Social media and recruiting - you should and you shouldn't

Qualigence’s goal with this event was to provide practical advice for recruiters, a “How To” conference that equipped them to make their own recruiting functions more effective. They accomplished this by bringing in some incredibly experienced recruitment and talent acquisition professionals from companies like Cisco, Nike, CDW, Towers Perrin, Fifth-Third Bank, and many more, including Gerry Crispin of CareerXRoads.

The closing session was a Panel Q&A moderated by Qualigence CEO, Steven A. Lowisz (you can listen to my recent interview with him here). The attendees, 100 in total, asked numerous questions about best practices in recruitment and how to implement the things they learned when they return to their organizations.

The most interesting discussion centered around whether these professionals use social networks to discover details about potential candidates – i.e. do they look at a candidate’s Facebook page to determine what kind of employee they might be. The panel was divided, with some stating it’s an invasion of privacy and should not be used at all, while others stated it can be a helpful tool that provides insights about the person.

Gerry Crispin summed it all up by stating something to the effect:

You shouldn't use social media for recruiting and you should use social media for recruiting.

There you have it. I'm going to be exploring more and more how companies are managing social media policies not only for marketing, but also for the entire organization. Check out Sharlyn Lauby's HR Bartender post/discussion from last week titled Is Human Resources Capable? (she references Chris Kieff's discussion at The HR Department Should Own Social Media).

Anyway, from the brief two hours we were at the Qualigence conference, it appeared that the sessions provided some very practical advice for recruiter attendees. I’m sure that next year’s event will grow as Qualigence continues to promote their recruiting industry expertise.

Congrats to Steven and Kim on a job well done! Thank you for having us.

Post by Kevin W. Grossman (join me on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn)