How to Hire A-Players: Finding the Top People for ... - GIT home page

I recently
participated in a webinar that explained the business
uses of social media tools such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and
Twitter. The firm that conducted the training, based in San Francisco,
does nothing but consult on Internet-based marketing and
sales. Though the two session leaders were social media ‘‘experts,’’
both said that as of 18 months earlier, neither of them knew much
about Twitter. A year and a half later, they were talking about it
being the next great Internet marketing tool. If high-tech consultants
who had barely heard of Twitter a year and a half ago are now
the go-to experts, the rest of us can be excused for being slightly
overwhelmed by the hype that surrounds these tools.
We live in a time of extraordinary and rapid technological change.
As business leaders, we have to make adjustments to keep in step. I
was listening to a radio station in my car the other day that was
advertising its latest listener promotion—the kind that requires you
to be listening at 2 a.m. and be the twenty-seventh caller to win an
all-inclusive trip for two to the Caribbean. At the tail end of the
advertisement came the usual legal disclaimer spoken in hushed
tones and at extraordinary speed. The announcer spoke so quickly
that I almost missed a piece of legalese I had never heard before.
The deep radio voice said: ‘‘Only listeners in the terrestrial listening
area of this station are eligible to win this promotion.’’ I assume
this means that if you live in Brisbane, Australia, and listen to this
Philadelphia station via streaming audio over the Web, you are not
eligible to win. We have gotten to the point where a phrase like
‘‘terrestrial listening area’’—which sounds like something out of
science fiction—is required due to the technology that gives even
local radio stations global reach.
The good news is that this same new technology enhances your
ability to create an A-player team. In addition to the online job
boards (which have been around a long time), LinkedIn, Facebook,
Twitter, and similar tools enable your company to expand the
breadth and depth of your recruiting reach dramatically with limited
additional cost.
These tools are important to recruiting. The question is: how
can busy executives use them most effectively to find and hire
A-players? I lay out the basics of online recruiting in this chapter. If