What’s the latest take on the most recent social media darling, Pinterest, from a talent acquisition standpoint? An ad hoc survey and review of this reveals that at this point in time, for many recruiters, Pinterest is really not much of a viable recruitment tool.
That said, I think we’ll see a lot more jockeying for talent acquisition thought leadership positions on this topic in the forthcoming months.
Both Sides of the Coin
Even though many talent acquisition professionals are not using Pinterest there are some people in HR that think Pinterest is yet another tool to find that illusive best fitting candidate, especially as it relates to certain positions, some of which are in the creative or media areas.
Mildred Talabi states on her post on RecruitingBlogs.com that “if you’re someone looking to work in a creative industry such as advertising or media in a non-design scope, you may want to consider getting interested in Pinterest.” She indicates that Pinterest can help candidates out by gaining additional “Exposure” as well as by being perceived as “Cutting-edge.”
George Anders’ post in the Harvard Business Review entitled “Smart Social Media Helps Jobs Find You,” makes the claim that “Pinterest could become showcases of great work in almost any field. Recruiters increasingly are prowling the web to look for the best candidates.” I am not sure I would agree with his “any field” assertion, and his post really focuses more on other social media options for job seekers, rather than on specific Pinterest examples.
Not So Fast!
On the other side of the coin, many think Pinterest is not really suitable as recruitment tool. Rob Moss, whose blog The Hire Escape from Personnel Today reports that Pinterest is really more of the social media platform “de jour” and that it’s time for HR to “Forget Pinterest.” He concurs with blogger Laurie Ruettimann who states “Human Resources Should Stay Off Pinterest” – which she happens to post and illustrate on her Pinterest page, of all places!
A lot of the criticism I hear about using Pinterest in the recruitment process seems to do with how much time it takes to effectively search through Pinterest for the right type of candidate, as well as it being limited to simply illustrating job seekers cv’s and collection of their interested images (which can frequently change). Additionally, how well, if at all, Pinterest can fit into one’s job requisition/order workflow and documentation process is another story altogether.
Regardless of what side of the debate you’re on, there’s no question that Pinterest is growing very fast. According to Techcrunch calculations, if Pinterest maintains its current growth rate, it will have 187 Million users by November of 2012. In other words, there’s a lot of interest in Pinterest.
A Picture’s Worth a Thousand Words
There’s no question that graphics, pictures and illustrations can be featured very well on Pinterest. With all of the infographics being used, I am starting to think the various producers of infographics have a new cottage industry that should be booming.
What do you think about Pinterest and recruiting? Feel free to share your comments at the end of this post!
Infographics Rule!
Some of my favorite talent acquisition and HR infographics that I’ve come across on Pinterest, in no particular order, include:
The Real Cost of a Bad Hire
State of Recruiting
The WSJ’s Take on the ATS Recruitment Funnel
Is your organization using Pinterest for any recruitment or talent acquisition, and if so, what kind of results are you seeing? Share your thoughts below!
Not even close!
We tried it and it wasted a lot of time. I might really depend on the position (and there a lots of other ways to reach candidates).
I would be interested on how this could work other than seeing what a person has created for social media purposes or retail e-commerce exposure. You can showcase companies but as far as show casing your actual talents/word experience would be difficult in my opinion. Either way social outlets always grow into something you never saw coming so I will leave it at” Never say Never!”
Early research appears to indicate that Pinterest skews almost entirely toward female users. Has anyone else heard that?
This reminds me a lot of the questionable comments about LinkedIn and Facebook, when those first came to the forefront as possible recruitment tools. I think any forward thinking talent acquisition professional worth their salt needs to take Pinterest seriously – look at their user numbers for goodness sakes!
We’re both right! I wasn’t ever trying to suggest that Pinterest would be a good place to find engineers, finance specialists, general managers, etc., etc. For the majority of jobs, it’s a poor source.
But it’s not that hard to come up with a smaller list of jobs were a Pinterest page might provide a fine peek at someone’s portfolio. Examples might include graphic design, specialty retail sales (antiques; outdoor gear, etc.), event planning, etc.
More broadly, we’re moving to a world where there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to sourcing talent. It’s important to be adaptive enough to go where the talent resides, switching hunting grounds often, depending on what’s being sought.
Good point George, and I agree that it’s important to be able “go where the talent resides.” At the end of the day, this is really just another recruitment media channel. To that end, if it works well for someone and they find it an effective and efficient source to recruit talent from, it will be used again…and again. Thanks for the comments!