Connected Employees – Do You Buy iphone Candidates or Palm Pre Candidates?

There has been a lot of discussion on social media and the need for job candidates to have a social presence.  When BestBuy announced it wanted its new employee candidates to have 250 twitter followers, it really hit home that a candidate’s social footprint was a possible criterion for being considered for a job.  Some thought it might be a bit too avant garde – others said it was openers in our increasingly interconnected world.  I myself sat on the sidelines – until now.

This month’s issue of Wired magazine had an article called “Betting on the Store” by Steven Levy.  Levey highlights some of the impressive technology in the Palm Pre, and compares it to the iphone.  But the real point of the article is that for all the technology both phones have, the thing that is driving iphone sales – and will be needed to drive Palm Pre sales is…

That’s right.  The phones themselves are secondary to their ability to connect with applications that make the phones do more, do different stuff, do things we haven’t even imagined yet.  The value of the iphone is its ability to connect to many different applications – 50,000 now.  The Palm Pre – 30.  (yeah you read it right 30 apps.)  The google Android has 15,000 apps.

From the article:

“For all its technical wizardry, the iPhone’s greatest triumph is the way it ushered in a bounty of mobile apps, a fecund diversity previously seen only on the desktop.”

The value is in the connections

From a recruiting standpoint, it’s the same thing.  You can have an applicant that can do the job and has impressive previous experience.  But they’re just a “phone.”  Or you can have an iphone candidate – yeah they do the phone thing pretty well – maybe even a bit less well than the other applicant – but they have connections baby!  They know this person and that person.  They’re already connected on a blog in their vertical and have 2,500 twitter followers who are actively engaged.

Which candidate is better?

Job requirement-wise it might be the “phone.”  Enterprise-wise – the iphone applicant is your better bet.

So, like Steven Levy says in the article…Bet on the Store.