To Whom It May Concern:
A Facebook friend of mine who works in a Boston-area realty firm forwarded me a message last night thinking I’d enjoy reading it. Boy, was she right! It was an article published on the website of the MLS Property Information Network that indicated the 1.3 million membership-strong NAR is stepping into the social media limelight.
To which I say: Congratulations!
I won’t echo the details, qualifications, or arguments stressed by my new friend Paul Chaney, president of the International Blogging & New Media Association, who interviews NAR managing director Hilary Marsh; nor the various perspectives (and numerous comments, including Hilary herself) from Phoenix real estate agent Jay Thompson who writes at both his Agent Genius blog and over at NAR Wisdom.
But there’s more.
The MLSPIN site points me to your Monster.com job listing, which includes the following 6 responsibilities:
- Monitor real estate industry and related social media
- Facilitate NAR’s participation in external blogs and social media
- Maintain, evolve, and enforce NAR’s social media policies and guidelines
- Train NAR staff and elected leaders about how to write for blogs and other forms of social media
- Monitor existing NAR blogs and create new ones as needed to foster conversations about relevant topics or issues
- Measure the effectiveness of NAR’s social media efforts
It looks good. Really! I’m glad to see a national association stepping up to the plate with full battle array and ready to engage itself and its stakeholders and members to usher in the 21st century.
Looking further down the job listing page, I see you ask prospective candidates to send you a resume and a cover letter to a generic email address. Moreover, this listing is on Monster.com.
I’m looking for income, but I’m not looking at Monster; it’s a great organization offering a super service but it’s overused and each advertised position, frankly, receives too many responses. Don’t you agree from past experience?
To be fair, you’re also listing the job on LinkedIn, but again, you’re asking for the same information. Surely you view Monster and LinkedIn as different tools, right? One is a job listing database and the other is a professional networking tool. If someone sees your LinkedIn job listing, they’re probably already on the site and already have their “resume” and “summary,” so all that’s necessary is a LinkedIn in-mail message to Lisa Monde with a few lines saying, “Hi. I’m interested. I do X and Y. Google me for the rest. Let’s chat.”
Maybe you’re baiting people to neither send you a resume nor a cover letter. Hmm.
Oh, and how come your notes and discussion messages at neither your Facebook page, nor President Dick Gaylord’s blog (which I found by navigating from the Realtor.org home page to “About Nar” to “President’s Report” before seeing a link) specify this new role?
And where is NAR on Twitter? I see nar_midyear, naraei, and ypn. Is that it? How come you didn’t use hash tags for the first two, like I mentioned #redsox in my recent article about how I use Twitter?
Just wondering.
Please don’t take my letter as negation, Search Committee. I think it’s awesome you’re doing this and, if my cursory search is any indication of the truth, your new person ought to be paid handsomely to bring you up to speed.
Couldn’t Jay Thompson, author of the two aforelinked blogs, be your “evangelist” and help you find the person, rather than the person finding you? Wouldn’t it be neat if NAR could use social media to hire someone in social media? I recently wrote about Hiring 2.0 and how employers are hiring people online, too.
If what I’m saying strikes a chord, I’d enjoy hearing from you. I’d like to see this work and I’m willing to work with you on a consulting basis to help fine-tune the right person.
Sincerely,
Ari Herzog
P.S. I wonder how frequently this new candidate will avail him or herself of the “discounted on-site massages,” per the last line of your Monster listing. Nevermind; I can guess.
Related posts:
- Piloting Social Media as an Astronaut
- 12 Ways to Use LinkedIn Today
- My 20 Most Popular Blog Posts on Social Media
Comments:
Ari Herzog is an online media strategist and Newburyport City Councilor-Elect.
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Great post!
I feel much of your angst as I apply to similar positions related to Social Media and Web 2.0. Why the low pay? Why the lack of understanding. If they are serious about this search, they should be searching for people already in this world and offer them the opportunity to interview and not take in the thousands of resumes instead.
Very interesting post Ari! Thanks for taking the time to weigh in with your expertise (and thanks for the linkage and kind words).
I honestly thought about sending in a cover letter that read simply, “See Google”. I don’t think that would have been well received or taken seriously, though it should have been.
I’ve read that the NAR used Monster to “reach people outside the real estate space”.
OK….. but as you so eloquently put it, why not use social media to uhm, reach social media types?
What we have here is a large bureaucracy that is behind the times. They are to be applauded (IMHO) for taking this step — it is a big step for them. That they chose to use “traditional” hiring practices for a position like this really speaks volumes for the need for this position to be filled.
It’s going to be interesting…
Jay Thompson´s last blog post..Win a Copy of Seth Godin’s “Tribes”
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