12 ways to make a recruiter love or loathe you

By Neil Patrick and Axel Kőster

I usually write this blog from the perspective of job seekers. And I often criticise employers and recruiters, but also give praise when I think it is merited. Sadly the former group is much larger than the latter.

So I was pleased recently to receive a very honest and heartfelt email from my good friend Axel Koster, the General Manager of the Manhattan Group, a major global recruitment firm based in Melbourne, Australia. In case you don’t know Axel, he is a specialist in recruiting employees for the global hotel industry. From chefs to general managers and CEOs and everything in between.

But Axel isn’t an average recruiter. For a start he has over 660,000 followers on Twitter. He’s taken the use of social media for recruitment to a level that no-one else has in his industry. This level of exposure places him in the top 10 most influential people online in Australia. That’s no mean feat considering there are at least two members of the Minogue family in that list too!

Axel Koster GM of the Manhattan Group

So today we are going to turn the lens around and look at things from a recruiter’s perspective. For job seekers, understanding how recruiters think and FEEL is critical to understanding why they do what they do. It’s called empathy. If you can empathise with someone rather than simply judge them, you are in a much better position to influence them.

And surely having influence over a recruiter is much better than simply resenting them if you don’t get the outcome you seek?

Of course no amount of empathy is suddenly going to turn you into a must hire candidate. No recruiter on earth is going to drop everything to ensure you get hired.

But when you read what follows from Axel, you’ll discover the amazing amount of nonsense, unprofessionalism, rudeness, lying, laziness and unreasonable expectations from job seekers which he experiences day in day out, 24/7.

And you will also discover how not to shoot yourself in the foot when dealing not just with Axel, but in my opinion ANY recruiter.

Simply by avoiding these obvious and sometimes not so obvious mistakes, you will ensure you get at least fair treatment by recruiters and possibly even get them to come a little more onto your side…

Remember empathy begets empathy!

And if nothing else, Axel’s comments will reveal the truly crazy expectations that some jobseekers have.

Here’s what Axel has to say:



I’ve thought long and hard about expressing my views about recruitment, candidate search and follow through and so here it is at last…note that I speak purely for myself & not the industry as a whole.

I feel terrible some days (and I do really mean that) because I just do not get the time to respond to all mails and messages sent to me via direct mail, Skype, SMS, LinkedIn, Twitter , phone and Message bank to name just a few.

Believe it or not, I'm on the job seven days a week, working long hours and always with my phone next to me. So even over dinner, or using public transport or relaxing at home or any other location, I spend my time reading messages and answering as many as I can - time is unfortunately a commodity in itself and I simply just don't have enough.

A few years ago, we established some custom built recruitment programs for our clients and in general we work mostly on retainers. Moreover, our clients actually pay us up front - and in full. We are often trusted with the most attractive jobs on the market and we enjoy a close relationship with many senior managers. These people are not just our clients but often they become our applicants as well. It is not unusual for other recruiters to ask us to share their candidates; however we never do.

9 out of 10 times we receive a clear profile of the candidate requirements. This usually consists of regional experience, a specific skill set, preferred nationalities, time lines and employer names and sometimes sex and age. In Australia, it would of course be illegal discrimination to reject applicants on age or gender etc., but many other countries have different laws, preferences and practices.

But let's face it, only one person can secure the position. Only one individual will be appointed; so from let's say 100 applicants (sometimes many more), 99 will be disappointed. The very best applicants make it quite clear why they should get the position. They explain to us WHY they are the IDEAL candidate.

Our shortlist usually incorporates a maximum of 3 people, sometimes more. If they are all turned down by our clients, then we try our utmost to find out the reasons why, so we can communicate this back to the applicant. You can be assured if we introduce you to our client, that you are matching the client’s profile. And yes we argue (we call it a discussion!) with our clients too. I do understand and respect that careers are vital for families and lives and I will go the extra mile to assist you on your journey. Many candidates of mine have over the years stayed in close contact and have become friends.

I have no time for nonsense and those people who know me understand that I hold honesty and integrity very close to my heart as this is how I was brought up.

Here are the top twelve things that candidates do which antagonize, dismay, alienate, annoy and frustrate me. Some are obvious, but I am sure some will astonish you that they happen at all!

 
1. I am not your servant: Someone sends me an invite on LinkedIn and as soon as we have connected, I receive a message – “I need a job!” (every new LinkedIn connection of mine receives a response mail very clearly stating how to approach us, even my email address is stated, and where to find open positions – do not tell me to ‘check your profile’! 

 
2. I am not responsible for your life: Don't write me letters telling me that your future or your life is in my hands as I do not own you; it’s ridiculous. It is time for many to take responsibility for their own career and choices and stop blaming others for their misfortune.

3. I am not here to do your work for you: Asking us to check your profile as you don’t have the time to apply correctly ...(I match suitable candidates for positions who are actually applying). 

4. Don’t expect me to put you forward without a resume: Applying back to me through my regular alerts but not being able to attach a resume (I clearly state on my mail that I'm working out of the office and therefore need a resume with all applications). 

5. I execute my clients’ wishes, not yours: Some people DEMAND to be forwarded to a client! (Actually you are not paying me....it is the client who pays me to find the right candidate.) 

6. Do not hide behind alleged confidentiality: Sending resumes where the last position is confidential or a cover letter masking gaps or whatever by claiming your work was confidential...if your work is confidential then please just don't apply - if you work for the CIA, better stay there. Believe me I have better things to do than to tell the world that you are looking for a new job. 

7. I am not able to provide everyone with free coaching: I do many sessions offering free advice, correct resume set up, career mentoring, etc. for people I have met but please don't demand this service from me, especially if I have never even spoken to you before! 

8. Don’t expect me to provide you with my clients’ contact information: I will never provide my clients’ and connections’ names, email addresses or telephone numbers as I work with complete confidentiality in all my placements. 

 
9. Don’t think you can jump the queue: Asking me just to set up an interview with company A or B and ‘you will do the rest’...(it never works this way and just shows me your arrogance and naivety).

10. Don’t lie: Don’t mail false resumes or place false profiles on LinkedIn ...(missing jobs, incorrect employer names, time frames wrong or false titles)...remember, if this happens I will never deal with you again and thanks to our comprehensive database you will definitely be red flagged...like the “owner representative” in Cambodia or the “general manager” in the Maldives. The list goes on...caught and never forgotten. 

11. Treat me as you would wish to be treated: Writing a personal letter to me and you can't even get my name right or you address me as Dear HR manager or Accor , or Interconti etc ...(And you are supposed to be so proud of your attention to detail?!!!) 

12. Don’t try to bribe me: Offering me money or other inducements if I manage to place you…(Once again, we charge our clients and NOT our applicants).

I hope the suggestions above are helpful. I know that in today’s jobs market, it can be hard to find the right job at the right time. But if you understand me and my life, then you will also understand how the system works and how not to sabotage your own endeavours to find a job. We may not like the ‘rules’, but the system works the way it does and none of us can change that. Trying to cheat or trick the system is a surefire way to lose.

To try and be as helpful as I can, I have set up several online resources designed to help jobseekers in the hotel industry find their next job more easily. If that’s you, you’ll be welcome to join and engage with us on our two LinkedIn Groups:

Upcoming Hoteliers & Careers Group http://ow.ly/4nlEm4 (designed for all levels in hospitality)

Hoteliers & Careers Network http://ow.ly/4mPZB7 (Department Head onward including owners, CEO's, VP's etc)

Your Linkedin profile – why you should tell the truth

By Neil Patrick

Last week, my good friend Axel Kőster at the Manhattan Group and I were chatting about the impact of social media on the recruitment industry.

At one point, Axel mentioned that many of the job applicants’ LinkedIn profiles he sees turn out to contain inaccuracies. Usually they are small, like exaggerating the importance of a project the person worked on. But sometimes they are huge, like alleging a qualification which the person hasn’t actually completed.

He also sees profiles where the person doesn’t list their full employment history. Others add time to show a longer length of stay in their appointment and remove positions which didn’t work out. And one of the most common exaggerations is a more senior title than the person actually held.

And Axel’s experience is verified by research. A study by recruitment firm Employment Office of 300 employers, found 82% of respondents believed candidates lied or exaggerated their skills and experience on their LinkedIn profiles.

The reasons this is happening are many, but most fall under these headings:

• The jobs market remains fiercely competitive and people will try to squeeze any advantage they can even if that means exaggerating a bit on LinkedIn 

• Many LinkedIn users approach LinkedIn primarily as a networking tool. Their profiles reflect this approach and if they are not actually job hunting, merely seeking to connect with others, they see no foul in being ‘liberal’ in how they present themselves on LinkedIn. 

• There are no direct penalties for anyone who chooses to tell lies on their profile. 

This is counter-productive for both applicants AND employers.

How can this be?

Over at the Marketing Eye blog, Mellissah Smith tells this story:

A current employee brought to my attention a previous unpaid intern, who then became a one to two day per week marketing assistant during her University holidays. She was only a casual employee, yet stated the following on LinkedIn: 

I Managed up to 30 clients (the portfolio in that particular office didn’t have 30 clients, she had no management duties whatsoever and was given tasks from time to time, but was strictly a marketing coordinator who at times had the opportunity to put together the first draft of marketing copy, that then went to an in-house writer and marketing manager) 

I Managed up to 8 staff (the office didn’t have 8 staff and certainly as a marketing coordinator, with senior managers and the owner in the office, it is impossible she managed any staff at all). From time to time she gave unpaid interns work to do like following people on Twitter, search engine optimization or even having a go at writing the basis of a marketing strategy, but certainly NEVER did she manage any staff.

Since she left in January, she wrote that she worked fulltime as a marketing coordinator for 1.1 years at Marketing Eye. She has had two jobs since leaving in January – possibly the lies caught up with her but her equally impressive resume continues on LinkedIn. She had fulltime hours for 8 weeks only and that was broken up with 3 weeks holidays which she was not paid for because she was a casual.

So where’s the damage?

If the applicant gets away with their deception, then surely it is the employer’s own fault for not being sufficiently rigorous in their due diligence to verify the accuracy of the claims made? But this isn’t the point. The damage caused goes way beyond the costs of hiring a person whose abilities are not as great as you thought.

How come?

Here’s another case from Mellissah at Marketing Eye:

Last year I hired a person who on paper had exceptional qualifications and upon ringing her last supposed supervisor, received a glowing report.

We employed her, and within days, realised that she had never written a marketing strategy, engaged in any public relations activities, organised the booking of an advertisement, done any social media, direct marketing or any marketing other than working on a trade booth and coordinating companies who put their brands on Coles’ shelves.

Clearly, her reference was a friend and she did not have any experience in marketing. She later admitted to this confirming she took the job because she wanted to gain experience.

At a high-salary level and due to the fact she had worked with big brands, we let her loose after training her on the administrative side of consultancy and helping her get up-to-date with client work. She also took over from an exceptional marketing manager who excelled in every area of marketing and was completely thorough in every aspect of working with clients and in her hand-over – which made the issue even bigger.

The result: We lost clients, our reputation was in tatters with the clients she was let loose on and with some people, we will never be able to buy back that perception of our brand.

Inaccurate LinkedIn profiles do untold damage to employers and their reputations. 

The stakes are clearly high for employers. It is imperative that they do not place too much faith in a LinkedIn profile and must carry out thorough verification of the facts before hiring a candidate, even if their references are glowing.

But it goes beyond merely the hiring process. Your former employees haver the potential to do damage to your reputation AFTER they have left your organisation. So there’s a good argument for keeping on tabs on what your previous employees say on LinkedIn they did whilst they worked for you.

But what are the risks for employees of lying? 

There are no obvious downsides are there? I’d argue to the contrary:

Unlike your resume, everyone can see your LinkedIn profile … whereas the only people who see your resume are the people you choose to send it to. So if you are lying on LinkedIn you are much more likely to be found out.

Your LinkedIn profile must be treated with care and attention. Just as a sloppy profile suggests poor attention to detail, an incorrect one brings your trustworthiness into question. You are declaring to the world that this is who I am, this is my experience and these are my accomplishments.

Once you have been exposed as being careless with how you present yourself, your status as a diligent professional is at once brought into question. And that’s not helpful if you make your living based on your skills and credibility…

Finally, make no mistake that employers and recruiters are both getting wise to such tricks. LinkedIn lies might get you onto a short list, or even an interview… but you are more and more likely to get found out as recruitment processes adjust to close down this weakness. Don’t waste your time and other people’s…it will do you no good in the long run.

As for employers, it is clear that:

It’s your reputation that your former employees are representing on their LinkedIn profile. When they move to their next employer, it’s your brand that they are ambassadors of. Do you really wish to be seen as a business that for whatever reason hires untrustworthy individuals?

In this increasingly connected world, it makes sense to think not just about your own business, but the wider business community you are a part of. It pays to be a responsible citizen. By taking the time to do thorough reference checks, you are not only protecting yourself, you are also doing your bit to expose those who try to cheat and make them think twice about continuing with their deceptions.

Last, but not least, the internet is as good or as bad as the behaviours of the people that use it. See yourself as part of the solution, not a perpetuator of the problem. So, next time you are considering giving someone an endorsement on LinkedIn, ask yourself, ‘Do I really know this person deserves this?’

If you have experience of or opinions about this topic, do please share them below.

How to use Twitter in your jobsearch

By Neil Patrick and Axel Koster

You may think that Twitter isn’t the most obvious way to find a job. After all how can a message of 140 characters really carry meaningful influence or effect on your job search?

But I disagree. You’ve just got to know how to do it right. So today I hooked up again with my good friend Axel Kőster at the Manhattan Group to share some insights on this topic which we hope are helpful.

1. Twitter is a superb networking tool if you approach it as such.

The most valuable resource any jobseeker can have is a large and powerful network of people that are potentially helpful to them. In this post I described how Linkedin is ‘high stakes’ social media. What I mean by this is that if you try to connect with a high profile person directly on Linkedin, there’s a chance, even a probability that unless they already know you, they’ll decline or ignore your invitation to connect.

On the other hand, Twitter is 'low stakes' media and hence an easy way of connecting. If you show interest and support for a high profile person, they will notice you if you do it consistently over several days or weeks and will probably follow you back. From that point it’s an easy step to escalate your connection onto LinkedIn.

You’ll find that many recruiters are on Twitter too and to help you, I have set up lists of them organised by continent here. Just select the ones that are interest to you and you can follow them and see all their tweets about the jobs they are recruiting for.

2. Don’t use Twitter to ask for a job, use Twitter to show what you know

Our second tip is to keep your Tweets focussed on a career topic which is close to your area of interest and expertise. Describe this in your Twitter profile. To be brutally frank, no-one cares that you love your wife or have three wonderful kids or enjoy travelling. If that’s what you want to tweet about, that’s absolutely fine, just don’t expect Twitter to help you in your job search.

On the other hand, if your Twitter profile tells people that you are a professional fitness trainer, or compliance specialist, or electrical engineer, now you are talking the right sort of language to connect with others who for whatever reason share your interest or expertise.

So use your Twitter profile to describe what you do professionally and you have made the first step in turning it into a professional networking tool.

By the way, I don’t think this is the place to brag about yourself. Plenty of folk do, but personally, I believe we should use our twitter profiles to say what we do and make ourselves appear approachable, not conceited. Who loves a show off after all? Much better to talk about all your accomplishments on LinkedIn.

3. How to Tweet

Sharing the tweets of others who you admire in your industry is a great way to build your network and influence. But don’t just do that alone. Create and share insights and opinions of your own. Ask questions. Engage with the people that show interest in what you tweet, even if it’s just a friendly acknowledgement.

If you are using it to help you find a job, never use Twitter as a way to let off steam about something that’s really made you cross. Equally, don’t allow others to draw you into Twitter arguments. Twitter is thankfully fairly troll-free when you are using it professionally, but if someone does turn hater on you, take the argument offline or simply walk away and ignore them. You gain nothing by having a fight in public!

So, be friendly, be helpful and you’ll steadily build influence for the right reasons.

4. Leverage Twitter

You can and should connect your Twitter account to your LinkedIn profile. If you have a blog, connect that too. Here’s the thing; encouraging people on twitter to connect with you on LinkedIn sends a powerful message to LinkedIn. LinkedIn sees that you have a steadily expanding network of great contacts. This in turn is interpreted by LinkedIn that you are a more influential person and your ranking in LinkedIn search rises accordingly. So you get found on LinkedIn by more recruiters.

Adopt the mantra of paying it forward. Help people out whenever you can. You may not see a benefit from this straight away, but it’s surprising how building a base of goodwill within your following pays you back over time. It’s a leap of faith, I know, but it really does work. You’ll just have to trust me on this one!

Recruiters look at Twitter when they are checking you out. And if they see pointless babble about TV shows or whatever, it won’t help you. It may not especially hurt you either, but it’s a missed opportunity to show that you are an engaged and influential thought leader in your profession.

Finally, don’t interpret this as meaning you gotta be all serious all the time. This is social media after all, so don’t get all heavy. Try to show a bit of your personality and let that shine through.

5. Learn from your peers

None of us can ever know everything but if we are connected with the thought leaders in our industry, we can discover great new insights, opinions and ideas. So Twitter can be a great learning resource if you adopt the right strategy about who you follow.

But you can go further than this. Follow the businesses on Twitter that you are interested in and you’ll get some valuable insights into what they are doing and possibly even some of the problems they are facing. And if you discover a problem that you can help them solve, even if they are not recruiting, how valuable is that knowledge as a basis for a speculative approach to explain to them why they should be talking to you?

6. And finally, use tools to help you.

Twitter is frankly a bit of a bear to use professionally unless you make use of tools to help you. But the great thing is that there are lots of them, most of them are free and have really simple and intuitive interfaces. You just connect them to your Twitter account and off you go!

Last but not least, here’s Axel’s advice on using Twitter to help your job search, plus his thoughts about a couple of really useful tools, Hootsuite and TweetReach:

Tips to turbo charge your social media for job hunting

By Neil Patrick and Axel Kőster

Several people have approached me asking about the best way to grow their social media presence to help with their job search. So I thought I’d team up with my good friend Axel Kőster at the Manhattan Group and share a few quick tips that we hope will be of help.

1. You cannot buy social media success!

Our first piece of advice is don’t ever be tempted into taking up offers to buy Twitter followers, Linkedin network or Facebook likes. This is a breach of the terms of service of Twitter, Linkedin and Facebook and it can easily get your account suspended. So don’t waste your money or risk your reputation! It’s also a wasted effort as the type of followers you’ll get are unlikely to be the type you want.

Like attracts like too, so if you follow people too randomly, you may for example start attracting a following of Romanian wrestling fans (or worse!) And once this happens, you can be sure more of the same will follow! Of course, the same thing happens if you follow the right people - you’ll attract more of the right people.

Whilst quantity is not a bad thing, quality trumps quantity every time. The people you should be connecting with are for example recruiters, job search experts, other people in your profession or what you are all about, news media and target employers in your own region/country (assuming you’re aren't planning on emigrating) not teenage Transformers fans in Tokyo! You will find many useful Twitter connections if you search the #Hashtags relevant to their field...for example #Job #Recruitment #AxelJob etc

2. Feel free to use my Twitter lists and set up your own!

Twitter can be a difficult thing to get comfortable with at first. As someone once remarked, ‘Twitter doesn’t come with an instruction book.’ Neither does it have much in the way of useful tools within it (more on this shortly) and the ‘Help desk’ is non-existent. So it’s down to you to be creative and develop your Twitter account in a way that works for you and helps you achieve your goals.

Our view is quite simple - you should 'run your own race, not someone’s else’s' and make it one which you are comfortable with. Setting up your own Twitter lists before you get too many followers is a wise idea to help you find people again when you may have forgotten their name or company!

So, my second tip is to take advantage of the Twitter lists I have set up to help you on my Twitter account. Here, I’ve placed the most helpful people in my Twitter following and organised the key ones like recruiters by location, so you can quickly and easily find and follow the ones which are most relevant to you.

Please feel free to subscribe to any of my lists you like and as I update them, they’ll be automatically updated for you too!

I have also set up lists of other useful people for you like coaches, resume writers and the most exciting firms that are hiring.

And for beginners on social media, it is a great idea to network with experts and more experienced people in this field. Their blogs and tips will usually be free and can get you off to a faster and more confident start.

We are both more than happy to help beginners for free and steer you in the right direction. So if you think we could help you, please just ask!

3. Use Twitter to find and engage with the people that are important to you

Compared to Linkedin, Twitter is an informal and relaxed environment. And in every field, there are ‘stars’ who everyone would like to have in their network. But asking strangers to connect with you on Linkedin may result in a decline. So don’t risk it.

Connect with them first on Twitter by making some positive comments on or regularly retweeting their tweets for example and they will be likely to reciprocate your follow. Once you've established a connection in this way, it’s then relatively easy to connect with them also on Linkedin.

4. Have a plan and stick to it

Our fourth tip is to make your social media activity a regular part of your daily routine. It’s very easy to get sucked into spending hours and hours every day, reading posts, commenting, sending out Tweets etc. etc. Don’t! Have a strategy and a plan for a reasonable amount of time each day to devote to your social media activity and stick to it. Prioritise the tasks you will do each day and focus on hitting those targets.

Developing a successful dialogue with one or two key people each day is a much better use of your time than spreading yourself too thinly across dozens of discussions and Groups. A single well-constructed comment or response to a key person is more valuable than clicking a hundred ‘like’ buttons. So stay focussed!

5. Make use of social media tools to help you

The next tip is to make use of some of the fantastic free tools that are available to help you manage your social media presence and get much more efficient at it.

As I said earlier, Twitter doesn’t have many useful tools within it, so you need to make use of separate tools to help you develop your social media profile in an informed and focused way.

Two of the most useful are Kred and SocialBro and here’s Axel’s take on these and how they can be of help to you.




Last but not least, if you’d like more help from Axel or myself, please feel free to get in touch and we’ll do our best to help.

Career and social media advice from one of the most influential recruiters in the world

By Neil Patrick

One of the things I love about writing this blog is the great contacts I have made because of it. Social media is such a powerful platform, that despite living in a forest in Wales, I’m in daily touch with amazing people all over the planet.

One of the most remarkable of these people is Axel Koster. Since 2002 Axel has been the General Manager of the Manhattan Group, a global executive search recruitment firm specialising in the luxury hotel, resort & event management sector, placing candidates from manager to VP levels. Axel is based in Melbourne, Australia.

Four and a half years ago, Axel picked up on the growth of social media and decided that it would be a powerful way for him to build a much stronger personal network. This would be beneficial to both his clients and job candidates. To say he has succeeded in his goal would be an understatement. Developing his own unique style of presenting relevant content, today he has over 360,000 followers on Twitter! This year, his Twitter following has increased every single month by around 10,000 people!

Axel has gone much further than most people in his industry and has created his own branded hashtag #AxelJob which helps spread his jobs fast and wide across social media networks. He has also created his #AxelHappy hashtag which is for motivational and inspiring Tweets. Axel welcomes other recruitment companies using his hashtags for the simple reason they give career seekers a better chance of securing suitable positions.

Axel Koster

Axel’s LinkedIn network currently includes 9,427 people, ranking him amongst the top 1% most viewed profiles on LinkedIn.

Kred scores Axel’s social media influence as 984 out a maximum possible of 1,000. He is now ranked in the top 10 people most influential people in Australia according to Kred. To put this in perspective, in January 2013, not one of the world’s largest pharmaceuticals companies with their huge marketing resources and budgets, scored more than 800 points on Kred. In case you are interested, the 3 highest scoring were Novartis, Johnson and Johnson and Pfizer.

But as you’ll discover when you see Axel's video below, he’s firmly of the view that big numbers should not be our goal in social media. He shares my belief that social media is about listening and helping, rather than telling and selling!

For the first 15 years of his career, Axel was a chef, rising through the ranks of his profession to become the Managing Director of the Templeton Marine Hotel in 1997. In 2002, he swapped the hotel industry for the recruitment industry.

So how did this former chef turn from being an accomplished but largely unknown hotel industry professional to a social media phenomena?

Since I am lucky to count Axel amongst my circle of friends, I thought I should get his answers to what I think are some pretty important questions for readers of this blog directly from him. Because he has the double qualification of being both a senior recruitment industry executive AND social media expert, he’s probably just about the most well qualified person on the planet to ask.

So here are my questions and his answers:

How do you think social media has affected the recruitment industry over the last 5 years?

Social media (SM) has become a very important factor in many industries and certainly within recruitment markets. It has fundamentally changed the way many companies now communicate and respond to different situations.

Companies without an SM presence are losing out and new firms with a better appreciation of SM are rapidly building market share. SM has also allowed many individuals to start their own company and work from home. For these people it’s important to also have a detailed understanding in their field and of course a strong network in their industry.

It is crucial for companies and individuals to establish an effective SM ‘footprint’. Establish a roadmap so to speak which allows us to understand and follow through on our own objectives and progress.

How valuable do you think social media is in advancing our career ambitions?

SM is often seen as an advancement in social flexibility and it says a lot about your personality and character. The challenge here is that there are so many new SM sites coming online so frequently. Which ones should you use and which will give you the best return on your time and investment?

There is no doubt in my mind that individuals and organisations with good SM presence and understanding have an advantage over those that do not. We all have to respond to the fact that modern communications technology has reshaped our lives in the last few years.

What should a mature professional that hasn’t really started building their social media profile do as a priority?

The first question you should ask yourself is what do you want to get out of it and which is the best SM site for you? Then do some research to discover how well different sites deliver against your requirements. Some sites work best for family/friend relationships. Others are more geared to professional or business connections. Match your site choice to your personal requirements.

It’s often a great idea to speak to some friends or colleagues if you are new to SM and ask them about their preferences, experiences and recommendations.

My belief is that we should all start by walking before trying to run. Make a start now, show your willingness to commit and half the battle is already won.

What do you think are the most important do’s and don’ts for professionals using social media?

The two do's are very clear for me: I feel passionate about positivity and sharing information to all avenues of SM but I dispute senseless negativity, bullying and hatred.

For larger companies it is imperative to have a procedure around who does what and what the content is all about. I often feel that larger companies are far better off engaging an experienced and skilled SM firm to get their message out in the best possible way. SM must have boundaries and they must be comprehensively stated and understood by everyone involved.

Individuals on the other hand can achieve wonderful impacts through SM showing their professional talents and building an appreciative audience. People only need encouragement and a bit of start up assistance to become pros in their own way.

I'm really blessed meeting so many people through SM and I have endless contacts through Skype, landline or just DM's with people which I would have never met without the remarkable tool of SM.

Axel has also produced this YouTube video as part of his YouTube channel in which he shares some great detail and insights about his thoughts about how we should all approach building our social media profiles:


Axel's Social Media Chat Blog -YouTube http://ow.ly/nYOgj

I’d like to thank Axel here not only for all he’s done to help me, but also the thousands of others who have benefited from his willingness to share his insight and experience. I've had the pleasure of speaking with Axel on various occasions now. What marks him out as special to me is his generosity, integrity, humility and down to earth personality. Perhaps these are the most valuable secrets of his success we can all learn from.

I cannot recommend strongly enough that you should connect with Axel in whichever way you prefer.

You’ll find him on Twitter @AxelKoster

You can also reach him and the Manhattan Group here: http://www.manhattangroup.co

Invite Axel to connect with you on LinkedIn here: ak@manhattangroup.co

Subscribe to his YouTube channel here: http://goo.gl/lsOR8N