Margo Rose's HireFriday 2.0: Lend A Hand Encourage A Heart. Let's Keep The Focus On Job Seekers
Why am I adamant about keeping the #HireFriday stream on Twitter for job seekers only? It’s simple really, job seekers, my unemployed friends deserve the spotlight. The deserve the validation, and confidence to know they are not alone; they are not forgotten, and most importantly, a community focuses exclusively on their interests to network, connect them to people who are in a position to leverage their networks to find jobs.
The job seekers tweet is retweeted multiple times, and soon it goes viral. This increases not only the chance to get in front of decision makers, it gives the the boost that open their job search network world-wide. There are colleagues in the recruiting world who disagree that this is a good idea. They insist on posting their automated commercials about their jobs into our stream. Untargeted job commercials are the very definition of spam. I’d argue this is fruitless, and the rate of return is low when job postings are strategically targeted. Nobody appreciates the spray & pray approach to job broadcasting. This is why I suggest that recruiters set up a global filter to find the candidates in the twitter stream. A targeted, effective job post on a high profile job board yields far better results.
I am the founder of HireFriday, but it’s not my job to be community manager of their stream, or HireFriday movement. They have complete autonomy, and I am willing to bend over backwards to provide promotional support within the US Community. I’m willing to share my business model, and consultation should they want my help. I embrace their efforts. With that said, I do not meddle in how they choose to replicate HireFriday in their country. HireFriday is in Canada, France, Sweden and is growing in leaps and bound.
Here’s what I do know:
- As soon as job seekers see that a job stream is primarily filled with jobs, they tend to shy away from posting their information.
- Job seekers require guidance, support and help in how to tweet for information to achieve maximum effectiveness. They appreciate integration of the efforts on over social media platforms such as linkedin and facegroup where they can interact, and practice a boots on the ground approach to their job search.
- They appreciate networking with resume writers, recruiters, career coaches, and each other to enjoy the advice and counsel that is abundantly available
- In order for job seekers to feel apart of a larger community, a high level of engagement and communication by a community manager & volunteer leaders is greatly appreciated, and encourages membership on the multiple platforms I’ve established.
- Job seekers appreciate their place in the spotlight.
- Job seekers appreciate it when others RT their tweets, and extol their professional virtues. Their hearts beam with gratitude when their job search tweets go viral.
- Job seekers need, and appreciate a sense of place, and belonging in a supportive, caring, and empowering community
- Job seekers struggle with information overload when following nothing but job posting twitter profiles
- Job seekers don’t feel welcomed to participate in streams heavily populated by untargeted job “commercials.”
- Streams that do not have a community manager often become ineffective, and lose their relevance and impact.
- When the community manager networks extensively with employers, recruiters, and hiring managers to promote the streams job seekers, amazing things manifest for job seekers.
It is well within the rights of my esteemed colleagues to disagree with my brand model, strategy, and tactics. I welcome civil debate on my blog. My colleagues know I am a fierce candidate advocate, and will tilt at their windmills if I perceive an attack the morale and esteem of an unemployed person. Their job search, and emotional vulnerability is difficult without coming under fire. With that said, it is incredible when my colleagues offer sound, strategic, and helpful advice In fact, I believe in my heart it can be transformative. Nothing makes my heart gladder when I see helpful people like Bill Boorman and countless others write posts, create videos, and post helpful articles to move job searches forward. There are too many helpful people to mention who do just that. Career development experts, compassionate recruiters, and HR professions are consistently providing meaningful information. For that, I am truly grateful.
Frequently on Friday I exceed my API limit which is why I have multiple twitter profiles such as, @MargoRose @Hire_Friday, and jokingly @GangstaHR which I just opened yesterday. There are few people I know who are as passionate as I am about fighting the good fight to accelerate the re-employment as I am. Yes, I am a purist when it comes to promoting the strengths of unemployed people. I will continue to do everything in my power to promote the job searches of people struggling with unemployment.
My brand mantra is “Unemployment is Hard. HireFriday can help. Please won’t you lend a hand and encourage a heart.” The last thing I want is for HireFriday to become just another spammy twitter job stream. Twitter doesn’t need another job board. What I am doing with HireFriday is setting me apart from the rest. HireFriday is unique. Why else would a reporter from The Washington Post, and the local media want to interview me? Why else would famous social media consultants like Chris Brogan, Amanda Hite, Joni Doolin, and countless career development professionals include HireFriday efforts? I think it is because I made a stand: Instead of Follow Friday, let’s adopt HireFriday and put unemployed Americans back to work.
There are those who say that HireFriday is just another flavor of the week on twitter, and like FollowFriday, will lose its traction and appeal. I don’t believe this will happen because I made a decision in August to make this movement my career. I want to devote the rest of my life to the HireFriday endeavor. I will devote the rest of my life working with the disadvantaged, the poverty stricken, and those coming off public assistance, and females leaving battered women’s shelters to get back on their two feet, and get back into the workforce.
You see, I believe that having a job in today’s flailing economy is not just good for the pocket book, it is equally good for the spirit. Unemployment can be spiritually debilitating, it can exacerbate and lead to clinical depression. Unemployment can cause stress that can impair one’s physical health. I want to equalize the mind, body, and spirit of unemployed people. My long range goal is to start a 501 C-3 not for profit organization that is solely devoted to helping those in a career transition.
Now, you understand why I value and believe that HireFriday should focus on job seekers. This isn’t something I do, this is a part of my core belief system. I love my HireFriday community members. They feel my love, and emotional support. Some of them love me too. I reach out 1 on 1 to offer emotional support when I see them falter. Constant rejection can really hurt ones feelings. This much I know because I’ve been rejected repeatedly. I’m an empath. I feel their pain. This is the core reason after attending SourceCon, and ERE that while I love the recruitment skills, it is not my career path to be a full-time recruiter.
Candidate advocacy is my career path. Thank you for reading my essay. G-d speed to you, and yours. (HireFriday, or Margo Rose is NOT affiliated, or endorses other hashtags adding on to, or using the HireFriday name).
Sincerely,
Margo Rose, M.Ed. HRD
Founder & CEO of HireFriday
Now for your Theme Song: To Dream The Impossible Dream. It is the theme song from Man of LaMancha
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Margo,
The world would be a much better place with more Margos in it! The jobseekers you have helped are so very grateful for your tenacious efforts. It is a wonderful thing to see jobseekers coming together across the globe to help each other discover opportunities and improve their job search strategies, and getting help from compassionate HR, career and recruiting pros along the way.
As you work on your non-profit, I hope that corporations and endowments will provide financial support to help the grow the organization. As you know, many of the large firms that go through mass layoffs hire outplacement firms that are largely ineffective for their former employees. Such outplacement services might have been more effective during a better job market…not so much now.
Margo,
A few thoughts and comments for you:
1: I did not launch #HFUK, nor do I represent any running of the stream. I promote it where I can. #HFUK is organised by Cathy, who deserves all the credit.
2: If you are going to address individuals in a blog post for anything other than promotion, you should perhaps afford them the courteousy of a message or an e-mail, paticularly when they have been strong supporters of your aims. If you recall, I did this to you when I wrote a post to promote your job search and changed the bits you wanted.
3: You have requested in the guidelines that job seekers only post in the stream. For clarity, does this mean you don’t want posts linking to tips and posts useful to job seekers on the string? You might want to clarify this, as well as posts in the stream promoting #HireFriday, as this is in clear contradiction with your post.
4: I agree with you on seperating job seeker posts and job posts. Thats why I sugested seperate streams to you when you asked for advice on the point via Facebook.
5: It is probably not a good plan to over regulate the supporters of #HireFriday. Remember, we all give our own time freely to a cause which helps promote you. The benefit of hashtag communities is that anyone can join in without having to sign in or register. What this means is that nobody can aontrol the content as it is a free stream. A blog or website works in a different way. Hashtag communities self-regulate and post content. If you want to own it, then you need to opt for a closed community.
Bill
Thank you so much for your support Jen. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.
You are so right on every point you are a steward leader, one whom I deeply respect, admire and appreciate. Your leadership developing the TruEvents community is amazing, and deserving of all the beauty, and support you receive. I regret I didn’t email you in advance. Because you are a role model for steward leadership, I love having you on Compassionate HR and you are one of the finest leaders guiding job seekers in the HFChat. I value your contribution to our space. That you for being such a dignified colleague. Great work Bill.
I love the #HireFriday stream and think it’s a wonderful idea. I encourage job seekers I know to join in and have adapted a similar hashtag for those looking for work specifically in the metropolitan area where I’m located.
Though I understand the desire to keep the posts on #HireFriday free of jobs, I have to say I find the way those posts are addressed at times to be a bit harsh. I’m guessing many of the job posts that end up on #HireFriday come from people just getting plugged into the process who haven’t a clear idea of the purpose. For many, hashtags are a new concept, so it’s remarkable to me to see the job postings show up with a hashtag to begin with. I don’t want those individuals discouraged. Their intentions are good, they are simply out of the loop of the hashtag’s true purpose. Perhaps they follow someone who used it to post a profile and thought it would be a good place to highlight a job. I would suggest tweeting the guidelines as you already do, but encourage those doing so to not make it sound as if those who have used the hashtag incorrectly are somehow guilty of something awful. At times the exclamation points and “for job seekers only!!!” comes off too strong. It may turn off those with good intentions who misused the tag from wanting to help in other ways. I know if I were a company posting job openings and thinking I was doing a good deed, it would turn me off to, for all intents and purposes, get a public scolding.
Just my take. Keep up the great work, Margo.