But how much influence does social networking have upon our lives? With the emergence of sites such as LinkedIn, which work to serve people on a professional level, social networking could have more of an influence on our lives than we may think. Usually competitors may use HR Software with Computers in Personnel to find candidates, but thanks to a recent survey conducted by a recruitment company, we found out just how much the job searching industry depended upon social networking.

Out of three hundred randomly selected employers it was found that 91% of them had used social networking to screen potential candidates. Out of these, it was found that 76% had used Facebook, 53% worked through Twitter and another 48% used LinkedIn profiles to view candidates. Interestingly, the survey also looked into when employers screened potential candidates during the employment process.

It was found that a massive 47% of employers had viewed social networking pages only moments after an application was received from the candidate. Another 27% of employers had viewed their clients social networking pages after an initial telephone conversation and another 15% after an in depth one. The smallest, yet possibly the most important statistic of the lot however is the 4% of employers that viewed a candidate’s social networking page only moments before making an offer. This could be a sink or swim situation for any applicant; the most harrowing detail being that they would never be aware that a viewing had taken place at all.

Out of the three hundred employers, it was discovered that a total of 61% had rejected candidates on the basis of their social media pages. Thankfully, we also have the details into why candidates were rejected by these employers.

The highest figure of rejection could quite possibly be also one of the most startling as a total of 13% of employers reported that they had rejected candidates because they found that they had lied on their application through the qualifications they presented on their social networking pages. Another 11% were rejected because of inappropriate comments being displayed on their pages along with another 11% being rejected because of evidence of poor communication.

Interestingly, another 11% were rejected because of inappropriate photographs and another 10% were rejected because of references to drugs that were displayed upon their social networking page. Although it is never advisable to display inappropriate photographs (or take drugs), settings on social networking sites such as Facebook can prohibit strangers from viewing your profile.

All in all however, the news isn’t so bad because out of the employers that took part in the survey, 68% had reported to have employed people after viewing the social networking pages, a higher figure than those who have rejected.

There were many reasons as to why employers chose to employ candidates; the highest reason was that 39% of employers found that their candidates had shown attractive personalities within their social networking page and had therefore decided to press the candidates further. Another 36% of employers also employed because they found that the applicants were creative within their social networking pages.

Happily and in contrast to the 13% of those who lied; 36% of employers had employed people because they found that their advertised qualifications matched those within their application.

Interestingly another 24% of employers stated that they had hired candidates because they had discovered hidden qualifications or awards within a person’s social networking site which had been found useful or supported their application. Although it is never advised to hide qualifications for later discovery, it certainly seems to appeal to some employers.

Take a quick look at this video to see just what the survey found and how this might help you find or search for an employee.

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What Is The Definition Of Long Term Unemployment?

Long term unemployment describes a situation where a person has been without work for longer than 12 months. In my opinion, it is important to consider these numbers, and not just the unemployment figures that are all grouped together. The group of people that have been out of work for a year, or longer, is a different that people who have only been out of work for a short time.

Here’s the scary thing. Even though employment numbers, in the US, have been looking a little better, we have experienced a large spike in the percentage of unemployed people who have been out of work for longer than one year. Furthermore, the makeup of this population differs quite a bit.

Does Education Matter?

Here is one example. In general, people with more education tend to be able to hold onto their jobs better. Those with a college degree, or better, have lower unemployment rates than people with a high school diploma or less. However, when you just group the people who have been out of work for over a year, there is almost no difference. In this case, an education does not seem to affect the numbers.

Does Age Matter?

While older workers also seem to be less likely to lose jobs, they also tend to make up a larger percentage of the long term unemployed. Out of the current group of unemployed people over 55, over forty percent have been out of work for longer than a year. This is much higher than the average for people across all age groups.

Why is Long Term Unemployment A Big Problem?

It seems obvious to me that the longer a person is without work, the bigger the problem gets. Employers would really rather hire people who already have a job, but tend to look more favorably on applicants who were laid off recently. In addition, a long time without work may erode job skills and confidence. It certainly cannot help the jobless worker’s financial situation either!

Is The Problem Getting Worse?

The most alarming thing about this problem is that the US Bureau of Labor has just published data that suggests that this problem has spiked in the last few months, just when the overall unemployment figures looked a little bit better!

In my opinion, while we try to help unemployed people get back to work, special attention should be paid to help people who have been out of work for a long time.

Are you over fifty years old? Please visit www.over50web.net to discuss lots of critical issues that are important to today’s older workers and professionals. We also have more information, and some charts, to explore the long term unemployment problem in the US.

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Poor Employee Communication and Inadequate Documentation

HR departments generally are thought to be a bridge between members of management and other organization employees. Whenever inadequate communication exists within an organization the result is typically misunderstandings among employees and management.

The exact same can be said for documentation. Every business requires proper records of transactions and contracts because these are the actual proof an event took place or an agreement was arranged. Oftentimes, serious conflicts can come about whenever transactions are not sufficiently documented.

Solution

Human resources should establish effective methods and guidelines for getting information out to employees. Steps to correct the problem should be taken whenever it becomes obvious that communication is breaking down. Proper record keeping will also ensure that all actions are documented for possible future reference and to protect the organization from legal matters.

Failing to Stay Current on Legal Requirements

Legal policies frequently change in the workplace. When an HR staff fails to implement company policies based on new laws and policies, the organization could be at risk for grievances and possible legal actions.

Solution

HR departments must continually ensure that the various policies are in compliance with any new laws. The staff handbooks should additionally be updated to reflect any changes or additions.

Breeches in Confidentiality

Because of the kind of work they carry out, HR staffs are privy to confidential information ranging from employee salaries to various disciplinary actions carried out. Obviously, serious problems may occur whenever the human resources department fails to maintain confidential information.

Solution

All HR staff members must remember that they have to keep employee secrets and not distribute this information among other employees. They are obligated to keep this information to themselves.

Keeping Personal Feelings Out

Oftentimes, a human resources department will be required to make serious decisions that may have a major impact on an employee. Most of the time HR employees will have to remove their personal feelings from the process to ensure that actions are in compliance with policies and regulations.

Solution

Even though most people consider their personal feelings in decision making, there should be more taken into account such as laws and company practices to decide what action is the proper one to take so that every step is fair to everyone involved.

ABOUT THE WRITER

Sam is a professional blogger in the Human Resources niche. He writes articles to help HR employees improve their efficiency and become better at their craft. For more information on human resources training classes take a look at some of Sam’s other articles and blog posts on the HR Training Center blog.

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LinkedIn is a professional network with over 150 million members and it is still growing and opportunities within this professional social network are limitless. That is why members take time to put up a good-looking profile, business man or job hunters alike. An optimized or a well put together profile attracts visitors. It lets them know of your past and present successes, it reflects your credibility and authority. Think about a well-groomed person, doesn’t he leave a good impression on others? Think of your profile as your ‘professional online self.’ An optimized LinkedIn profile maximizes your visibility within this professional network. Here are some tips to get you started on LinkedIn profile optimization.

1.) Complete your LinkedIn Profile – If you search for other tips for LinkedIn profile optimization, this always appear on the list. Aim 100% completeness for your profile (or less if by choice). Do not forget to fill in your professional headline, which is the description you find next to your name. It will describe your specialty and what you do and will be attached to you wherever you go. It will show up in comments, e-mails, and many more.

2.) Change your LinkedIn profile URL into your own name – LinkedIn allows you to edit your profile URL, or some may call the ‘vanity URL.’ Changing your profile URL to your name will help you get found easier and rank better in search engines. It is unavoidable that some of us may have similar names with others so my suggestion is you add an initial, company, state, abbreviation, etc but still don’t forget to use your full name.

4.) Add Recommendations to your LinkedIn profile – The power of recommendations on LinkedIn has already been tested and proven by many. Recommendations are one of the keys to make a LinkedIn profile stand out among others. It maximizes the visibility of your LinkedIn profile in searches. Do not forget and always remember to only ask for recommendation from someone you know, especially someone you have worked with or done business with. Asking for recommendations from a stranger is not a good move. You might leave a bad impression on the other members of the professional network. Remember that these recommendations will enhance your ‘trustworthiness’ and ‘credibility’ not only online but offline as well.

5.) Join LinkedIn groups, interact and make connections – Do you have a mailing list of friends, colleagues, business partners? Then add them or invite them to use LinkedIn and add you in their network. LinkedIn makes it possible to add people you know and have worked with in the past or present. Join relevant groups and do not forget to interact, engage in conversations with members. Doing this, you will be able to increase the visibility and reach of not only your profile, but your business or company if you have one, among the other LinkedIn members. It can also give more exposure to your LinkedIn profile in the community.

5.) Create an Interesting Profile Summary- Profile summary is located just above ‘experience’ in a profile. This summary can be taken from your ‘about page’ taken from your company website, if you have any, or from somewhere else. Make sure that your profile summary is compelling and easy to read, enhances your trust and credibility. A good profile summary can lead to new business opportunities, profitable partnerships, new jobs, and so much more!

These are only some ways on how you can improve and optimize your LinkedIn. There are so more other ways on how to create a compelling profile that attracts not only prospects but search engines as well.

And if you are interested in more tips on LinkedIn profile optimization and other ways to improve your LinkedIn profile, check out the Linked Strategies blog at http://www.linkedstrategies.com/blog/

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In case you did not know, when you use a tilde ( ~ ) in your Google search, it searches for the keyword you use as well as the synonym of the keyword you are looking for. This is a good thing as it will save you time, so long as you understand what Google considers to be synonymous with your keyword. Let’s do a quick example by searching for the term “CV.”

At this writing, I get 885,000,000 search results describing what a CV is, pictures of CVs, articles on how you can write a CV and links to people who can  write a CV for you.

Now let’s repeat that search with a tilde in front of the keyword.

I get 883,000,000 search results, but I notice a curious thing. In the search results certain words are bolded: resume, CV, curriculum and curriculum vitae. As far as Google is concerned, searching for ~cv is the same as searching for the keywords resume, curriculum and curriculum vitae at the same time. Interesting? If not, it will be in a moment.Check out the synonyms for the word “job” by doing a search on ” ~job. “  These are the terms that I notice: job, jobs, salary, career, employment, recruitment and vacancy.

Now let’s combine these two terms in a search string for umm… say a “verification engineer.” The search string I use would look like this:

verification.engineer -~job ~cv

At this writing, I get 1,520,000 results. In the first 10 results, only 2 were NOT resumes (or links to pages containing resumes)!!! Pretty cool, huh? ( smile) In case you are scratching you head, this is what my search string was asking Google to do (step by step).

verification.engineer

This asks Google to search for the exact phrase “Verification Engineer.” I could have used quotes, but placing a period in between the words has the same effect. (So it’s a personal choice. Either way works.)

-~job

This asks Google to not return search results that have the words: job, jobs, salary, career, employment, recruitment or vacancy in them.

~cv

This asks Google to return search results that have the words resume, cv, curriculum or curriculum vitae somewhere in the web document.

Get it? Got it? Good.

Here are a few other Tilde words that may be of interest to you.

General Searches

~staff = staff, personnel, staffing
~members = members, countries, member, login, membership
~team = baseball, basketball
~personnel = jobs, employment, staff, human resources, employee
~alumni = school, Reunion, high, highschool
~directory = yellow pages, white pages, white page listings, numbers
~openings = jobs, opportunities, employment, vacancies

Technical Searches

~software = software, freeware, shareware, driver
~qa = quality assurance, testing, software quality assurance
~scripting = javascript, script, programming, shell, automating, batch
~gui = gnome, swing, interface, graphical user interface, gui
~program = software, program software, exe, program, programme
~os = linux, operating system, unix
~windows = windows, microsoft windows, win, win 32

More Searches

~sales = sales, store, auction, retail store, prices, dealers
~marketing = marketing, media, market, communications
~hr = hr, human resources, jobs, management, human resources management, personnel management

And here are a couple more search strings to get you thinking more about the tilde.

• intitle:resume education -~job   -~openings quality.assurance inurl:resume -intitle:sample
• site:ibm.com he | she ~staff | ~personnel java serves | experience

Happy Hunting!

Jim Stroud

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ABOUT THE WRITER

Over the past decade, Jim Stroud has built an expertise in lead generation strategies, social media recruiting, video production, podcasting, online research, competitive intelligence, community management and training. He has consulted for such companies as Microsoft, Google, MCI, Siemens and a host of startup companies. Recently, Jim Stroud joined Bernard Hodes Group as a Director of Sourcing and Social Strategy.

Prior to Hodes, Jim Stroud has created and sold three online properties, managed an award-winning blog, published a weekly newsletter for jobseekers, a recruiter training magazine and co-hosted a popular technology podcast. Jim Stroud has also produced multiple web series devoted to such topics as: job search, recruiting, technology and language learning. Jim Stroud has been quoted by such publications as Globe and Mail, US News and World Report, Wall Street Journal and The Atlanta Journal and Constitution. Monster.com, Entrepreneur, Black Enterprise and The HR Examiner have all cited Jim Stroud for his digital influence. Jim Stroud also served as the EmCee of SourceCon, the premier global conference on sourcing for three consecutive years.

When not online, Jim Stroud suffers from withdrawal symptoms that can only be soothed by chocolate chip cookies and family time.

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Q: Keep posting! I love your posts! Can you show me how to find employees from different companies on Flickr?

A: Sure, that’s an easy one. Just do a group search on Flickr for (whatever company) and employees. For example, at a glance I was able to find VMWare Employees, Oracle Employees and a bunch of Microsoft Employees.

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Want more?

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This is what I did to find them, step-by-step.

1. I did a search on Flickr. I clicked the “Groups” tab and set the parameters to look across all groups and limit the search to only Group titles and descriptions. I then typed in “Microsoft Employees” as shown below. (smile)

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2. I looked through the search results and found two groups of interest to me. The first group was the one I already shared – MS Buddies (1). It had 3,803 members in it. The other group I noticed was called “X Box Bloggers” (2) and although it only had 2 members in it, they were employees who worked on the XBox team. Very interesting, if they are the type of candidates you are targeting.

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3. At this point, if you read the other 2 parts of this series, you can figure out what I did next. But if not… I clicked on the “MS Buddies” group link and saw the profile icons of its members (shown below).

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4. I chose the first member featured, someone named “drivebybiped.” I am taken to this person’s photostream where I see a collection of the photos he has taken. I click the “Profile” link at the top of the page (as shown below).

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5. Once I am on this person’s Profile page, I scroll to the bottom of the page and discover that he (or she) is a Program Manager. Neat! (If that is what I am looking to recruit.)

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6. All there is left to do at this point is to click the “Send FlickrMail” link and shoot off an email and persuade them to check out the opportunity I am recruiting for.

I wish it was this easy for every result you find on Flickr, but its not. In several cases, people do not fill out their profile all the way. Some people fill out everything but what they do for a living, so this is pretty much a hide and seek kind of a strategy.

Happy Hunting!

-Jim

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END PART 3 of 3

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Resume Sourcing
made easy

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ABOUT THE WRITER

Over the past decade, Jim Stroud has built an expertise in lead generation strategies, social media recruiting, video production, podcasting, online research, competitive intelligence, community management and training. He has consulted for such companies as Microsoft, Google, MCI, Siemens and a host of startup companies. Recently, Jim Stroud joined Bernard Hodes Group as a Director of Sourcing and Social Strategy.

Prior to Hodes, Jim Stroud has created and sold three online properties, managed an award-winning blog, published a weekly newsletter for jobseekers, a recruiter training magazine and co-hosted a popular technology podcast. Jim Stroud has also produced multiple web series devoted to such topics as: job search, recruiting, technology and language learning. Jim Stroud has been quoted by such publications as Globe and Mail, US News and World Report, Wall Street Journal and The Atlanta Journal and Constitution. Monster.com, Entrepreneur, Black Enterprise and The HR Examiner have all cited Jim Stroud for his digital influence. Jim Stroud also served as the EmCee of SourceCon, the premier global conference on sourcing for three consecutive years.

When not online, Jim Stroud suffers from withdrawal symptoms that can only be soothed by chocolate chip cookies and family time.

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Jim

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Q: Jim, I really liked your post yesterday. I never used Google to search Flickr before. Doesn’t Flickr have its own search functionality? Is it any good?

A: Yes, its quite good actually. For example, I used it to find a whole bunch of Computer Scientists and Computer Engineers fresh out of school and ready to be recruited. How? I looked for graduation photos. (Pretty slick huh?) Click here to see what I mean, or scroll down to see how I did it step-by-step.

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Want more?

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This is how I did it step-by step:

1. I went to the Flickr search page and chose the “Photos” tab. I then added the search terms: software engineer graduation. I also chose “full text” as the parameters of the search as well. Here is a screenshot of what I mean.

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2. As I thought I would, I get a bunch of graduation pictures featuring Software Engineers. Here is a screenshot of my results:

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3. I click on the first image in the search results and say – BINGO! Well, maybe not bingo, but I do smile at what I see. You would too if this is what you were looking for.

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4. Somebody showing off graduation pictures most likely is a member of that graduating class. Going with that logic, I click the link of the person who posted the photo – SirPurple. (stop laughing)

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5. I am taken to SirPurple’s Photostream. He has some pictures of some cows in his photostream. Well… good for him. I click the “profile” link because my main interest is in contacting him and asking for referrals.

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6. Once I am on the profile page I click the Send FlickrMail link and reach out to them. I say (in so many words) saw your photo with your graduation class. Congrats! I recruit software engineers all day, every day, can we talk?

END PART 2

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Resume Sourcing
made easy

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ABOUT THE WRITER

Over the past decade, Jim Stroud has built an expertise in lead generation strategies, social media recruiting, video production, podcasting, online research, competitive intelligence, community management and training. He has consulted for such companies as Microsoft, Google, MCI, Siemens and a host of startup companies. Recently, Jim Stroud joined Bernard Hodes Group as a Director of Sourcing and Social Strategy.

Prior to Hodes, Jim Stroud has created and sold three online properties, managed an award-winning blog, published a weekly newsletter for jobseekers, a recruiter training magazine and co-hosted a popular technology podcast. Jim Stroud has also produced multiple web series devoted to such topics as: job search, recruiting, technology and language learning. Jim Stroud has been quoted by such publications as Globe and Mail, US News and World Report, Wall Street Journal and The Atlanta Journal and Constitution. Monster.com, Entrepreneur, Black Enterprise and The HR Examiner have all cited Jim Stroud for his digital influence. Jim Stroud also served as the EmCee of SourceCon, the premier global conference on sourcing for three consecutive years.

When not online, Jim Stroud suffers from withdrawal symptoms that can only be soothed by chocolate chip cookies and family time.

   Send article as PDF