Recruitment Spin: Put down the MySpace and “Tweet.”

I’ve been hesitant to jump on the MySpace wagon as a suitable vehicle for recruiting. Sure, it is touted as one of the top five most popular English-language websites and everyone including your grandmother might have a personal page there...but size aside, my opinion on networking or community based sites as recruitment gold has been skeptical at best.

When I first tooled around with the site a few years ago, it was to look into some of the bands I admire. It was a great way to get information on new releases and club dates for some lesser known acts. Then of course there was the social networking element. But after a few months of seeing the types of content that wound up in my In Box, I decided that MySpace was sort of like Times Square. It's a fun place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there. At the close of my experiment I needed something different.

And a good flea dip.

After some time away from the mega world of MySpace, it occurred to me that perhaps I needed to rethink my stance. Funny how life sends you clues. When chatting with a friend recently, I asked her if she'd ever been recruited by way of MySpace. Lots of personal jokes aside, she confirmed that she had not. Patty is a successful VP of Sales & Marketing with impressive experience and a solid track-record both as a hiring manager and as an employee. She is a sought after talent in a great location but while she receives consistent recruiter contact on LinkedIn, she said she never would expect or respond to recruitment activity on MySpace.

Her reaction was priceless: “MySpace is a personal site...not a work related site. It's like running into a recruiter at a singles bar who wants to discuss my skills and experience. My immediate reaction would be to look at him or her and go...huh??!”

Exactly my point. The people on MySpace who you want to take you seriously, won't. The ones you wouldn't take seriously, you'll have to beat away with a stick.

I say all this, feeling all self-righteous and smug in my assessment. It's become my favorite hobby as of late, to make snarky comments about those MySpacers with their pages and pages of friends and cute or provocative notes...but I realize maybe for some positions, perhaps it does add value. I just don't know if I'd be willing to take the time in the hectic world of recruiting to find it.

Now Twitter? That’s a horse of a different color. Or, so I think.

Once it’s stable, Twitter might just be the fastest way to build a professional network ever. Founded in October of 2006 (and incredibly popular at SXSW in March), Twitter is a microblogging service that allows people to stay up to the minute on what’s happening in the lives of those around them. Personally. Professionally. Globally. CNN, tweets. (“tweets” = small quick communications sent to your “network”) So do Barack Obama and John Edwards. And I bet so do many of those slippery candidates you’re working to build referral relationships with. Professionals are already finding new ways to stay connected during the workday beyond the standard instant messaging tools. There are hosts of alternatives entering the scene already for microblogging, including Jaiku.

Sure it has its social network ramifications. Endless "tweets" about what people ate for lunch, or random thoughts that enter people's minds...but you can control that easily by picking who you add to your network and whose updates you receive. You can determine how you would like to use it. And if you've tapped into a strong network of professionals who really like the versatility and speed of microblogging, you might just find yourself tapping into a pretty nice referral network of talent. In fact, my friend Patty’s on it and so are many of the hundreds of her connections on LinkedIn.

Social media and community sites are an interesting trend that’s rapidly expanding and here to stay. The question for the recruitment professional is the same as it is for anyone anywhere: where’s the best place to hang out to meet the kind of people you’re looking for?

After all, there are only so many hours in a day.