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Here’s a question I bet didn’t come up at the Social Recruiting Summit on Monday: Should I add my boss as a Facebook friend?

What prompted this question (which I encourage you to comment on at the end of this article) is Hunch. That’s right, Hunch, a dot-com that launched out of beta on Monday. It’s not exactly a search engine. Nor is it an oracle. It’s, well, here’s how co-founder Caterina Fake explained it to CNN.com: “It’s something new.”

We’ll call it a decision engine, since that’s what others are doing and it’s as good a descriptor as any. The first time you use Hunch, you’re confronted with 20 questions. More will come later, but Hunch starts easy. You can skip these profiling questions, but like talking with a shrink, any question you ask will be answered with several from Hunch.

When I asked Hunch about where to look for a job, it presented me a with a list of topics and question options including, “Should I look for a job or wait?” Not exactly what I was looking for, but interesting enough. The first question Hunch asked when I agreed to that topic was “Do you need the money?” After working my way through the decision tree, Hunch advised me to “wait a bit.” But the split between that answer and start looking was 55-45.

Besides being fun, Hunch has a serious side. Though it isn’t going to replace a search engine for sourcing candidates, it can help cut through the clutter to help you answer questions like “Do I need an in-house person for my U.S. business?” Or “Is it OK to ask my co-worker on a date?” keep reading…

Joshua Kahn (who goes by twitter.com/joshuakahn on Twitter), spoke this afternoon at the social recruiting summit, talking up some of his favorite ways to geek out. Kahn works for Accenture, mainly on the Best Buy account. keep reading…

As the summer’s gathering of social-media-using recruiters kicks off at Google’s headquarters in Silicon Valley, recruiters at DaVita, KPMG, CO-OP Financial Services, Burger King, California Pizza Kitchen, and the University of California we talked to over the last couple of weeks say that social media is an ongoing experiment, one that in some companies is being done without any specific plan, but is nonetheless yielding results. keep reading…

ERE’s first Social Recruiting Summit gets underway Monday, appropriately enough, at Google world headquarters in the heart of Silicon Valley. That it’s a sold-out conference should be no surprise, considering the virtual stampede of recruiters to social media.

Surveys in just the last month from Jobvite, Arbita, LinkedIn and others show the fascination recruiters have with social media. The Jobvite report found 72 percent of the surveyed recruiters will invest more in social networks this year. Contrast that with the 26 percent who expect to spend more on job boards.

The Arbita survey, coming at the question from a somewhat different angle, says 73 percent expect to spend the same or less on search engine marketing and social media; 93 percent of the respondents to that survey say they’ll spend the same or less on job boards.

Both show a legion of recruiters experimenting with social media. Referrals are still the recruiting gold standard, but the survey evidences an excitement with the potential that social networks hold, even if recruiters are still unsure how best to use them and how effective they will be in the long run.

For instance, Arbita found half the surveyed companies have no effective strategy for finding candidates on networks such as LinkedIn and Facebook. The company asked about strategies for sourcing candidates through their blogs and 85 percent said they have nothing effective.

No wonder the Social Recruiting Summit filled up. No wonder that so many recruiters stepped up to lead “Unconference” discussions, not only on tactics, but on how social media recruiting is likely to evolve over the next few years and how it fits into the overall corporate recruiting portfolio.

The picture that emerges from the pre-conference discussions on ERE and Twitter, and from the Arbita and Jobvite reports, is one of recruiter anticipation that pretty clearly says, “We’re not sure where there this train is heading, but we’re getting on.”

The Arbita survey has recruiters admitting that while metrics to support their marketing decisions are important, 62 percent aren’t happy with the quality of the data. Remarkably, 39 percent of the respondents don’t even see metrics and analytics as an important part of recruitment strategy.

That startling result lead Don Ramer, founder and CEO of Arbita, to rail in the report that, “Two generations after the invention of the relational database –- of Lotus –- we have 39 percent of the people who are responsible for staffing saying metrics and analytics are not an important part of their strategy.”

The Jobvite report at least had recruiters explaining their rationale for using social media: 77 percent use the networks to reach passive job seekers; 74 percent because of the lower cost, and; 72 percent to find candidates with hard to find skills or experience.

While Jobvite’s survey didn’t delve into strategic decision making and metrics, the respondents at least had a basis for making those judgments. Two-thirds of them had made hires through an online social network.

It may be foolish to dismiss the role of metrics and analytics in deciding where to focus your recruiting effort. But jumping on to the social media train is hardly foolish, even if the analytics aren’t there, yet, to be able to say with certainy whether the phenomenon will deliver the sort of results we want.

Peter Weddle, the well known recruiting publisher and consultant, has a contrarian view of the social media landrush. He blogged a few weeks ago that, “There is a great SCAM being perpetrated in the recruiting profession today. Call it “social capabilities ahead of the market.”

Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, he wrote, aren’t ready for prime time: “These sites may be effective recruiting tools in 2014, but today they aren’t even close. To put it another way, they are social capabilities that are way ahead of the market, if the market you’re after is the one for talent.”

His evidence, though arguable as to its meaning, is worth considering. The short version of it is that people, especially the millenials, those denizens of social media, still look for jobs on job boards. And well they should. To twist a phrase from bank robber Willy Sutton, job boards are where the jobs are.

Social media, however, is where the world is. The only reason to post a resume on Monster is to find a job. Posting to LinkedIn or building a Facebook page or Tweeting is done by millions for purely social and business reasons, only some of which is directly motivated by job hunting.

Neither the Arbita nor Jobvite survey presages the imminent demise of the job board. Crystal ball gazers have been predicting that for years and they’re all still here and more seem to be coming every day.

Instead, what the surveys suggest and the interest in the Social Recruiting Summit reflects is that social media is becoming a part of recruiting’s toolbox, even if we aren’t sure how it will fit into a comprehensive strategy.

Like tens of thousands of seniors across the U.S., Eric Barker graduated this month with no job.

But unlike every one of those tens of thousands, the newly minted MBA from Boston College took the unconventional step of running a job-wanted ad on Facebook.

“You know that old saying,” he wrote us explaining why, “If your stock broker knows so much, how come he isn’t rich? I think the same thing goes for marketing: ‘If that marketer is so good, he’d better be able to market himself.’”

So that’s just what this marketer did. His target is Microsoft; the work is entertainment, and; the results? Well, no job yet, but a boatload of contacts, lots of buzz, and offers of help from people like Glenn Gutmacher of Arbita and JobMachine. “Considering this was just a little experiment in unconventional job hunting that cost about a half hour of my time and less than $50, it’s been insanely successful,” Barker says. keep reading…

Subtle as it may seem, there is Grand Canyon of difference between a database of prospective candidates and a community of talented prospective candidates.

Recruiters frequently tell me they have a talent community, when further investigation reveals that they have a huge database of people they do not know at all. These databases have been built up using impersonal methods including the career website, profiles gathered through the applicant tracking system, and perhaps referrals from other employees.

Databases suffer from two major problems when it comes to being effective recruiting tools. keep reading…

Sodexo recruiter Angela Guidroz and I talk about:

• Recruiting veterans
• Whether Sodexo has actually hired anyone who it connected with via social media
• What to do with fewer jobs and more time
• Personal lives and corporate lives on Twitter keep reading…

One of the largest job posting distribution services in the world is now pushing jobs out to Twitter followers.

eQuest has partnered with TweetMyJOBS to use the service to send targeted job postings directly to Twitter followers. eQuest posts something like 200 million jobs a year to more than 20,000 job boards. Now, it will send job notices directly to jobseekers who have opted in to the TweetMyJOBS service.

“eQuest is very impressed with the feature enhancements TweetMyJOBS has provided Twitter users,” said Larry Butti, Job Board Communications Manager at eQuest. keep reading…

Even with all of the buzz, many of us are still trying to figure out how to best use Twitter and all of its potential. One of the companies paving the way for us is JobShouts. keep reading…

Amanda Picton doesn’t like disillusioning nursing students about their first job out of school, “but I want to be honest with them.”

So when she tells the students who call her for career advice to look in Texas and expect $50,000 a year, rather than in Missouri for $100,000, she’s not surprised that some of them tell her she’s wrong. “In nursing school they are mislead to believe they are going to be making $50 an hour and are in demand everywhere,” says Picton. “We do this (recruit and place nurses) everyday. We know what the market is like.”

Now, Picton and her recruiting colleages at InHouse Assist are sharing their knowledge of healthcare careers with anyone for free. keep reading…

Everyone is buzzing about social media these days. Is it a waste of time? Is it helpful from a business standpoint? Can other industries besides the PR/marketing folks, the political talking heads, and the tech geeks benefit from being involved? Or is it just a major time suck?

I would venture to guess that your personal feelings on any of these questions are directly tied to the level of involvement you currently have in social media. Those of you who have put time and effort — TRUE time and effort — into understanding how social media tools work, are seeing the positive results.

And those of you who have merely dabbled in it here and there aren’t seeing what you thought you would.

Keep in mind — social media is, quite simply, social. You get out of it what you put in. And you have to contribute first before you can expect to get anything in return.

This may not be the answer you were looking for, but truly, there are some things in life that you can’t shortcut and be truly successful at. Diets, marriage, and building fulfilling and lasting relationships all take time and lots of effort to find true success. Just ask anyone who’s had to shed a few pounds or who has been happily married for a long time.

I am looking forward to addressing some of these items during my discussion at The Fordyce Forum coming up this June.

It is important to first understand what social media is, because understanding is the first and most important step of mastering anything in life. I’ve been having conversations with some folks in the HR and recruiting world who have embraced social media tools and have seen some great results in their recruitment efforts, so I’ll discuss that as well.

And I’m looking forward to some lively crowd interaction as well as a few surprises I’ve got planned. Even if you can’t attend, make sure to check out my hashtag, #VegasRG, to keep up with — and maybe participate in — what’s going on in the training session.

For those of you who will be attending, I want you to start thinking about what social media tools you’ve already begun using, and what you’ve learned from those experiences. Have you had positive or negative results? What have you observed others doing? Have you engaged a professional consultant or have you been learning on your own?

My only request? Come with an open mind and a clean slate. Proper thought process about the use of social media tools, in my opinion, is more important than understanding all of the technical “ins and outs” of them. I am excited to see you in Vegas in just a few short weeks!

Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.

–Yogi Berra

You read it here first, folks: Twitter — at least as it is structured today — is going down. Oh sure, it’s easy to be a contrarian: simply watch where everyone is going and then head in the opposite direction. But the media attention on Twitter means we need to monitor its impact on social interaction — especially recruiting. That said, there are real reasons why the social media phenom Twitter is poised to become a victim of its own success. keep reading…

The only place rumors may be more rampant than in Silicon Valley is Hollywood. (OK, maybe Washington, too, but those rumors are b-o-r-i-n-g, if important.) The difference is that the value of a Hollywood rumor is in the rumor itself, whereas 300 miles up California’s 101 freeway the value is in the accuracy.

So perhaps it should be no surprise that an online gambling site is taking bets on which, if any, company will buy Twitter. keep reading…

We’ve heard people talk about the challenges of recruiting with social media — you may come across information that’s discriminatory, and shouldn’t be used to make a hiring decision, such as that a job candidate is pregnant or hoping to become pregnant.

But what happens when employers find information on Facebook or Twitter they may object to — such as that a candidate is a fan of Planned Parenthood or National Right to Life — information that depending on individual state laws, may not make for a discriminatory hiring decision? This information may not spark a lawsuit, but how much will personal lives enter into selection decisions?

Raghav Singh, Ryan Estis, and I discuss below. keep reading…

Curious as to the impact of social media on your search-engine profile? Try this experiment: Go to a search engine and type in “(your company) careers” into the search field.

If you’re most companies, you may get one or more entries that may or may not point a job-seeker to the correct website. If you’re a few companies I won’t mention, you sadly go to the archives of well-known recruiter blogs begging you to upgrade your site. For the company Sodexo, the first result is its blog, and the second is the careers site, and the rest of the page is profiles in Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Flickr. keep reading…

It’s only April but I’ve already failed to keep my New Year’s Resolution. Back in December I vowed to consolidate my digital footprint. (If you’ve been following me on Twitter, you already knew that.)

Like the Berlin Wall, I was going to tear down the divider between my business and personal life. If my cousin wanted to LinkIn with me or my client wanted to friend me on Facebook, I resolved to accept every invitation. I updated my Facebook wall with my Tweets from my cellphone and posted the items to my blog and LinkedIn profile.

Unfortunately, like the marketing professionals trying to assess the ROI of social media, I haven’t necessarily seen any value at consolidating or keeping up with everything. Am I just trying to keep up with the times? keep reading…

Social networking is hot; at a recent event over 300 recruiters showed up to hear the experience of a company best known for making urinal cakes. It’s not easy to do — getting hires through social networking, that is (I can’t comment about the cakes).

Some of the challenges were discussed in a previous article, but in general, the reasons why people join online social networks are fundamentally at odds with the needs of employers to use those networks to find talent, and in fact an employer’s efforts to tap those networks may threaten them. Research shows that people’s motivations for using social networks are 1) to support off-line networks — people they already know well, and 2) build social capital — improve their sense of well being, self-esteem. Research also suggests that low self-esteem correlates with higher levels of online social networking.

Employees are not likely to be eager to let their employer into their networks. Think about it this way: if your boss wants to be your “friend,” then you have a problem. keep reading…

Of the three major job boards, none has embraced Twitter so thoroughly as CareerBuilder. It’s using the short messaging service for everything from responding to customer inquiries to alerting followers to trends and CareerBuilder surveys.

Its latest Twitter product is customized job alerts, which allow Twitter users to get links and short messages to jobs meeting their search specifications. The newly launched beta version at TwitterJobAlerts is more customizable than the city- and industry-specific Twitter feeds CareerBuilder introduced last summer. Those deliver every job in an industry category. The Twitter Job Alerts deliver only the matching jobs.

“It’s our next step,” says communications manager Allison Nawoj. “This is something (jobseekers) can receive on the go.”

If it wasn’t for the peculiar limitation on when messages are delivered (choices are once a day or once a week) Twitter Job Alerts would have it all over the usual emailed job alerts . But once a day? That is so not Twittering. keep reading…

Employment Branding 1.0 was a monologue. Employment Branding 2.0 is a conversation. And the conversation is happening real time with smart organizations participating proactively to create connections, conversations, and relationships to begin building a sustainable talent advantage.

The choice to participate is an option. The choice around how participation (or lack of) impacts the external perception of your work experience among skilled professionals, employee assimilation/engagement, and retention of the right critical skills isn’t optional. And culture and reputation are key drivers in any company’s ability to get and keep the right people. Your employer brand is no longer just what you say about you. Its what everyone says about you. And what everyone says travels fast. keep reading…

Most people coming out of schools “don’t really want to build bridges when they grow up,” says Andrew McCarty.

McCarty, sourcing manager at the infrastructure/construction company Parsons, is trying to address this recruiting challenge partly by spreading the good Parsons word through social media. McCarty, along with Yahoo’s Carmen Hudson and TMP’s Louis Vong, is speaking at a workshop put on in Los Angeles (where he’s apparently a rare non-car-owner) by SHRM’s staffing-management association. He was brought to Parsons partly to help infuse higher-tech tools into the company, where many employees are in their 50s.

To help craft their Web 2.0 strategies, McCarty says companies should ask themselves the following questions: keep reading…