Maybe She Thought You Were Looking For The Next Duffman

Once upon a time, I worked in a small office for a company that planned a very large event. We all had many duties and wore many hats, but most of us were pretty obsessed with the event that we created.

One day, the owner of the company and her vice president decided it would be a great idea to hire someone to specifically take care of social media outreach, which was a fairly novel concept at the time (2010ish). We had a press and media representative, but she was too busy to deal with Facebook and Instagram as much as necessary to build a real presence.

As the person technically in charge of Human Resources (and payroll, and accounts, and specific venues, and inventory, and, and, and…) I started the recruiting process. As part of the job posting, I mentioned that we would be very interested in looking at examples of social media postings they had coordinated in the past, so please send links.

We mostly received links to college event pages on Facebook or private events that these individuals had promoted via social media. One candidate, however, missed the point entirely and shared a link to her personal Facebook page.

Nearly every picture — including her profile picture — was a snapshot of drunken debauchery. Now, as a very open-minded person in charge of HR, I was willing to let a few unflattering items pass. After all, who amongst us hasn’t done something stupid, only to regret the evidence later? Since the candidate was just twenty-two, I figured she was in her “wild oats” days and perhaps hadn’t done a thorough scrub of her Facebook.

But after another two minutes of perusal, it was clear that her account was strictly dedicated to broadcasting her inebriated shenanigans. As a human being who spent my own twenties doing all sorts of questionable things, I understood. As a professional trying to recruit someone for a role that required exceptional social media skills, I was appalled.

I let her down easy with a note that said:

Me: “While it looks like you’re having a good time, I’m looking for more business and marketing-oriented social media skills.”

To which she, who had majored in Communications in college, replied:

Candidate: “I didn’t realize that’s what the job was about.”

I hope she’s doing well today.