I’ve been writing a lot (like here, and here, and here) about Social Media the past few weeks. I even did a Webinar on the topic.

One of my assertions is that because of Social Media, candidates are dramatically changing their behaviors during a job search. One of the key changes is that candidates are no longer satisfied to go through the front door at companies (like applying through the corporate website), which are (and have been) poorly executed entry points. This is mostly because the tools available to candidates are highly efficient, but the tools available to corporate recruiting departments are,….er…., not so highly efficient. So candidates are finding new ways into organizations through their social graph, which is causing substantial problems for corporate recruiting departments around the world.

Right after I wrote the latest piece, I had an interesting, extremely personal case study play out as I was driving back from Portland, Oregon:

So one of my best friends here in the Seattle area is a senior level sales guy; he does presales for a large software company.  We like to ride fast motorcycles together.

This happened yesterday.  Whenever I am driving, I usually talk on the phone.  It’s a productivity thing I do.  I talk so much I usually lose my voice by the end of the day.  Seriously, it happens.  So I was catching up with him.  And he starts telling me a story about how he was on LinkedIn, and got served up an ad for a Bellevue based SAS company called GlobalScholar.com. I had never heard of them. It sounded like an interesting job, but in his words, “there was no way I was going to go through the pain and suffering of applying through the LinkedIn application process…”

My ears perked up.

“So what did you do?” I asked.

“Well, first I did a Google search to find the the right person on the sales team at GlobalScholar. It wasn’t very hard to figure out who it was. I found her on a blog where she was quoted. I then looked her up on LinkedIn to get a read on her and her background. I then did another Google search to understand the email conventions at the company, which also wasn’t hard.”

I commented that there was a future for him in the recruiting industry if he was serious about changing jobs.

He laughed, and then said, “So then I just emailed her my resume…”

This sounds innocuous, but when you multiply it times thousands of people who are going to do the same thing it’s no wonder why corporate recruiting departments are struggling to keep up.  And remember, all of this automation and tools on the internet were supposed to make things more efficient.

So now I wonder what is going to happen next. I wonder if the company will make him apply online. Or if they will be able to execute an ad hoc recruitment process outside of standard protocols.

Regardless, I will keep you posted.