Background
Three months ago, I wrote a post titled Hiring in a 2.0 World. I thought it might pique a few folks curiousity but had no idea that it would result in posts by Shel Israel, Bryan Person, and Kate Olson's among others, a speaking opportunity at a social media breakfast (video) and numerous video/podcast interviews. I was really blown away when U.S. News and World Report showed interest (they first wrote a blog post and then interviewed me for a column). I only mention this because it showed me that I had touched on a nerve. [NOTE: this was due in no small part to the expert PR efforts of Doug Haslam and Topaz]



Not everyone agreed with my approach but people were more on board than I originally thought they would be. For one, I was sure that the HR issues surrounding availability of photos, birthdays, marital status, etc. would be a big deal. I also thought that people would complain about companies seeing drunken pictures, inappropriate wall posts and other "warts" that might bleed through if corporations started looking at profiles on social networking sites. Surprsingly, most folks were able to get over those issues pretty quickly. Really the biggest knock was, "yeah, this is great for social media jobs but what about jobs at traditional companies in non-social media roles?" In fairness, I don't have a perfect answer for that last question other than to say that having a more well-rounded picture of a job candidate can only help in the hiring process.

What impressed me the most during this journey was everyone's willingness to go along with my experiment. Almost everyone I talked to reached out to me through Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook. One gentleman even wrote a blog post about why we should consider him (he wasn't right for the role I was hiring for but ended up having some discussions with us about a community manager role). In another instance, our chairman, Barry Libert (also co-author of We Are Smarter Than Me), received an e-mail from a candidate apologizing profusely because he heard about our "hiring 2.0" methods and didn't want to be penalized for going outside the rules.

What I Learned
During this journey of using social media (and not e-mail/traditional resumes) to hire, I learned a few important lessons:

• Lesson One: I really enjoyed getting to know more about the people I was interviewing. In many cases, we realized that we knew people in common (a useful bit of information for non-candidate supplied references). More importantly, I knew what movies they liked, what their favorite bands were, which blog posts they read and whether or not they had big or little networks. This ultimately played a major role in the hiring we did for our "assistant to the chairman" role (more on that below).
• Lesson Two: I made some friends/new connections along the way. One of the things that tends to happen when you don't hire someone is that you rarely keepn in touch with them other than to give them the "sorry but we went in a different direction" pep talk a week after the interview. For one, this is a shame because, like me, you've probably interviewed tons of talented people that weren't quite the right fit for your current job opening. As a result, you've filed the resumes of these "not quite right" candidates in a folder called "resumes" only to never look at them again. But what if you kept having conversations with those people? What if you had a need that that candidate fit 3-4 months down the road? What if that candidate knows someone that might be perfect for the job that they weren't right for. Hiring in the "2.0" way using social networks can help solve that problem.
• Lesson Three: I received a lot of support from my company when I wrote this post. In theory, everyone loved the concept. One of my colleagues even told me that he sent the US News article to a recruiter that reached out to him as a way of showing that we didn't need recruiters. However, at the end of the day we are still a company that is dependant on resumes and e-mail. It's what people know and when everyone is busy, it's hard to try and forge a new way of doing things. This will not be unique at most companies.
• Lesson Four: This can be a much cheaper way of recruiting candidates. For one, you're not having to pay a head hunter a 20-25% commission. Additionally, you have other people keeping their eyes open for you (my 1,200+ contacts on Twitter send people my way regularly, even for jobs I have posted).
• Lesson Five: People have been able to come to me knowing more about me and Mzinga based on my blogging, Facebook activity and Twitter updates. It means I have to spend less time on the phone or in person because some of the basic blocking and tackling questions have already been answered!

The End Result
In the end, we were thrilled by the fact that we were able to hire someone using our new "Hiring 2.0" process. Who was the lucky person you ask? Her name is Alexa Scordato and she is now the assistant to our chairman, Barry Libert. Alexa started a couple of weeks ago and is quickly working her way up a steep learning curve (you can read more about her trials and tribulations in her twitter stream and on her personal blog). This may seem like a non-sequitor to anyone that read my initial post because I was looking for a social media marketing person and a PR 2.0 person (we're actually getting close on the 2nd front too - also using my "hiring 2.0 process". Details to come).

On the social media marketing front, we got really close with one candidate before a shift in the job description made the job less appealing to her. It was too bad given the fact that she followed my requested process to a tee (she was already following me on Twitter so she DM-ed me, connected with me on Facebook and LinkedIn and then sent me a "blog" version of her resume.) I hope the aforementioned person choses to reveal herself in the comments of this blog because a) she is a very smart and funny person and b) she gets a medal for being a true social mediast. Unfortunately for all of you out there that would like to get your hiring hooks into her, she's already off the market. Sorry.

Getting back to Alexa, I don't want to steal too much of her thunder since she plans to put up a complementary blog post to this one (I will link to it once it's up), but I will tell you that she did exactly as we asked:

• Reached out to me via Twitter
• Connected with me in person at one of the social media breakfasts - this scored bonus points given the focus of these events
• Connected with me on LinkedIn
• Friended me on Facebook
• Finally, we got her in for an interview but we did it with just two people - Shannon Digregorio who had been covering Barry's calendar on an interim basis and Barry himself. She also talked to our in-house recruiter, Bob, but he had already seen the great recommendation that Steph Agresta had forwarded along (via Twitter as a DM no doubt) so his phone conversation with Alexa was short and sweet.

How Can you Use What I Learned?
So what can you take away from what I learned (and continue to learn) in this "hiring 2.0" process? Even if you only decide to adopt part of the "hiring 2.0" process, it can definitely benefit your business by:

• Saving money (no external recruiters)
• Increasing your reach through social networks
• Assisting your future recruiting efforts by staying in touch with great candidates that you didn't hire first go around
• Providing more information about candidates which can help with the "reference" work at the back end while up giving you a better up front "taste" of:
  • writing style
  • network size/quality,
  • interactions with others
• Creating a way for candidates to get to know you and your company up front (this assumes that you and your company engage in some sort of social media activity - even if it's a blog, LinkedIn account or podcast series).

In short, I'll be surprised if I don't see a lot more companies starting to adopt some sort of a "hiring 2.0" process in the near future. Smart companies like Ernst and Young are already figuring this out with their Facebook presence. I also read a post thanks to friend, Tyson Goodridge, about a local PR company that is going this route. To that end, do you have a "hiring 2.0" story to tell? Or do you know a company that's doing a great job using social media in their hiring process? If so, please include in the comments below!