A funny reminder of what normals think about many of us

I am pretty sure my favorite, offbeat website is Dinosaur Comics. I know I have blogged at least a couple of times over the years with a take on something interesting that the genius behind Dinosaur Comics, Ryan North has posted.  And his idea, a comic series where the pictures, panels, and layouts are exactly the same every day, but with the topics and dialog between the two characters changing, is really unique and remarkable.

Recently, Dinosaur Comics took on the topic of HR and Recruiting's favorite sourcing and people research tool, LinkedIn. Take a look at what two comic dinosaurs think about LinkedIn, and then I (natch) will have a couple of comments after the comic.

Really funny, right? But to paraphrase the great Joe Pesci in Goodfellas - how is it funny? And should we really care beyond laughing? A couple of quick thoughts:

1. 'Normals', i.e. people who don't live and die all day long on LinkedIn, are not all that concerned with their 'personal brand', and don't actually feel like their job is the most important thing about them likely make up the majority of your workforce.

2. Most of these people, I think, are not at all comfortable with the notion that the divide or the separation between 'work' and 'not working' is diminishing (or even disappearing). Lots and lots of solid and even outstanding performers are not thinking about work after 5PM. And they are not spending their weekends sending LinkedIn connection requests. They are, once again, 'normal.'

3. HR and Recruiting people love to tell everyone who will listen that 'They need to be on LinkedIn' and offer endless tips and tricks so that people can 'Get the most out of their LinkedIn profile'. They do this for primarily self-serving reasons - they want the full range of people that they someday might be interested in contacting about job opportunities to be easily findable and contactable, (facilitated by tossing a few $$ to LinkedIn). I wish some honest recruiter would just post an article that says 'If you ever want to be considered for a job at my company, here is what I expect to see on your LinkedIn profile.' But instead we get dozens and dozens of pieces about 'optimization' tips. So boring.

I don't mean to take shots at LinkedIn, I am a long-time user and have gotten some value out of that over the years. But I also think it has become too easy (and lazy) to have one and only one source for universal professional information. And one that normal people don't really understand as well.

Facebook and LinkedIn for Recruiting - The students speak out

So if you are a breathing, upright HR Professional in 2009 I know you have read countless blog posts, articles, or attended webinars exhorting you that you need to be mining social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn for recruiting purposes.  Whether it is to network with and uncover passive candidates, (the primary use of LinekdIn) or research and background check prospects (primarily what recruiters are doing on Facebook), you have been told over and again that you need to be leveraging these tools in your recruiting efforts.

This post isn't another one of those 'How to recruit on Facebook' pieces.  If you are interested in that sort of thing, check out the HR Tech News blog which ran a fine series of 'Recruiting on Facebook' posts early in 2008.

In my HR Tech Class for this week's discussion assignment I asked the class to offer comments and observations on this new trend in recruiting.  These students are quite likely in the target demographic for many recruiters, mostly young, educated professionals working on an advanced degree.  And they are almost all on Facebook and LinkedIn.  So what do they think about recruiters and employers 'snooping' around their social networking profiles?  Here are a few of the best comments from the class:

The general consensus was 'beware what you post online':

 Even though we might not like it, we have to realize that employers are going to be googling our names and we have to be careful about the type of information we put online, because if we put it there it is fair game for anyone to see. - 'S

On the usefulness of Social Networking in onboarding and relationship building:

If employees can be 'friends' with their manager on facebook then that could help them to have a mentor. It's a safe and informal way for the employees to interact with their managers on a social level where they can learn from each other. - 'A'

One student astutely observes ways in which the progressive organization is starting to leverage these social networks in a more positive manner:

For example, companies and organizations have taken up these social networking sites to create their own business networks as a motivation to maximize interaction and networking among their own employees, even with the CEO. It not only limits to the networking connections, but to more job opportunities. For example, I have noted one CEO posting on Twitter about job opportunities. - 'V'

There were many other comments and observations in the discussion, some students really wishing that their Facebook information would remain strictly personal and never be used in a professional situation. But realistically, they realize that the horse is out of the barn, and anything they post on any site is likely ot one day be scrutinized by employers and recruiters.

A really good discussion, any one have a recommendation for the next HR Tech issue we should discuss?

LinkedIn makes a major move

Today LinkedIn announced support and integration for third-party applications like SlideShare, Wordpress, and Amazon.

Why is this important? 

LinkedIn is generally considered the 'professional' networking site.  Only serious business is done on Linkedin; recruiting, searching for opportunities, networking for decidedly commercial reasons.

The ability to integrate your SlideShare presenations, blog posts, and Amazon reading lists into your LinkedIn profile can only enhance and augment your LinkedIn presence.  It allows you to leverage content you spend long, hard hours creating in a new and very important space.

I tell my students in the first class, you absolutely need to be on LinkedIn. 

In the next class, I will also tell them you need to take advantage of the full capabilities of these new application integrations.

Well done, LinkedIn.

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