are good fodder for discussion nonetheless."

1. Which social media service would you be most likely to pay for?

• Facebook 32.2%
• Linkedin 29.7%
• Twitter 21.8%
• YouTube 13.4%
• MySpace 1.5%
• Digg 1.5%

2. What social media service would you advise a business pay for?

• Twitter 39.6%
• Linkedin 21.3%
• YouTube 18.8%
• Facebook 15.3%
• Digg 3.0%
• MySpace 2.0%

3. Which social media service will be the first to die?

• ImInLikeWithYou.com 41.1%
• Bebo 12.4%
• FriendFeed 8.9%
• Meetup.com 8.4%
• Flixster 6.9%
• Digg 5.0%
• Last.fm 3.0%
• Other 14.4%

4. Which corporation has done the best job of using social media? (Respondents were asked to choose one; these were the most popular choices, ranked accordingly)

1. Zappos (online shopping site)
2. Obama (campaign and presidency)
3. CNN
4. Comcast (“Comcast Cares”)
5. Jetblue
6. Dell
7. Burger King
8. NPR
9. New York Times
10. Ford

Are you on twitter? Is your company on Twitter? Facebook? I'm sure you're already on LinkedIn, right?

http://twitter.com/vlastelica

What do you want to know about IT/tech job seekers?

I'm about to start a project where I'll ask thousands of active IT/tech job seekers -most already working, for companies across the US - recruiting related questions via an online survey. I'll help craft the questions and interpret the answers in a way that helps folks like us, who recruit hard-to-find people.

I already have some survey questions in mind. But wanted to ask you...as a recruiting professional or hiring manager, what are 2-3 key questions you'd like IT people to answer to help you better recruit them to your company? What questions would help you prioritize your recruiting budget, help you tailor your recruiting sales pitch, help you change behaviors in your managers or interviewers, or help you adjust your recruiting process?

Let me know. I'm going to call tech recruiters and managers in my network to generate and validate questions. Would love to know your thoughts, too.

Thanks!