The joys of folksonomy.

 

If you have an account on Flickr, or you maintain a personal blog or receive rss feeds in lieu of watching the news or reading the newspaper - then you're already all over the notion of tagging.

 

It's literally a labeling and categorization system used online to quickly compartmentalize and...well...label items. Visit Consumating to see labeling done on a personal label. Brilliant!

 

The big recruiting debate right now is...should recruiters search for information about candidates online. Online personas, when is it ok to reject or accept a candidate based on online personal fact-finding missions...everyone has an opinion about what to do with what they find out about candidates on the web. I'm not blogging about that. (At least not right now)

 

Let's talk about candidates who want to be found! The notion of folksonomy is one to be seriously considered/employed. If you want a recruiter to find you, out in the great virtual neverland, what tags would you use to describe yourself? Odds are, if you can "tag" yourself appropriately, a cunning recruiter is apt to find you.

 

Think about it. Take 25 words to best describe yourself professionally. Then...think about the 25 words your top candidate might use to describe themselves.

 

Tagging has opened up a huge opportunity that requires nothing but a little creativity, some understanding of the "profile" versus the job description and some great tools that will allow us all to search the world for those candidates that "tag" as the profile dictates.

 

Wouldn't it be nice if recruiters could receive rss feeds of candidates out there in the world wide web that professionally "fit the bill?"

 

Oh wait...we can do that, can't we? So why aren't more people doing it?

 

Maybe it's time to develop a tag list for each of those job descriptions. Maybe...it's time to get rid of those job descriptions altogether.

 

Just a thought...