Will Résumés Become Passé?

In 2010, I shared a news article about seeking jobs by playing video games. On Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that more companies recruit and select candidates without even asking them to submit a résumé. Will résumé become passé? 

According to my 2010 discussion, some companies, including Caesars Entertainment, have utilized social gaming to assess candidates’ professional skills. Candidates can win prizes if they are good. The best prize? It is probably getting the attention or a job offer from potential employers.  

The Wall Street Journal provided more examples. IGN Entertainment uses a similar approach of social gaming by posting a series of challenges online for candidates. In addition, candidates must submit a video to show their love of gaming and the companies’ products. 

Union Square Ventures, the New York venture-capital firm which invests in many technology companies like Foursquare and Twitter, requires candidate to provide the links of their online presence. The company is expecting to see a Twitter account, a Tumblr blog, and a short video demonstrating the candidate’s interest in the job. “We are most interested in what people are like, what they are like to work with, how they think,” said by Christina Cacioppo, a Union Square associate who blogs about the company’s hiring process. 

Because people use social media in almost every minute of their lives, candidates “expose” rich and descriptive information about their likes/dislikes. Companies can then better judge a candidate’s “fit” with the organizational culture and the position based on the “extra” information that they could not find from a résumé otherwise. 

There are certainly legal considerations of using social media in recruiting and selecting candidates. Meanwhile, many candidates may not feel comfortable of sharing their “personal information” with other. To my knowledge, however, EEOC has not stopped companies from using social media in that regard. Even if EEOC does, there is a solution for employers --- to hire a third party agent to screen candidates’ social media profiles without collecting any “sensitive information.

Today, there are still many companies using résumés in recruitment and selection. Companies that are forward-thinking might have looked into the tools available and see if social media can provide a better solution for attracting and selecting top talents. For job seekers, it might not be a bad idea to let potential employers know their “authentic” personalities and true passion because supposedly, they are also looking for the right fit for their career.

Do you think companies should assess candidates’ fit and qualifications by looking at candidates’ social media profiles? What considerations should be taken if social media is used? If you are looking for an internship or job now, what will you do to better prepare yourself when more companies are looking at candidates’ social media profiles?

Relevant discussions:

More Employers Are Using Social Media in Screening Job Candidates

Privacy vs. Efficacy: Which One Would You Choose? (Using Facebook in Job Search)
One Has No Choice But to Manage His/Her Online Image
Background Check on Social Media: Now Is a Serious Business
Using Facebook for Background Check
Social Media and Job Search I
Social Media and Job Search II

Social Media and Job Search III

Personal Brand and Social Media
Managing Your Online Reputation
Ways to Clean Up a Person’s Negative Online Reputation

 

References:

Silverman, Rachel Emma. (2012, January 24). No more résumés, Say some firms. The Wall Street Journal. pp. B6. Also available online. 

The picture was downloaded from the Small Business Development Center at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania.

Are Traditional Media Dead? “Garden and Gun” Says No.

In this week’s agenda for my class of HPM200 Managing Service Organizations in Social Media, we will discuss the impact of social media on TV networks, newspaper, and magazines. Statistics have shown that people rely less on traditional media for information than they did before.  The viewership of TVs and printed media declined. Then, are traditional media dead already or will be replaced by social media soon? 

Garden and Gun, the magazine that was established by a New Yorker in 2007, dares to say no. As a matter of fact, the magazine is doing quite well in terms of subscriptions and industry recognitions.

What’s good about this magazine? Based on what I saw in this CBS News video, I contribute its success to the following factors:

• It positions in a niche market. While there are many magazines and newspaper covering stories of either the Northeastern Region or the West Coast, there is a lack of attention to the “world” in between.
• It has a clear focus: the southern lifestyle --- “authentic, old-school, and unapologetic.” No politics, religion, and SEC football.   
• It has a metaphor yet eye-catching name for branding. 

What are the other attributes for this magazine’s success? From this example, do you think printed media still have room to grow? How so? If you believe that there is no future for printed media, please tell us why you think that way.   

If you are interested in our discussion, please join our conversation on Twitter (#HPM200) every Tuesday and Thursday between 9:30 am and 10:50 am Eastern.

References: The picture was downloaded from Garden and Gun.

Higher Education in the Age of Information Explosion

I shared a YouTube video in my social media class today. It shows how fast technology and our knowledge evolve in this age. There are some seem-to-be-terrifying statistics related to higher education:  

• The top 10 in-demand jobs in 2010 did not exist in 2004.
• We are currently preparing students for (future) jobs that don’t yet exist (today).
• Using technologies that haven’t been invented in order to solve problems --- we don’t even know (what) are (the) problems yet.
• For students starting a 4 year technical degree, this means that half of what they learn in their first year of study will be outdated by their third year of study.

If that is the case, what is good about high education? What should be taught in college? 

I believe that colleges and universities in general are the places to develop future leaders and that research institutes are designed to create new knowledge and innovative ideas. It is good that students can learn the latest technology and information. Accordingly, we should at least keep our students informed with the industry updates and trends even though we may not be able to constantly change textbooks. 

Considering the fact that there is always “newer” information available, however, I argue that it would be more important to teach students the core values/principles as well as the transferable skills through the process of learning, such as leadership, problem-solving, critical and independent thinking, communication skills, and the ability of learning on one’s own. Hotel and restaurant operations, for example, jobs can be re-designed; organization can be re-structured. Yet, the philosophy of taking good care of employees and customers or running an efficient business has never changed. 

In my social media class, we will for sure talk about Facebook’s and Twitter’s business implications. In my human resource management class, we will go over the legal issues, but who can guarantee that Facebook
and Twitter will continue to dominate the network or that the Congress will not pass new regulations? 

If you are an employer, what do you expect from a college graduate? If you are a student, how do you cope with information explosion? What do you expect to learn in class besides the subject itself?

Some Considerations of Promoting Business on Group-Buying Websites

Many consumers use group-buying websites like LivingSocial and Groupon to find deals nowadays. Certainly, these websites can help business draw traffic and bring in new customers, but I must say that promoting business on group-buying websites is NOT for everyone, regardless how effective this distribution channel may appear.

Why? --- That’s a great question. First, please allow me to share four examples of mine during my recent visit to San Francisco:

Example 1: City Segway Tours. The company promoted a 3-hour Segway tour at LivingSocial.com (50% off). The tour was fun, but the weather was foggy (fog is normal in San Francisco, right?). Because of the fog, the tour guy asked us if we would prefer to skip the Golden Gate Bridge and spend more time in the Palace of Fine Arts. Then, she added --- I hope you guys won’t post a negative comment online because of this, stating that “this tour sucks as we did not spend time observing the Golden Gate Bridge.” It turned out that we could barely see the water when we were near the bridge.

Example 2: San Francisco Whale Tours. I purchased the 1.5 hour San Francisco Coast and Tributaries Eco Tour at Groupon.com (50% off). It was a great and enjoyable experience. I posted some pictures and said good things about the Segway tour and the eco tour on Facebook. Some friends asked me for more details of the tours after they saw my pictures. I highly recommend these two tours to my friends based on my positive experience.

Example 3: The Imperial Palace Restaurant. I purchased a half-priced voucher for a dim sum platter at Groupon.com, without paying attention to the “fine prints” --- I could only redeem this voucher after 5 pm, but as a Cantonese, I do not eat dim sum at dinner time. Since I have purchased it, however, I would use it anyway. The dim sum was poorly made and tasted way below-average. I was planning to order additional dishes but decided not to do so after trying the dim sum. In the end, the restaurant charged me $2 per person for the tea, which usually costs nothing or up to $1 per person in the restaurants in Chinatown. Afterwards, I wrote a negative review on Google about this establishment. My friend, who is a Chinese immigrant living in San Francisco, also told me that she would tell her friends to stay away from this restaurant. Most of all, she would never come back to eat in this restaurant again.

Example 4: House of Dumpling in Union City, CA. I did not have any coupons or vouchers for this restaurant. My American friend took me there because he read some very good reviews of this establishment on Yelp.com and wanted me to try it. It was a small and nice place. Actually, I also got a chance to speak with the owner regarding the restaurant’s online reputation. She was very proud of her business, saying “we do not do any advertisements or promotions online or offline. Yet, people review their experience. We are running a small but very busy business. People are lining up for our dumplings and (as a result,) we do not want to actively promote our business. Otherwise, we cannot handle the crowd --- everything here is made from scratch.” Even though I disagree with most online reviews on Yelp.com about one thing --- this is not a real dim sum place (Cantonese food), but it is a nice place for “Chinese breads” and dumplings that are often found in Northern China. Regardless, because of its good food and good service, I recommended this restaurant to my Cantonese friends who live in the Bay Area.

From these four examples, we can tell that social media can manifest the Word-of-Mouth (WOM) effect in a large extent. In particular, a business or a group-buying website may want to consider the following:

• WOM effect is a double-edged sword. If a business fails to deliver good service and high-quality products, the negative WOM effect could be detrimental. Accordingly, businesses must feel certain that they can create positive WOM effect before promoting their businesses online.
• Businesses must understand their capability before making a sales and marketing effort online.
• It does not matter if a business chooses to actively engage in social networking sites or not, people are talking about it anyway. One has no other choice but to manage his/her social media presence (it works in the individual and macro-organizational level).
• A company’ online reputation can be very quickly created or ruined by group-buying websites. Chances are those users who use LivingSocial and Groupons also love to talk about their experience on Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and other social networking sites. It becomes critical for businesses to pay close attention to these tech-savvy customers and address their needs.
• Group-buying websites can help business to target the “right customers” by tracking users’ purchasing history, preference, and feedback. For example, recommendations of BBQ restaurants can be made to User A if s/he ate in a similar establishment before and liked the BBQ there.
• Group-buying websites need to find ways to help companies develop business strategies of attracting repeat customers. It is good that group-buying websites can help businesses create a positive online reputation and draw traffic, but companies also want repeat customers. Accordingly, it is important to find out: Who will come back and who will not? What makes a customer come back even without a voucher or coupon.

What do you see from the four cases presented above? In your opinions, what needs to be considered before making a promotion on social media?

Relevant discussions:

Strategies for Responding to Online Reviews

Seeking Online Feedback from Customers: How Proactive Can It Be?
Science of Shopping: Do You Know You Are Being Watched?

Still Feeling Reluctant to Adopt a Social Media Strategy? Please Think Again

References:

The picture was downloaded from TheLunchBreakBlogger.com.