When is a discovery not a discovery?

Now that the alternative recruitment secret has been outed (social networking works), how many other ‘new age’ business solutions are waiting to be ‘discovered’? MICHAEL PHILLIPS

By Michael Phillips

Here I was thinking I had cracked the new recruitment code. That somehow I stumbled across an unseen land of opportunity that no one else had yet discovered. Well, I’m happy to admit I was wrong. As per normal, I’m a bit behind the eight ball when it comes to technology, so I shouldn’t be surprised.

I thought that I was leading the new age recruitment market by finding an employee through Facebook, but it turns out I’m not. I’ve had plenty of feedback since the last blog, all praising the site and relevant success stories. 

Anyway, I guess if you find something you’d never heard of, that is technically a new discovery right? Hmm….

Discovery or not, it doesn’t really matter as the point still stands, but in fact from the feedback received, a lot of people have had fantastic experiences exploring “new age” avenues for their business needs.

We all know good people are hard to find, so we are all exploring new ways to find them. On top of that, we are all hoping that they’ll come up with a way to get 30 hours into a day just so we can fit everything in, so any opportunity to source fast information is a bonus.

With all this positive feedback I felt it might be a good idea to further expand on the benefits of exploring “online networks” and the best ways to use them.

First, as these technologies become more important and widely used, it’s wise for a business to embrace rather than revolt against the trend. The trend is your friend, as they say. Sites such as Facebook can not only provide potential recruitment opportunities, but if you think about the other opportunities, you can see why the owner (Mark Zuckerberg) is a 23-year-old billionaire.

Here’s my list. See if you can add to it:

• Recruitment.
• Market research (what are your customers reading, doing, loving, hating etc).
• Networking – like-minded people across the world.
• Product research.
• Identifying new markets and new opportunities.
• Advertising.

These sites are full of valuable information about millions (soon to be a billion?) of people all over the world so you can see why marketing companies and social research groups are doing their best to join the Facebook onslaught and extract as much market information as possible.

Why not get on board?

Michael Phillips is a 29-year old CPA managing a business full of Gen-Ys. He’s the Commercial Manager of Cremorne Group which wholesales and retail mens and womens apparel, including the Tommy Hilfiger, Blazer and Perri Cutten brands. He offers his experience as a pioneering Gen-Y managing Gen-Ys, covering issues such as how to recruit, retain and get the most out of Gen-Y – the notoriously difficult younger generation of employees aged 15 to 30.

Read more Managing Gen-Y blogs.
Read more about Facebook.
Read more about Gen-Ys.