At Perficient, generally and specifically here on the digital transformation blog, we spend a lot of time discussing change: how companies want to change, how they need to change. How eCommerce and marketing are changing the relationship between consumers and company. We provide examples on what executives need to do to change their relationships with customers. The changing relationship of customers with other customers are themes.
Today, I thought we would discuss another aspect of the change: the change between employee and employers. In interest of full disclosure, David Strom once came to my company to work with my team on testing HSM (hierarchical storage management) products. I like to think of these type of product reviews the Yelp of pre-Internet days. David’s recent post on LinkedIn discusses how social can impact one’s employment and not in good ways.
Considering how so many of us use crowd sourcing, whether it for a new purchase, movie selection or vacation destination, it isn’t surprising that people have done so with job offers. The part of the article that resonated most with me was this quote:
First, if you get job offers from more than one company, keep them offline, and if you have to seek advice, definitely keep it to a phone call or two to a trusted mentor or adviser. No need to get the entire webverse engaged. This doesn’t have to be a public spectacle. Or really anyone else’s business but your own.
(Emphasis in the original post) As I have said to people, never write anything in an email that you wouldn’t want to see on the side of a bus or on a 4’ X 4’ card in a courtroom. I’ve had to modify that advice to include more channels over the years but the premise still holds true.
In the past several years, I have noticed LinkedIn profiles being used with or instead of resumes. Whether this is interviewing consultants, researching people while in meetings or as an industry speaker, I am finding that our electronic work lives are finding their way into our physical life.
I recall presenting at a Society of Information Management (SIM) event on social. One of my co-presenters said they use LinkedIn during the interview process. They weren’t checking the resume, instead they want to see the candidate’s connections. Does this person have the type and level of connections and recommendations that one would expect at this level?
There has been a lot of discussion over the changing nature of the resume (video resume! Twitter resume!) and I won’t repeat those comments but I do firmly believe that our social personas are becoming more critical in the employment process. While the examples have focused on LinkedIn, my comments are generic. What are your experiences? How often do you use LinkedIn when hiring, either employees or consultants? Do you use it to decide which speakers to see at a conference?
