5 Ways to Find the Perfect Candidate through Social Media

Many people have psychologically separated social networking sites such as, LinkedIn is for business, Facebook is for home, and Twitter is for Gen Y.

What people don't realize is that the separations of these sites are becoming blurred because hiring managers are looking at the entire candidate, and not just what's on a resume.

Here's a trend I'm seeing that can help hiring managers (and maybe jobseekers) to find the prefect candidates through social media.

1. Having a Profile Picture: One of the biggest mistakes people make is not having a professional profile picture on their social networking accounts. Most would argue, "why is that necessary when it's the experiences that matter?" Although that may be true, we are visual beings and unconsciously relate more to visuals than non-visuals.

2. 500+ Connections on LinkedIn: Having that amount of connections dilutes the purpose of a professional networking account like LinkedIn. It gives off the signal that you will connect with anyone that wants to connect with you. Many hiring manager use LinkedIn to find potential candidates and have a red flag when they see more connections than the person can possibly know.

3. Facebook FanPage: With unemployment still high in the U.S., more and more people are coming up with creative ways to professionally stand out. People have created very well thought out and nicely designed Facebook Fan Pages as marketing material to help sell their skillsets. If you do a search on Facebook, you'll find great examples of Fan Pages.

4. #HireFriday Twitter Thread: I came across Margo Rose, an HR consultant, about a year ago on twitter. She had organized a twitter thread called #HireFriday where jobseekers post their skillsets and recruiters or others would actively make introductions to hiring managers with open positions. It's grown from it's inception and you can find out more on her blog http://hirefriday.com/blog

5. Online Resumes on About.me: This site is slowly becoming a popular way to point people to an online profile that consolidates all your social networking sites. It's meant to brand all perspectives of a person into one place. It's mainly used as a virtual business card and in some cases, resumes.

About the author:

Bernardo Tirado is an industrial psychologist and project management executive with extensive experience in building global shared services and developing new business capabilities.