Ten years ago, advertising for talent was a relatively straightforward affair. By placing an advert in a national newspaper or specialist title, you could be pretty confident of receiving a good response.

Those days are, of course, long gone. As well as print, there a now a huge proliferation of online job boards to choose from, and we’ve seen the widespread adoption of 'marketing-led' approaches to recruitment, from outdoor to pay per click. On top of all this, social media / networking has entered the mainstream. And, not surprisingly, recruitment has quickly woken up to the opportunity to use the likes of Facebook to engage with talent.

On the face of it, if you’ll excuse the pun, it sounds like a holy grail - passive candidates individually targeted with tailored job offers, outside of the “competitive noise” of a job board or newspaper. Employers and Recruiters get to build deeper, richer relationships with candidates. And candidates get job offers from companies who’ve taken the time to find out all about their career objectives and skills.

But what’s actually happening out there?

The first thing to note is that it’s not just a one way street. Just as employers can use these sites to present their employment proposition to potential candidates, so employees can of course use these same sites to describe their employers – often in less than glowing terms. Two headline cases recently include the Argos employee Tom Beech who was sacked for gross misconduct after setting up a Facebook group entitled I Work At Argos And Can’t Wait To Leave Because It’s Sh**. Meanwhile ex-employees of directory service 118 118 had created a group called I Survived 118 118 described by one of the group’s founders Simon Stranks, 22-year-old from Wales, as “a group created by a few mates to let off a little steam at a job that was plagued by abusive callers and “new age management”. These stories, which both received large amounts of media interest, don’t reflect well on either company or the disgruntled employees involved.

Secondly, do passive ( i.e. non-active ) candidates want to be contacted by potential employers in social environments? ‘Business Networking’ sites such as www.Linkedin.com and www.Xing.com have recruitment at their focus, but should ‘social ‘ sites like Facebook, Bebo and MySpace be targeted? How do employers ensure that approaches are relevant – and appropriate?

Finally, just what is – and isn’t – fair game in the war for talent? If it’s OK for organisations to source talent via the social networks, what about using them for background checks?

The story of the candidate refused a job because his Facebook page listed his interests as “smokin’ blunts with the homies” and “shooting caps into whitie” has become the stuff of internet legend. But, much closer to home, a recent Times survey of 600 British companies revealed that one in five had logged on to Facebook and other networking websites to vet potential employees.

So, should employers adopt a wait-and-see approach to recruiting talent via social networks? And how can they track and manage conversations about them posted by existing and past employees?

And from a candidate perspective, can these sites be used as a dynamic, career networking tool, a 21st century CV? Or, since you can’t necessarily control what your friends say about you, is the best advice for candidates to simply avoid social networking sites altogether?

As ever, your comments and experiences are welcomed.

Recently I have been talking to a people about how to move their careers along. Sometimes it's not as easy as you might think!

Imagine you are in a good job – well good enough - OK, so the boss gets on your nerves, and that last plan you put together and all the work you put into it got shelved because somebody in their wisdom decided that the direction needed to change. It all getting pretty frustrating, when your best friend suddenly announces a great job with a salary that makes yours look paltry!

I generally advise people in Communications to consider a move after 4-5 years in the same job. There are good reasons for this; not least of these is the familiarity factor – in other words it gets too easy. You get into a routine and things become predictable (unless of course there is a major change and then you gain valuable change comms experience.) When things get easy you lose your ‘edge’ and the longer that goes on the less likely you are to be able to take the next step on the career ladder.

Here is my check list for reasons to move:

1 You have been in the same company for 5 years or more
2 You are not learning anything new
3 There are gaps in your experience that will prevent you from getting where you ultimately want to be
4 You feel that your efforts go un-noticed or unrewarded

The most important reason to move is to learn; to learn new techniques to, experience a new industry, to find a mentor. In my opinion, the least important reason to move is money. I recognize that we all need a certain standard of living and I am not suggesting that anyone takes a pay cut (that never looks good on a CV) but to move simply because the job offers a much higher salary is not a good idea.

Back to our scenario. Following your friend's news, you decide its time to move on. Fast forward: you have an offer on the table – the company is a good one, the location is reasonable, the salary is a reasonable move up on your current salary. In fact everything seems perfect, except you don’t quite gel with the person you report to. They seem to like you well enough, though - after all you have an offer! But something just doesn't feel right.

So, what do you do? Accept and hope that it will all settle down – or turn it down and wait until something better comes along?