Innovative Recruitment Tool: The Social Interview

There's a lot you can learn from looking at a person's Facebook profile. What was their last status update? Are there incriminating photos? What brands and causes do they like? And most tellingly, what do their friends say about them?

Now, recruiters at R/GA have a tool to answer that last question. The digital advertising agency has created an app that places the interview right on a candidate's Facebook profile. As part of the interview process, hopeful interns have three questions posted to their profile for their Facebook friends to answer. Take a look at the video below to see it in action:

I'm not quite sure if this would make me more nervous or not. After all, it's the living, breathing embodiment of the peer review, and positive feedback from an outside source is invaluable. However, leaving the fate of your internship in the hands of your friends is quite the trust-fall.

Either way, it's one more way that recruiters are leveraging social media for their employment needs. 

Research with Rob: Skyping for Depth

The following is a post by Rob Beachy, Axiom's Market Research Expert. Research with Rob is a weekly series of posts about the role of social media and technology in market research.

Smart phones have revolutionized the way we keep in contact with one another, but through video chat services like Skype, smart phones have changed the landscape of research as well.

For instance, I discussed panels vs. focus groups last week, but sometimes group interaction is not critical to the research process. This is where depth interviews (one-on-one interviews) come in, since they provide a great deal of information.

Being in-person is often difficult and time-consuming, so video chat alleviates the expenses associated with one-on-one interviews. We're constantly developing the role of social media technologies like Skype in our market research. Social media tools make depth interviews easier and faster to implement, while avoiding the time and financial cost of traveling.

The keys to an effective Depth Interview are:

• Qualify and Probe – Can you elaborate, explain, etc
• Unbiased - Explain but never sell
• Counter Question Technique – How much should it cost, weigh, etc.
• Common basis for comparison
• Flexibility to change and manage time

Depth interviews should be a strategic source of market research in every company and everyone involved in product development from marketing to technology should be trained and involved.

It is often as easy as scripting your questions and calling.