Maybe yes. Most likely no.
I often connect with HR people.
Some live in the Old Normal and some live in the New Normal.
When I see an HR person with less than 500 connections irony overcomes me.
How can people who are supposed to find today’s digital talent be unconnected from the digital world?
That’s an Oxymoron.
Ever wonder why recruiters have more LinkedIn connections than HR people? Because they have more skin in the game in many ways.
Rarely do I see an HR person with a Twitter account or some game in the Twitter sphere.
I have never encountered an HR person with a blog on How to Attract the Best Digital Talent in the New Normal.
It is very hard to find digital talent because both agencies and clients are looking for SEO people, online marketing folks, PPC folks, developers, project managers and all the rest of the players.
Digital talent lives in the social media world not in the past. You have to be a fellow native in their world.
If your HR folks don’t have digital game how can the find and hire the digital talent that will be the future of your company? They simply can’t.
They think the secret sauce is putting an ad on LinkedIn.
The other problem that I see every day is that most HR people have an Old Normal Hiring Lens when it comes to screening talent.
Getting through HR often is equivalent to a camel going through the eye of a needle.
They look at the resumes of digital people and say they have moved around a lot.
Really.
The first iPhone was released in 2007. This is 2014 and 6 or 7 versions of the iPhone have been released.
There are 1.75 Billion Smartphones in the world.
The digital world is about change and creating new opportunities which often involves a job move.
You want to use an old hiring lens then don’t work for companies that relocate, fire people, merge or cause recessions. If you have forgotten I can remind you.
Many hiring criteria are clichés spoken by people who don’t participate or aren’t engaged. These clichés include beliefs that social media is for young people. That people who have had multiple jobs in a short number of years are all job hoppers. Maybe they are entrepreneurial? Maybe they had to take a lower paid job during the last recession. Maybe your company hasn’t had raises in five years.
To get great digital talent you need to play the hiring game in a new way.
The New Normal is about Alibaba and algorithms not abacuses.
Connect with Hank on LinkedIn, Twitter, & Facebook:
Watch a Video Called Why Companies Have to Change Their Hiring Lens.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IN5H3gxKxs]
Reblogged this on KnoGimmicks.com™ and commented:
I definitely agree with this post Hank! I recently ran into an opportunity for a Digital Media Management position at a major corporation here in my home town. They had issues filling the position because HR and Staffing Agencies were looking for individuals with Marketing Degrees in a traditional fashion. They were also looking for all the above mentioned, but as you said, great digital talent are those who have been in social media and have expanded their skills beyond that point in skill sets such as graphic design, web design, professional blogging and integrated those social media strategies. Excellent post! Glad I checked you out! Will be interacting more!