Blogger College; Twitter University is where we’d rather hire from.

I am finding myself drawn to a lot of young professionals who write blogs, or are active on Twitter, for our next round of hiring at Blogworks. Much more than even LinkedIn, which I find too static, and definitely more than college recruitment proposals that we get from time-to-time.
In the initial stages of hiring, it was critical for us that we get experienced professionals from a background in public relations, marketing, research, journalism as they brought along certain rigour & it was ok for them to pick up social media tools & impact once as they joined Blogworks. I wasn’t too comfortable picking up team members who may have been bloggers, but weren’t really from a background in communication/ marketing.
Things have changed, a lot of communication students are now studying/ researching social media impact at university level; they are writing blogs that give a glimpse into their learning; Twitter is their playground and their interactions their allow a nice window into their personality. It’s easy to find a culture match when you have interacted with a prospect one-on-one through these online engagements.
Their learning curve is anyway sharper than an average pass out who may, or may not, warm up to social media. Same when one is looking for experienced mid-level team.
The only category where I haven’t been able to identify talent (Bar one person, not available for hiring) is at a senior, strategic level – someone with a proven body of work and understanding of social media at a strategic level in marketing & business. It will happen.