Hiring manager: Step away from the Facebook!

Job candidates texting hiring managers is one thing, but what if the hiring manager sends the job candidate a Facebook invitation?

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Remember the blog I wrote about how some job-hunters are text-messaging thank you notes to hiring managers and how, for the most part, it’s ticking those hiring managers off? After that blog published, I got a letter from a TechRepublic member who said the exact opposite just happened to him. Apparently, just after he’d finished a phone interview with a recruiter for a worldwide Internet-related company, he got an invite to be her friend on Facebook.

“To be honest, my face is in no book, I have no space, I’m neither linked in, nor linked out. I just don’t have any interest in social networking. But this person will be making a decision as to whether or not my resume should be forwarded to a hiring manager. Help!!”

Well, that’s fairly awkward! Is it a test on the part of the recruiter to weed out the less “linked in” for purposes of the job being filled? Or is it a way for her to keep track of the candidates she’s talked to instead of using an Excel spreadsheet? Is she another one of those people who use the word “friend” in the social networking sense and not like the rest of North America uses it (unless you’re a Quaker, I guess). I think it’s a pretty weird assumption on the hiring manager’s part.

I wouldn’t be comfortable with something like this. How about you?