We’ve long been trained against asking personal questions in the process if interviewing candidates, even though we’ll accept it if offered. At the same time, we move into a more open world with Facebook, Twitter, blogging and other types of social media. For some reason, many managers, even in HR, don’t take the simple step of examining a candidate’s online presence during the interview process.
This is potentially the richest source of information on a candidate. Are they insightful, presenting new ideas in their chosen discipline, investigating potential avenues of learning more about their work? Or are they disruptive, combative, or even just rude? People are more themselves when they think they are anonymous, even if put their name at the end of their post. It’s a different world than just a few years ago, and indicators of a candidate’s personality are now available in the public space for your perusal. So why aren’t we using it more?
Regardless of readership levels, I know that if I search on myself, I’ll find this blog, my LinkedIn profile and Lean For HR LinkedIn group (feel free to join!), and several online discussions I’ve held on work relevant topics. But this rarely comes up in conversation with outside recruiters.
To me, that work is more indicative of my thought process and outlook on key tenants of HR than anything on a CV. Between your CV and your online presence, I can get a handle on not just what you’ve accomplished, but how you did it and how your personality is likely to fit in with someone else’s culture and team. Why wouldn’t we use that to its full extent?
I suspect, or at least I hope, that we will dig into this at the HR Technology Conference.
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