Three years ago I got involved in social media by blogging for Fistful of Talent.  I love writing and I love Recruiting and HR – so this was a good ‘outlet’ for me and totally got me engaged in my career like I never thought I would be.  I was writing 3 – 4 posts per month “and the tree was happy.”  But for those who have engaged in social media and social recruiting, 3 – 4 posts per month isn’t sustainable.  Those posts turned into me following other HR/Talent bloggers and reading their stuff.  That turned into conversations on Facebook and Twitter.  Soon, without much of a thought, I was engaging with a whole new community.  I had friends and peers from all over the world I was having conversations with about HR and Talent issues we were experiencing in our daily lives.  All of this turned into people asking me to come share my opinions and knowledge live – to speak, to run workshops, webinars, etc.

In my little brain – I told myself – all of this ‘stuff’ is good for my business – my brand.  The more of this I do – the more people will become aware of my company.  My ‘real’ job.  The job that actually pays me enough to pay my bills.  This great community will see me as knowledgeable, as passionate, as someone they would want to partner with and work with.  All of this is good for my company.  And the boy would be happy.

3 years.

I did something really stupid the other day and my friend, Laurie Ruettimann called me out on it – which is why she’s my friend.  I sent out a tweet.  She called it “the laziest sales pitch ever” and it was (plus it had a typo – which was like the cherry on top of the laziness!).  The tweet said: “Tweeps – looking to expand out our client base in 2013. Hit me up if you need some help finding great IT/Engineering Talent.” When I sent it – I told myself not to.  I was actually sitting at my desk and thinking – “Tim – you would make fun of someone who did this – you’re better than this” – then that little guy on my other shoulder said “Tim – you’re an idiot – you’ve put 3 years of time into this without ever asking this community for business! You just give – time to take.”  So, l pushed the Tweet button.

I deleted that Tweet – thank you Laurie.

So, I have one question I would like to ask of any of you who read this – Do you know what my company is and/or what we do?  I know a lot of you know who “I” am – which is great if I was really in need of building myself up – but that doesn’t put shoes on my 3 sons.  Do you know what I do on a daily basis? In my work-life?  You probably don’t.

Most people probably believe, if they actually have an idea about what I do, that I run a staffing company.  Some might actually know that we specialize in technical.  But few actually know that 90% of what we do isn’t what you think.  My company does contract Engineering and IT – not straight search (that’s the other 10%).  I don’t see myself as competition to your Talent Acquisition group, usually, because we are looking to place highly technical folks that you don’t need permanently – you might only need them for 3 months, 6 months, a year – who knows, depends on the project.  Many times our clients end up hiring our contractors direct. It doesn’t start out that way.  The client thinks – hey, I only need this person to help us implement, then we can handle it on our own – then life happens and they go, you know what, we need this person on for good.  Win-Win for everyone.

Please check out what I really do.  I’m proud of it.  I think we do it better than anyone else.  I’m so transparent in social media that if we weren’t good – I’d be called out on a daily basis.

3 years of deposits – www.HRU-Tech.com (check out the “our staff” section, everyone loves that!) –  or contact me directly – I’d love to come and talk about your staffing needs – sackett.tim@hru-tech.com / 517-908-3156.

And the tree was happy.