In the car business, it can be difficult to get names of people. If I just had a name, I can easily stalk find people. I can call them at work and directly ask for them (pretending to be their girlfriend, sister, anything…) if I just had a name.
I’ve been known to do some pretty sneaky things to get names. Today, I am going to show you how to sneaky-recruit on Facebook.
There are more than 750 million users on Facebook. These people fall into two categories: HAS A JOB and DOESN’T HAVE A JOB. I’m always targeting people from both of these categories, so it makes sense to use the biggest people network on Earth to stalk find talent.
Let’s pretend. Today I’m looking for a Finance Manager.
If any of my employees are reading this, I am JUST PRETENDING! Don’t freak out. I’m not replacing you. Yet.
NOTE: Before I show you this, I don’t really care if you think I’m stalking people. They will be happy when they get a better job with my company, and I will be happy when the hiring manager fills his position for ZERO dollars in advertising. You know, since Facebook is free and all.
1. LOG IN! Easy enough.
If you’re not on Facebook, get an account. How else are you going to spy on your employees once they work for you? Hello?
2. Find ONE person who works for the company you want to steal people recruit from. In my case, I wanted to recruit from Yark. They are our biggest competitor. And they like to steal my people, so I don’t feel even a little bit bad about this.
You don’t know one person’s name at your competitor? Call the company, tell them you have a complaint, and ask to speak to your Salesman. You can’t remember his name though. Under pressure, with an upset customer on the phone, that Receptionist will start spouting off names. WRITE THEM DOWN and start looking for these people on Facebook. SALESMEN ALWAYS HAVE THE MOST FRIENDS! It’s in their nature.
3. Look at this employee’s friends. He is bound to be friends with people in the company on Facebook. Especially since he/she is in Sales. Sales people have a deep, burning desire to be friends with as many people as possible.
4. THIS IS WHERE IT GETS GOOD! You can weed his friends out based on where they work. There is a drop-down box by the search bar below his name (“Search by Workplace”). Type where he works in the search box. In this case, “Yark Automotive Group”. If the company has a Fan page, it will auto-fill for you.
5. Once you get it sorted by their company, matches will appear (even for private profiles) for the people who have listed this business as their employer.
6. Now that you’ve clicked on a name, look and see if these people are listing job titles. Angie is a Warranty Administrator. This is not what I’m looking for today (remember, I need a Finance Manager). Time to go back to the mattresses. You can go back and search from the original person you stalked found. Or you can search the new girl’s friends.
7. I chose to search through her friends. She has 11 matches of co-workers. Once again, I start clicking on these profiles.
8. I am now clicking away on her co-worker friends. This girl does not want to be recruited. Her profile is locked down. But I can still search her friends! That information is not private. Back to the mattresses again.
9. I go through her friends (again by narrowing my search to their workplace). And just like magic, I find myself a Finance Manager. TA-DA!
At this point I do what all good recruiters do, I send him a message on Facebook. My profile picture is pretty and approachable (and photoshopped). People want to respond back to me and my pretty picture.
(read: make sure you have a nice profile picture if you’re going to do this)
Dear So-And-So,
I work at This Place, and I’m looking for a Finance Manager. I see that you work for Yark as a Finance Manager, and I have heard your name come up in the industry as one of the best in town!
Our benefits and pay plan are better than Yark’s. I know this for a fact. DJ works here now, and he’s never been happier! Call me on my cell phone so we can set up a confidential meeting. What do you have to lose? Nothing. But you have everything to gain.
(555) 867-5309
Thanks!
Meredith Soleau
HR Manager
This Place
I wait one day for a response, and I call him at work the following day to tell him to check his Facebook messages if he didn’t follow-up. If that doesn’t work, I go back to the Facebook mattresses.
1% of the time, a person’s manager will call me and tell me to stop reaching out to their employees on Facebook (clearly this employee is very loyal – which makes me want them more). But I don’t really care if the bosses get mad. My job is to find the best people for my company. So you need to have a thick skin and stroke the egos of those you’re recruiting throughout the Facebook process.
There you have it. 100% free stalking recruiting. I imagine this also works for stalking finding an ex-boyfriend.
Have you ever tried this? Will you try it now? Will it work for your industry?
This post is a great example of just how hard recruiters work. Yes, we often go through this much time and effort to find candidates.
An ad would probably be less expensive, but also less effective, than Meredith’s time.
One caveat, the ruse call described here is an illegal act in many jurisdictions. Find that first employee’s name using LinkedIn, Google, or Bing just to be safe.
Donna Svei
http://www.AvidCareerist.com
That would work. I just googled “finance manager yark automotive,” though, and came up with decent results for a fraction of the effort. Many companies even publish a staff directory online.
Paul- that would work in this instance. I was simply showing an example of how to find people on Facebook. Not all companies list employees and positions on their websites.
I’m just thinking that it’s articles and tactics like this that make good candidates mistrust recruiters in general and generally look down on the profession.
I have patiently been waiting for someone to post something like… “Gasp, I cannot believe you do this. What about policies and procedures? Will this get you sued when you learn of their personal activities?”
Or, are we finally past that point?
Or, are we proving that the FOT group is a cool group? (I am guessing this one)
I did a little research on SHRM. 58% of companies are sourcing on Facebook. The #1 cited reason (at 84%)? You can find people that wouldn’t have normally applied for your position.
As far as creating mistrust is concerned… I mean, really. How are YOU getting names? Running expensive ads on Monster and praying someone applies? I think that is pretty passive.
Recruits are potential customers (since I’m in HR – my employees are my customers). Always be selling.
An apology to ESearchAssoc. When I posted my comment yours had not yet appeared. So some bad timing makes it look like I was contradicting you and while I did a little it was not with intent to be at you.
Meredith,
I source candidates in a lot of ways. How one finds potential candidates is not so much the issue to me as how one approaches them … the degree to which you demonstrate integrity in your interactions with them.
For example, if I were a candidate, I would be immediately suspicious of any line such as, “I’ve been asking around for _____ and your name keeps coming up.” Or “I heard you were one of the best in town.”
Candidates these days are pretty savvy. They get contacted by lots of recruiters. They are hesitant to give references, because of recruiters who turn around and try to source the references. They are hesitant to even trust a recruiter who says that an opportunity is a good one because the half the recruiters lie to them in some way when they are trying to interest them in the opportunities.
I used to work as an HR manager and sat in on a sales seminar in which a sales manager was telling other sales people to make up stories that invented some common connection with their potential clients. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, or the way the sales person looked smug when I told her that sort of thing was unacceptable. … It’s what makes everyone hate salespeople.
If I want names, I ask for names directly. Often, because my contacts trust me, they come to me with names when I’m not even asking for them.
Based on Knowledge close to this situation, your tactics are failing.
Not certain who that’s directed toward Larry, but certainly it’s possible to be “successful” or not be using the methods described above.
Sometimes the success has everything to do with the methods one uses, and other times, it has to do with the economy suddenly turning upside down and spooking everyone.
I think it’s worth raising the point though that one could be a good “sneaky recruiter” and that wouldn’t necessarily be a good thing in the long run.
I thought your article was absolutely brilliant, Meredith. You’re an inspiration to me. When I grow up, I want to be as cunning and fearless as you
It’s not surprising that if you get outside of the box, the people still in the box start feeling old. I don’t know about car sales, but in the creative world, if you’ve got as much talent and potential as I have, you’re gonna be more impressed with somebody using the same tools of communication that you are using. For me, I wouldn’t work for any company who’s not on the very forward edge, much less one who’s already expressing a tiger crouch about the way I communicate.
There is downside on using social networks.
Companies look for your ass in these networks when you apply for a job.
If they like what they see….you get the job.
This is very interesting and proves that users of social media like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn really need to be careful what they post and ask the question – ‘who may be reading my page?’ when posting.
Meredith, I’m glad you posted this. Your thought process is so similar to those of many HR managers. You show why it’s so vitally important always to put your best foot forward in the world of social media – even if it’s just Facebook.
UR welcome to discuss this on The Recruiting Animal Show. If UR interested let me know. http://bit.ly/hy2tyS
This will work until everyone figures out how to lock down their entire profile… Facebook may be good but I bet LinkedIn is better. I like the approach, though. Clever!
I used to work in automotive recruiting, it’s the easiest game in town to source, why would you go through all this trouble when you can just call the dealership say you want to buy, but have credit problems, who is your finance manager, or just call up and say i was in last night but couldn’t wait for the finance manager, can you connect me, what was his name again? This would be good for technical positions or positions where the person you aren’t trying to reach wouldn’t be expecting outside phone calls.
I don’t do all this work anymore. I now use BranchOut. They called me after this article was published, and now I find people in seconds from Facebook since they took out the leg work.
It is a very effective way to find Service Techs and other skilled trades workers. Also, I this is an example to show other people how to do it on Facebook and that it works. Not everyone sources for dealerships. Also, I said “let’s pretend”, right up at the top, and just picked a random position to show them so they could see it works for anyone.
But, yes, I do sometimes call and ask for the name of the Used Car Manager because I need to mail something to him.
Thanks for your concern.