A recruitment ad for a Sr. Manager – Emerging Media Marketing Job at US retailer Best Buy includes an item under the ‘Preferred Qualifications’ heading that applicants have “250 plus followers on Twitter.”
I guess it’s one way of noting a preference that applicants are savvy, active and connected in the twittersphere and, by implication, might have a better understanding of how social media tools like this work in a business context.
I’m not surprised to see this in a recruitment ad by Best Buy.
This is the company whose President and COO (now CEO), Brian J. Dunn – who, incidentally, is on Twitter – was awarded the IABC EXCEL Award this year and whose keynote address about communication at the IABC conference in San Francisco in early June was one of the most inspiring I’ve ever heard from a senior corporate executive of any company (here’s a taste of what Dunn said, in a brief Audioboo I recorded from my spot in the auditorium).
The IABC EXCEL Award recognizes leaders who foster excellence in communication and contribute to the development and support of organizational communication.
So, Twitter followers as a preferred ‘qualification’ when recruiting. Is this a sign of the (coming) times?
This has clearly captured many people’s imaginations this morning, judging by the number of retweets of my original post on Friendfeed about it, as well as retweets of this blog post.
[Later] A comment by Best Buy’s Joshua Kahn talked about a new development regarding this recruitment opening that would be posted today on Barry Judge’s blog. He is Best Buy’s CMO.
Sure enough, there is now a post that opens up an intriguing development in what I’d call the co-creation of a job description in a way that would make a distinct connection with people who have an interest in the company, not only those looking for a job. There’s also the huge buzz potential that gets Best Buy talked about.
[…] In following the conversation around this job posting we discovered that many people had other ideas for how this job description should look, and what the qualifications should be. We realized that perhaps we hadn’t thought of everything. Beyond that we thought perhaps we could find a way to enable a more pointed discussion about this relatively new job category of Emerging Media.
It seemed to us to be a natural progression to get the community involved in crafting the job description and qualifications. So that’s exactly what we’re going to do.
We’d like you, (yes all of you), to help us write the job description for our Sr Manager of Emerging Media Marketing job.
We’d also like you all to help us pick the best description.
Here’s How To Participate
1. Starting now, until Tuesday, July 14th, at 5pm central submit your job description idea to our Best Buy IdeaX site. IdeaX is a site where people like you can share your own ideas on how to make Best Buy better – through idea posts, popular vote and discussions with the rest of the IdeaX community.
I do like the rationale Judge expresses, especially his number 2 point:
This role is a new one for us as it likely is for other companies. We have a lot of smart and social media savvy people here and amongst our partners and friends. However, there are a larger number of smart and social media savvy people “out there”. So instead of thinking we know it all, we’d like to increase our chances of getting it right by surveying the wisdom of the industry.
Sort of an Ideastorm for HR.
This should catch on.
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RT @TwitjobsUK: Job Requirement – Twitter Followers! -> [link to post]
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@Jason_Smuvrd that’s great, Jason, thanks! Very interesting what Best Buy is doing, don’t you think? [link to post]
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@jangles incredibly interesting,will become a trend for future job descriptions…im sure its already asked at interview stage now.
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@T0mRowlands Checkout this job requirement then! [link to post]
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250 Followers required for the job , serious [link to post]
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Twitter followers as a preferred ‘qualification’ when recruiting – [link to post]
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Job Requirement: Twitter Followers > 250 Wah Wah [link to post]
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RT @elenko: Изизскване за работата – 250 последователи в Twitter: [link to post] -> не ставам за тая работа 153 followers, слаба ракия.
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RT: @elenko: Изизскване за работата – 250 последователи в Twitter: [link to post]
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RT @elenko:Изизскване за работата – 250 последователи в Twitter: [link to post]
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Изизскване за работата – 250 последователи в Twitter: [link to post]
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@elenko в Щатите това е възможно. Тук джоб дискрипшъните не са мръднали в съдържание от 10 години.
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@elenko interesni samo kato svurshi venture capital-a na twitter kakvo shte stane a projecta. Vseki mu se kefi, no nikoi ne go kupuva
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RT @elenko: Изизскване за работата – 250 последователи в Twitter: [link to post] Яката работа
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Job requirement: Twitter followers! > [link to post]
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[ Almost able to get a job at Best Buy ] RT @Nico_Lanter: Job requirement: Twitter followers! > [link to post]
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RT @Nico_Lanter: Job requirement: Twitter followers! > [link to post]
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RT: @ParisComLight: hallucinant RT Nico_Lanter Job requirement: Twitter followers! > [link to post]
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Ще го включа към изискванията RT@elenko Изизскване за работата – 250 последователи в Twitter: [link to post]
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Not surprising since Best Buy is a technology driven store. (I have over 4,000 followers and counting)
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Reading: Best Buy Job Requirement is 250 Twitter followers: [link to post]
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rt @danperry: Reading: Best Buy Job Requirement is 250 Twitter followers: [link to post]
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RT Jobs starting to require applicants to have certain number of Twitter followers – [link to post] (via @LeilaMakki)
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Job requirement: Twitter followers — NevilleHobson.com – I wouldn’t qualify… I couldn’t care less [link to post]
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Not surprised that more and more companies are requiring their employees to be social network savvy.
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Job requirement: Twitter followers [link to post]
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Lean Mean chases down “250-plus followers on Twitter” needed for job at Best Buy (a US version of Currys). [link to post].
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Jsem zvedava, kdy se zacne vyzadovat neco takoveho i u nas:-) – Job requirement: 250 plusTwitter followers [link to post]
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Should the # of Twitter followers you have be a requirements for emerging media jobs? [link to post]
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RT @MichaelBerner: Should the # of Twitter followers you have be a requirements for emerging media jobs? [link to post]
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RT @fightingmachine: Lean Mean chases down “250-plus followers” needed for job at Best Buy (a US version of Currys). [link to post].
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A preferred qualifications in a job applicants “250 plus followers on Twitter” ([link to post]) What next?
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Is this a sign of the (coming) times?- “Job requirement: Twitter followers”- [link to post]
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I guess I shouldn’t have been blocking all those spam followers then: [link to post] #dumbestfakemetricever (via @bistrekov)
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Interesting blog by @ jangles on job advert for Sr Manager Emerging Media specifying number of Twitter followers [link to post]
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US retail Best buy crowd sources job requirement for Emerging media role [link to post]
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RT: @jodykoehler Job requirement: 250 Twitter followers [link to post] HA!
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Wow. Its sad how people do this. Follow me. #musicmonday Moon
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Need another good reason to Tweet? [link to post]
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If you want a job in social media, start tweeting. RT @jangles Job @€” NevilleHobson.com [link to post]
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RT @jangles Job requirement: #Twitter followers [link to post]
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Best Buy darba piedāvājumā Mārketinga speciālistam bija vēlama prasība: 250 followeri [link to post]
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Guess my number of followers won’t help me get a job @ #bestbuy [link to post]
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Excellent article, I purchased 5000 twitter followers from http://www.socialkik.com and they delivered them sooner than promised, that made a huge positive impact on my online business ! I started receiving more customers and better conversion rate because of the big number of followers which enhanced my reputation ! I highly recommend them : http://www.socialkik.com