Social Media: Smart Thinkers Take Their Shots at Conventional Thinking

Today must be the day must be the day to challenge a lot of conventional thinking about recruiting, HR, and the use of social media in both of those workplace endeavors.

Besides this TLNT post by Lance Haun on social media sourcing and screening, there is this one over at sister website ERE by the always insightful Howard Adamsky with the title Dark Side of the Moon:

To be critical of social media, in any and all formats, sentences the writer to one of three modalities:

You are a geezer;

You do not get it;

You are in the way of progress.

Wrong on all counts. We are thinkers and evaluators first — recruiters or whatever a distant second. Armed with only our experience and limited time to get things done, we must question how we spend that time every single day. Time wasted equals fewer hires — and fewer hires devalues our existence.”

This is a thoughtful and highly opinionated article that really challenges the new way of thinking that if you don’t immediately embrace and sing the praises if social media in recruiting that you’re some dinosaur who just doesn’t get it. Howard Adamsky certainly does get it, and you should read more of just how he does get it here at ERE.

Where HR and social media meet

Meanwhile over at The Cynical Girl blog, TLNT contributor Laurie Ruettimann weighs in with her insights on social media and HR taken from a recent panel discussion she was involved in at last week’s HR Technology conference in Las Vegas.

Laurie is provocative and loves to tell it like it is, and she is plain spoken and spot on when it comes to social media. For example, she takes off on stuff like this:

Remember when we used to be overwhelmed by voice mail and email? That was cute. We managed through it. Stuff got missed. The world didn’t end. Let me be specific: I don’t care about social media tools. I care about processes. Check your email and your social networking sites at scheduled intervals throughout the day. Use cheap technology like Tweetdeck or Hootsuite to aggregate your social news. Whatever tool you use, make sure it’s mobile. …

You can’t possibly expect executive leaders to give two rips about social media. They care about their board of directors, shareholders, and earnings. Here’s the best insight I can give you based on my extensive knowledge of how stuff works in the real world: executives will hire amazing employees to manage social media. Go be that guy.”

You can find a lot more of what Laurie had to say here.

Good stuff? Of course it is, so fill up on all of this great insight, wisdom, and unvarnished commentary about the state of social media, recruiting, and HR, because these are perspectives worth spending some time digging into and thinking about.