100 rpm

Exposing those cv porky pies

CIPR Midlands is running an event You're Hired! aimed at helping interviewers get the most out of prospective candidates - a great idea for a session, since small companies and agencies sometimes lack the ability to coach or train new managers in this area.

Unless there were blatant lies on a cv, it could take until interview stage to expose some of the best works of fiction on a cv:

Interviewer:  "You say you enjoy going to the theatre?  What's the last play you went to see?"

Interviewee:  "Um, I saw some Shakespeare at school ... I like the idea of going though."

Interviewer:  "It's great that you're interested in current affairs - did you hear our client interviewed by John Humphrys on the Today programme this morning?"

Interviewee:  "No ... I don't watch Channel 4 news" (pause as interviewer scrapes herself off the floor)

However, thanks to Twitter, we don't have to waste our time at interview stage finding out that the candidate we're talking bears no resemblence to the person on the cv. 

You say you're interested in current affairs?  I'll expect you to follow at least a couple of national daily newspapers or online news sites (and not just those recommended to you when you sign up to Twitter).   And since you're working in PR, you must be fascinated by the media in all its forms, so I'll expect to see you following @mediaguardian at the very least.   And while the sort of PR people you want to follow might depend on the nature of PR you're interested in, I'd expect you to follow at least a couple of these PR/social media people or the people they're connected to:  @stedavies, @jangles, @markpinsent, @wadds @emilycagle @mediaczar @armano, @trevoryoung, @shelholtz, @harrietcrosse @behindthespin (these names have been picked at random from people I follow who posted today, in case you were wondering why you were included or missed out).   

If you don't follow any PR people (or journalists) I'll smell a rat straight away - are you really interested in a career in PR, or did it just seem like a nice idea?  And if you say you love politics, I'll expect you to follow at least a handful of politicians.   

And  of course it's not just about following ... it's about how you use Twitter as well. 

A walk on the {client} side: Twitter and transparency

A couple of days ago I noticed that a PR friend of mine, Aaron Huckett, digital manager with Publicasity, was suffixing all client-related tweets with this:  {client}. I thought that  this was a great step forward in terms of Twitter transparency (I’m often confused as to whether a PR practitioner really, really loves a new product or is just tweeting on behalf of a client) and asked Aaron to tell me more about his reasons for adding {client} to client-related tweets. A flurry of Twitter DMs and emails resulted in Aaron kindly agreeing to be my guest blogger so that we could find out more. Here’s his take on transparency and Twitter. Thanks Aaron!

Aaron writes:  Transparency and covert promotions are a major issue in online public relations.  In the USA the FTC recently announced that it wants to start fining bloggers and twitterers who fail to disclose information about payment for endorsements . In other words, you could get in a lot of trouble for saying how much you like this particular cake if you don’t say that you are being paid by Mr Kipling! Working in PR, this can be a big problem. Seeding is a big part of getting the message across, and while I am more than happy to flag up any interesting product/client updates on my personal Twitter account (aaronhuckett), after reading this article I thought it would be wise to think about how to go about this with transparency.

Simple solution – whenever I mention or refer to a client in my tweets or retweets I simply type {client} at the end of the tweet. This makes the tweet totally transparent and lets the reader know my intention with that tweet – and this is something I have noticed a couple of PR agencies doing in their Twitter accounts.

I have also been relayed this into my company’s (Publicasity) Twitter accounts (@publicasity and @digicasity) which usually feature updates on the industry or about things going on in the office – but where we are openly promoting a client, I think it is wise to use the {client} tag.

What do you think? Reckon there is an easier way to put it? Got a good argument for still being secretive about these things?

Twitter recruitment: A case study

I'd heard of Twitter's use as a recruitment tool, but hadn't seen this aspect of Twitter in action.  This month, however, all this changed.  Rather that writing a lengthy post about who tweeted what to whom, I'll let the tweets speak for themselves.

It all started when I saw this tweet by @DavidGHPhillips

A couple of former students of mine are on Twitter and looking for PR jobs, so I tweeted:

@DavidGHPhillips then direct messaged me:

I didn't direct message my students to make sure that they'd seen my tweet – reasoning that if they were going to make it in the world of digital PR, they would see and act on my tweet without any prompting from me.

 Anyway, just a couple of days later, I received a direct message from @aaronhuckett:

Then ...

Yippee!  So I tweeted @DavidGHPhillips to let him know the outcome of his original tweet:

 And his response?

The main impression that arises from all this exchange is the speed at which it this happened - just nine days from first tweet to job offer.   No one in this chain procrastinated - something that I'll point out to the next student I meet who, on hearing of a job offer, says:  "I'll sort out my cv over the next couple of weeks..."

Blame it on the intern ...

So the  Habitat/Twitter/Hash tag incident  was the result of the actions of "an over-enthusiastic intern."  Oh, so that's all right then.  No, it isn't.

Despite the Habitat apology seeming to have resulted in the story losing a lot of momentum (or maybe we can thank Michael Jackson for that) it is still a weak excuse.   Interns, even if they have come from a top PR/marketing degree programme, still need ongoing guidance and leadership, and it does suggest that both were lacking if the intern could carry out so much hashtag spamming.     Personally, I don't think that interns (apart from those on long-term placements) should be doing any externally-facing work (contacting journalists, online activity, etc.) unless they have a good understanding and awareness of client/organisation and a very good brief.  It does suggest that either the intern was either let loose without sound instructions or anyone checking on their work, or there was simply no understanding from those who briefed him/her on what Twitter really was.

In my experience, PR interns are often (although not always) placed with a junior member of a comms team, and this unlucky person may themselves have been charged with "putting us on Twitter" - but if this is the case, this does beg the question of why Habitat's online reputation was not being seen as worthy of attention by those in management or higher ...