A truly funny story happened to me this morning. I had a nice presentation on the International Recruitment Conference on Friday. As you know me, I take pictures. Pictures of people. Wherever I go. I actually become known for it lately. Whenever I meet people on conferences, if I do not post pictures the next day, my mailbox will always have a few messages asking if or when and where will the pictures be published (finally!!!)? People like to see themselves and chats always start around the photos. It is in a way a social networking in pictures. There is lots of fun that emerged from my snapshots! I enjoy taking them, and people are always looking for them and asking for a high res version to reuse them somewhere else. I gladly give them away. I feel happy when I manage to make others happy.
But there is one who I do not make happy. Actually not happy at all with my pictures. I first noticed it today, and I simply could not believe it. Here is a full story.
After presenting about Social Networking in Recruitment, and participating in on the really good conference last week, I was looking forward to publish the photographs I made. And again, I didn’t even manage to upload them all this morning, and the colleagues started calling me, and the conference organiser as well, asking when will the photos be published since people are asking them for the copy! I speeded it up and published them all on my blog here. I tweeted it, and put on my LinkedIn profile, and in the relevant Irish Recruitment groups of LinkedIn where I am a member.
Mails are coming, and comments and fun begins.
Well one person was not happy. That is the moderator of the LinkedIN Group called Irish Recruiters. My announcement of the photographs published was swiftly removed from the ‘conversation’. My first thought was that I didn’t manage to publish it, clicked something wrong, or LinkedIn ha a bug?
Well the fact is that that the moderator of the group simply removed it. I used a search to look for my other contributions to the group discussions and found out what? All of my contributions, all my questions, comments and answers – all is removed from the group. All that I wrote in about the last year. Some old ones are still there.
The Irish Recruiters group on LinkedIn is really heavily policed and censored by the moderator. In my understanding of the Social Networks the conversations should be open as opposed to be censored. If you cannot tolerate contributions that are not praising your services, is it really the best thing to do just to delete them? And put a head in the sand trying to ignore there is a different opinion than yours out there? Social media cannot be controlled. That is the power of it! One cannot have a Irish Recruiters group on LinkedIn and allow only the contribution to the conversation he or she likes, since it sells his or hers service.
Irish Recruiters group on LinkedIn is really the bad example of the social media strategy. Incapacity to deal with issues forces the moderator to delete conversations as opposed to tune in and contribute himself. It really is damaging the for the recruitment industry, since it gives misleading snapshot of the topics and issues covered by the Irish recruiters.
2 replies on “Irish Recruiters on LinkedIn”
Ivan, I too got booted off that group by Declan. Had been a top contributor and even won best profile on linkedin award !!! but he felt i had been selling our websites to much so hasta la vista baby…..
Well done Niall! I guess I should be giving the Social Media Recruitment Awards going forward! I wouldn’t kick you out afterwards! :)
It is actually funny how many people told me they thought it was them only, whose comments, discussions and contribution gets deleted from Irish Recruiters. The funny thing is that I cannot remember any of my social media contributions being deleted ever. From anywhere. Can you? I was never kicked out of any group. I am guessing it is simply because I know how to, and I do behave online (not so sure about offline though).
It is actually funny that a group that calls themselves ‘Irish Recruiters’ kicks out the MD of the best known Irish niche job site. A man with most likely far more experience in the recruitment industry in Ireland than the people running the Irish Recruiters LinkedIn group.
Being approachable, open and honest, is what works in Social Media. I started JobsBlog.ie as a sales tool really, to reach to all recruiters with a honest publication to them. And of course sell my job site advertising. It worked perfectly. Why? It was honest. When I got recruiters engaged, I did not hide my clients, I made sure they are as visible as possible. Regardless of their views or opinions. What made me even more proud is the contribution by my direct competition. Job boards competing with mine started commenting articles, and guess what – I published every single one of them!
Social Media need engagement of all, not just the ones that you like, or it becomes sterile and bland. Boring. Worthless.
If I get invited to speak in a Recruitment conference in Dublin, it IS appropriate to announce it and show a link to the PPT presentation in the group of Irish Recruiters. Actually I cannot think of anything being more appropriate and of a value to the recruiters in Ireland. If you cannot make the conference – here is the presentation if you want to see what was the conference about.
Is the problem that this is a mention to a competitors conference? And the owner of Irish Recruiter does not get any money from it? That is actually the problem. Irish Recruiters Linkedin Group has an ‘Owner’. Not a facilitator. An Owner. With an interest in monetising it in any way possible. Advertisements and sponsorships are the two words mentioned far too often. What a good Social Media Group needs is a facilitator. Light touch moderation. Not filtering and policing as it has today. No MD’s of the recruitment companies being kicked out! That really is bad. And that is the reason it has no future like this. Because it has no value. Because it is not run openly and honestly.