All good recruiters know that social media isn't really about connecting with friends and family. Instead, it's really about finding great candidates.
A recent survey from Jobvite revealed that over 90% of employers will use social media for recruiting in 2012. This kind of data suggests that traditional methods of sourcing candidates are no longer effective. This also mans that traditional tools for finding a job are also outdated. For example, the resume.
Even at our company, the first thing we do when screening a new hire is look at their social presence represented on professional sites like LinkedIn. In today’s economy, most companies can't afford to make a bad hire. You can gain so much more information from someones online profile than you can from a simple summary, tailored and reduced to a single piece of paper.
For a long time LinkedIn has been the go to site for reviewing professional information about potential candidates. Others like Branch Out are gaining traction and Facebook is even rumored to be getting into the job game. However, there's a new site that launched last week from a Portland Oregon company called Vizify that is sure to be a game changer.
Vizify is a stunningly visual way to view a complete overview of someones career, work history, education and overall social presence. (You can check out my personal Vizify profile here). You can see years of experience, topics they discuss on line, and interesting factoids about them. One of my favorite features is viewing their locations page - a interactive guide to where this person has lived. All of this information is laid out in a beautiful presentation that is easy to navigate and incredibly interesting to look at.
As more and more sites pop up that visually represent individuals in interesting and engaging ways, it's only a matter of time before resumes are no longer even requested. Sites like About.me and Flavors.me also offer visual representations and aggregates social profiles. However, we think Vizify far outpaces these services and it's only in beta.
What's your opinion recruiters? Are you still working off of resumes or are online sites taking over that function for you?
Also, what are some of your favorite sites for gathering professional information on candidates? Share them with us in the comments below.
This is so awesome! I had no clue there was so much that went into recruiting! I also think it is awesome that there are things to help make it easier and more efficient! I think that this will help with healthcare recruiting. Can you tell me where I can find more articles that could help?
Posted by: Suzy Frame | Tuesday, December 04, 2012 at 13:41