Saw Jeff Jarvis quoting Neil Macintosh in the Guardian as saying that, “there’s no excuse for a student journalist who wants to work online not to have”, a blog. Not sure we are quite there yet at Edelman with blogs only, but a candidate for a job would raise a few eyebrows if they did not have a fairly developed social media appetite and a profile of some kind. I’m sure now this will get me into trouble with HR or employees who don’t, but for me, it’s pretty much in the same category as admitting you don’t read newspapers.
[tags] PR Jobs [/tags]
sixtysecondview.blog 
Could not agree more. But sadly some of them don´t even read newspapers…It´s been harder to find talents.
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David,
since (unfortunately) we cannot (still) leave out of the door good candidates because don’t have a clue about social media, we might better reward those who do. I’m sure the other will follow soon…
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Mauro: Possibly. But I think that it is beginning to be like rewarding a PR person for having an interest in the news. Certainly new recruits….
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Entirely agree, David. Would be interesting to kick off this debate and see where it goes…
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Hello David, happy new year!!! I’m José María. Remember we got together at Berlin summit? Will be glad to work for you someday!! Do agree with you.
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David, I agree with your point. However I spoke to a graduate recently who was looking to join a well respected agency. Apparently they asked him about his knowledge of Social Media (to which he replied positively) and they then began to bring him to task on comments in his blog (which he had to defend himself on). Its a difficult landcape out there for employers, but an equally difficult one out there for potential employees.
Hayden
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