Wanting to hire someone? Tired of the deadbeats, malingerers and losers who usually apply for jobs? Then you could do worse than copy the inspired advert that a self-proclaimed “killer, well-funded start-up e-commerce company” in New York recently placed on craigslist for “an expert in social media marketing”.
You can take a look at the full advert yourself here: http://tinyurl.com/ykvrwwr But, in summary, it runs to only 195 words, or 1,552 characters, and the main body contains the following instructions to applicants: “(i) Email me two tweets. The first should be about your experience. The second should by why you’re perfect for this job. If you exceed Twitter’s allotted character count, you’re done. (ii) Email me your Twitter name in link form (e.g. http://www.twitter.com/YOURNAME) (iii) Tell me how many followers you have and how many people you follow. (iv) Tell me who’s the best person you follow and why (in tweet form). (v) Tell me what’s the best way to get more followers (in tweet form). (vi) Specific salary requirement.”
Now, the first thing to say about this masterpiece of a job advert is that its brilliance has nothing to do with the Twitter element. Social networking is playing an ever larger role in recruitment, with employers checking out prospective employees on sites such as Facebook and, in some cases, even approaching the contacts of prospective employees on sites such as LinkedIn for references, but this advert is impressive for a host of other reasons ... such as its upfront request to state a salary requirement.
Too often, the question of pay is left until the end of the recruitment process, only for employers to realise that they cannot afford their favoured candidate, which is like going on a date with someone and discovering only at the end that they’re happily married — a waste of time. It is also not uncommon for a favoured candidate to inflate his or her salary requirements because he or she suddenly realises that he or she is wanted. Much better for everyone concerned to be, like this company, upfront about it all.
Another impressive thing about the job advert: it tests the ability of candidates to follow simple instructions. Admittedly, it goes a little overboard by mentioning it three times. As well as warning that “if you exceed Twitter’s allotted character count, you’re done”, the ad contains the following warnings in capital letters: “FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS BELOW EXACTLY. NO DEVIATIONS” and “IF YOU DO NOT SEND ALL OF THE ABOVE, EXACTLY AS I LAID IT OUT, I WILL NOT CONSIDER THE APPLICATION.”
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But alongside the ability to turn up, the ability to follow instructions is a vital professional skill, and it’s clever to emphasise it.
Similarly, it is clever of the advertiser to dispense with two of the longest-established but most pointless elements of the traditional job application process: the cover letter and the CV. Recruitment experts will tell you that both can be powerful, persuasive tools if you take the time and effort to construct them properly, that you should pay them a fee for helping you to do so, but the fact is that, just as many universities ignore Ucas personal statements, employers often ignore cover letters, given that a carefully crafted cover letter demonstrates only your ability to write a cover letter, or to get someone to write one for you.
CVs can be the dodgiest of dossiers. How dodgy? Well, research published by The Risk Advisory Group has found that 65 per cent of CVs contain false information, with common lies ranging from why the applicant left their previous job to falsehoods about degree certificates. Meanwhile, another survey from a UK recruitment agency has found that 70 per cent of people have lied at some point during the recruitment process and that of these 36 per cent have told a porky about a referee.
Which brings us to another inspired omission in this ad. Recruiters used to joke about the euphemistic nature of job references: “outgoing personality” meaning “never turns up”, “career-orientated” translating as “backstabbing”, “loyal” as “can’t get employed elsewhere”, and so on, but nowadays references don’t even have value as euphemisms.
New web-based services are emerging that offer fake references to jobseekers. Employers in the United States increasingly are landing in court over job references, facing lawsuits both for what they say and don’t say about former employees.
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In Britain, too, fear of being dragged before a court or an employment tribunal means that references are likely to be mere factual lists of dates and job titles with no mention of the employee’s competence or abilities. So why bother with the whole rigmarole?
Indeed, the most brilliant thing about this search for a “Twitter genius” is that it focuses in a pure way on finding someone who can actually do the job.
The problem with recruitment in the 21st century — and we can blame HR people for this — is that the processes have become so complicated and self-involved, with the insistence on drugs tests, equal-opportunities monitoring, psychometric testing, panel interviews and so on, that it has become a test of everything except your ability to do the job. And there is evidence to suggest that, at the end of it all, employers simply hire people on the basis of what they look and sound like, anyway.
This advert does not come with the usual claim that the employer “aims to ensure that staff are employed on the basis of ability”. The most encouraging sentence reads: “I don’t care if you’re just out of college or have ten years’ experience as long as you know social media marketing backwards.”
So, by focusing on the job at hand and asking people to apply in the medium that will be an essential part of the job, applicants will probably be treated with more fairness than by companies that do make the claim.