Thanks to @colmmu for tweeting this morning’s story (and @CatrinMills for RTing on LinkedIn) from Edwards Gibson about Law Firms using social networking sites to vet candidates (see HERE). The tweet has generated a lot of comment and there seems to be quite a split between those who think it is ok and those who believe it is a step too far.
For my part I welcome more interaction from law firms looking to recruit new people. If that means that they are looking at my social media profiles then ‘bring it on’. In a world where getting your next legal role means competing with huge numbers of other candidates to even get to the stage where an agency will put your CV forward, it is great news to think that law firms might be conducting their own research. Job hunting is, more than ever before, a numbers game. There are so many out of work lawyers that agencies are able to be very selective about which candidates they put forward. Yes, this is good for the law firm because it means they have fewer CVs to review but it also means that they could be missing out on the perfect candidate.
This is why empowering law firms, and especially the partners who are looking for new team members, with the ability to check out potential candidates is a good idea. As more and more law firms start using Twitter and LinkedIn, more partners will develop their own profiles. In turn, they will interact with a very wide network of potential candidates and it makes sense, therefore, to ensure that your social media profiles are as positive as possible. This is simply good house-keeping anyway, why would you want to tweet that you were ‘smashed’ last night or ‘high as a kite’ on Thursday for example? I am not saying that we can’t let our hair down and have fun, but that if we do, we should keep the events and aftermath confined to those that were there to witness it – ‘What Happens in Vegas…’
We should also consider the impact of unsavoury or inappropriate comments on client retention. Would we want to instruct a lawyer who cannot manage an appropriate online presence? Probably not. It is the same reason that I am not FB friends with my Bank Manager, I like to think of her as professional and competent, my respect for her might be diminished if I found out that she kept blowing all her wages on telephone psychic lines in the hope of finding out when she was going to meet the man of her dreams…
Social media has revolutionised the workplace, it has brought the workplace out into the everyday world that we inhabit. We are constantly on show to anyone with an internet connection. Yes, it has brought about great new opportunities for networking and marketing but the price was always going to be high. That price is the freedom, that people thought they had, to behave badly outside of the hours from 9am to 5pm Mon – Fri.
I’ve already said this but there’s no harm in repeating it here: I’m delighted that prospective employers may be viewing my social networking profiles, and I’m working hard to keep the content appropriate and relevant. Marketing and networking skills are becoming more important for lawyers and I like to think that my social profiles show that I can manage an online presence both personally and professionally. Hopefully it makes me more of a ‘known quantity’ and helps prospective employers see if my personality would fit within their organisation because it says more about me as a person than my academic results do.
Totally with you on this one – I would see my social media “presence” as a positive and a great way to get across more of what I am about than you ever could in a CV (if I was looking for a job that is – better clarify at this stage that I am not!).
Some employers might look at it negatively in a “social media isn’t appropriate for lawyers” or “it’s all people talking about what they had for lunch” way, but maybe this is a good way of being selective about employers – would you really want to work there anyway?
On the flipside, you know people probably do stuff at the weekend which they wouldn’t put on their CV. What would trouble me is employing someone sufficiently lacking in common sense to post this type of stuff publicly and/or to realise that it didn’t exist in some kind of vacuum…
Obviously there is the perennial worry for employers too – if they find out information which they aren’t allowed to use in the recruitment process then it puts them in a difficult position.
Many thanks for your comment! I certainly agree with you about whether or not social media savvy lawyers would want to work for firms who take a dim view of it. That being said, I like to think that I could help them to see how benficial it could be for them.
I think it is just a matter of common sense when looking to recruit to review potential candidate’s on-line presence both for positive and negative feedback. However, I sensed in your blog a suggestion that people will start using the social media sites as a source of potential candidates. I think that will be unlikely (certainly in the short term). I see it more that when considering a short list of candidates part of the due diligence you carry out will be to do a search on-line and see what comes up. To be honest it is not just about social media; I would consider just doing a Google search. One has to be extremely careful with the results but pretending that the information does not exist makes no sense to me.
Many thanks for taking the time to read my post and to comment. I hadn’t intended to imply that social media sites would become a source of potential candidates. I was focusing more on the fact that interaction between firms and potential candidates could only be a good thing, and that maintaining a suitable online profile was therefore important. I imagine that it will work in one of two ways:
1. the firm will have a shortlist of candidates and will check out online profiles as part of the due diligence,
2. firms (staff involved in recruitment decisions) will have people within their own network with whom they have built a rapport or relationship with to the stage where they might consider them suitable for interview. Option 2 makes financial sense, especially if a firm is looking to save on agency recruitment fees. It will be interesting to see how recruitment changes in the coming years. I am optimistic that networking will eventually play as large a part in recruiting new staff as it does in securing new clients.
I’m sure such practice will be commonplace, accepted and just a normal part of the process in a very short timeframe…if it’s not already, albeit in a rather quiet way. I don’t see that it’s intrusive to search publicly available information on candidates, even as a quick ‘common sense’ check (i.e do they have any, do they manage their social media presence appropriately).
I have two twitter accounts, one is personal and is locked. And this one, which is my professional face and is open. I’m not fool enough to think you can ever, realistically ‘hide’ though so my general rule is…if I wouldn’t want my family or my clients to read me saying xyz, then I don’t say it.
But you’re making a much more interesting point that the usual ‘cover your tracks, be aware of who is reading’ kind of alarmist post. You’re proactively using your online presence to enhance your profile to potential employers and demonstrate your skills/experience in a way which, I’m sure, few others in this industry are doing in a meaningful way. No doubt everyone will do so in years to come, but in the meantime I’m sure there is a window of opportunity so good luck to you!