Matchmake with Social Media

A piece in Mashable grumbled about how retailers and other businesses are overlooking the value of social media as a matchmaker. The article is talking about hooking up with job candidates.
     One angle on this is realizing that prospective employees now use Facebook, Google+, and the rest to size you up as a prospective employer. Sure, they may also be checking out reviews of your store on sites like Yelp, and before applying for employment with you, they’re likely to visit your store. But social media channels allow the job seeker to assess the personality of your business from what you, the owner or operator, choose to show and tell.
     Knowing this, you’ll want to:

• Include material on your social media sites to reflect the history and the culture of your store
• Encourage your current employees to contribute material to the pages, and then comment as the owner/operator on what’s been contributed
• Invite job seekers to ask questions via the site, and then answer the questions in ways appealing to the types of people you’d like to have working for you

     There’s more, though: Recognize the potential traps in using social media in ways that might be seen as paralleling computer dating services.
     Psychological science findings from Northwestern University, Texas A & M University, University of California-Los Angeles, University of Rochester, and Illinois State University identified traps in online matchmaking sites. Here are a few ways those findings could apply to retailers using social media to match themselves with the right staff members:

• Profiles are oversimplified. First, what appears is constrained by the categories used on that site. Second, the users want to appeal to a broad audience, so their descriptions are overly general.
• People exaggerate their virtues and hide their flaws in postings. And those reading the postings realize this, so correct for it. This results in a desire by posters to exaggerate even more.
• Profiles are static rather than dynamic. There’s insufficient attention to assessing how the partners would handle difficult situations as a pair after getting together.

     The psychologists who identified the troubles with online matchmaking sites recommend a potential couple meet each other face-to-face in a safe location early in the process. Parallel advice holds for the store management and the job candidate. Then screen a prospective employee by presenting a few situations and asking the prospect how he or she might handle each.

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Inculcate Your Staff with Store Values