”Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for the love of it.” – Henry David Thoreau 

The social web starts on Facebook. In North America, South America, and Europe, the vast majority of the entire population use Facebook. Fifty-six percent of all shared content on the web comes through Facebook and the average Facebook user spends well over 15 hours per month on the site interacting with friends, family and … the companies whose products and services they enjoy. Today, there are already over 4 million businesses on Facebook, and this direct social connection between company and consumer is changing the way consumers make decisions and businesses market.

In 2000, Bill Clinton said, “Today many companies are reporting that their number one constraint on growth is the inability to hire workers with the necessary skills.” Back then, the internet was booming domains, unemployment was 4%, and Mark Zuckerberg was just getting his driver’s license.  Well Bill, you may still find yourself in the Oval Office, but you are sitting in a different chair. There are more people on the Facebook today than people on the entire internet in 2004 (Buddy Media). In the social web, identifying who has the necessary skills has become a whole lot easier.

Business is about people. What do they want? What do they make? How do buyers and sellers meet at Market Street? The rub is, too many Americans are being excluded from business – involuntarily. This is involuntary deadweight loss; involuntary to the business owners, who currently have over 3.5 million open jobs they want filled; and involuntary to the 18+ million Americans (12m+ unemployed and 6m+ underemployed), who are actively seeking more work.

SmartRecruiters believes by making the hiring process easy, we can significantly better the labor market. Recently we launched our Got Jobs? Campaign with the end goal of creating 1 million American jobs by giving businesses free technology, discounted 3rd party services, and the opportunity to celebrate the jobs they create. SmartRecruiters also moved into a new office. This all culminated in hosting a “We’ve Got Jobs” launch party.

“Finding the right people to join their team is a huge hurdle for startups who are focused on growing their businesses,” said Scott Case, CEO of the Startup America Partnership. “SmartRecruiters makes that process easier and we’re thrilled to have them on board as a new partner to help our members.”

FED Chairmen Ben Bernake addressed the nation on March 26, 2012 (but do the unemployed people agree with the what he says of unemployment?). Bernake concluded:

“A wide range of indicators suggests that the job market has been improving, which is a welcome development indeed. 

Once upon I was interviewing for a job: true story. It was a niche industry recruiting job. I had no previous experience in the recruiting industry. I was just an unemployed former reporter with a degree in economics, taking an interview that came my way after moving to a new city. This firm, which I will not mention by name, was trying to see how people think by asking questions not explicitly related to the job. Let me preface our interaction by saying, I do think this ‘Google Interview Technique‘ has value (when the interviewer knows how to use it…).

So the interviewer set the stage, and the conversation unfolded:

If you do business on the internet, you will need a marketing manager to cover your search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM). At a bigger company, SEO and SEM are separate fulltime jobs, but at a smaller company these tasks can overlap.

I’m asking You! WHAT IS SOCIAL RECRUITING? Here are the 4 most popular online definitions of Social Recruiting:

Wikipedia said, “Social recruiting is a contested term. It is a concept at the intersection of recruitment and the embryonic field of social media. There are several terms used interchangeably including social hiring, social recruitment and social media recruitment.”

Allison Doyle, Job Search and Employment Expert at About.com, said, “Social Recruiting is when companies and recruiters use Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and other social media sites to source and recruit candidates for employment.”

Matt Alder, Strategy Consultant for HR and Founder of MetaShift, said, “Social Recruiting is a concept not a defined technique,” and breaks down the three primary activities of Social Recruiting as Push, Pull, and being Genuinely Social.

Robin Richards, CEO of CareerArc, TweetMyJobs, and Internships.com, told Fox that Social Recruiting “is a proactive process for job seekers and recruiters to search, converse, share, engage and refer each other using social media, web-based and mobile platforms.”

These quotes were based on what Google lists as the most popular definitions of social recruiting. But Google also confirmed something else I’ve been noticing, the narrowness of definitions for social recruiting. For, when you type “social recruiting is” into Google, check out what it says the next most common word is:

Social Recruiting is the buzz. When people are unsure of what the buzz is, they often talk about what it is not. But Social Recruiting is evolving into something big. So don’t speculate on what is not, define what it is.

Answer Below: What is Social Recruiting?

The two biggest websites in the world wide web are free to the user. This fact about Facebook and Google often gets overlooked. And Wikipedia too. Remember when Encyclopedia salesmen used to sell door-to-door, lugging around volumes upon volumes? Time’s have changed. The weight of your encyclopedia is as light as your SmartPhone, and by the way, it’s free. What other industry does not charge for its most popular products?

Most industries do business online. The percentage of transactions and services within many industries - including the $400B recruiting industry -  that are now taking place online has never been higher.