For the past while, we’ve been having a problem at home.

We are fortunate that we have a free local weekly newspaper distributed by home delivery. Everyone in the neighbourhood seems to receive this newspaper.

Except us.

Apparently our golden retriever is a deterrent to its receipt.  Imposing?  Hmm, judge for yourself.  He has his own Facebook page called The Daily Dude (http://facebook.com/marsthedailydude).   p.s. “Like” him and you can follow his story and make his mom happy because then she knows he has friends.

But I digress.

By pure luck, this week I received a copy of the paper.  And because we receive this paper so rarely, I sat down to read it cover to cover, even if it is mostly flyers.

I have fond memories of newspapers of old.  They were filled with articles about local politics, store openings and a police blotter.  I specifically loved reading the want ads.  It was the best way to learn who was hiring, why, etc. Then the internet came along and spoiled that experience (or maybe it was the dog that killed the experience, but I digress again).

We in human resources are now essentially Seven of Nine, that is, we are a part of the Borg collective and we spend a lot of time on the interwebs working in something called “Talent Acquisition”.  We’ve honed our search skills and rely upon advanced technology to figure out how to best reach the right people to grow our companies.  Gone are the days of placing the ad and waiting.  Essentially, if you are who we are targeting, we know where you live, what you eat and with whom you socialize.  We aim to be in the right place at the right time to meet you.

So imagine my surprise when I see a paper advertisement, with no reference to an online application, or even a website, with the following text:

Recruiter

Nice opportunity for someone capable of recruiting

labourers and skilled trades for busy temp help agency

via social media, networking etc!

Part-time, flexible hours. 

Attractive compensation including hourly rate,

commission and bonuses!  E-mail resume to:  XXXX

I found the website associated with their domain and it was a disaster to say the least.  The menu included six places to click for testimonials (some blank), and even an option labelled test page.  And then there was a virtual cornucopia of standard WordPress graphics, like this one:

Compelling eh?  Not. . .

I’d be curious to see how successful they really are.

How does this type of #recruitingfail happen?  I want to say that the answer is that it is an agency run by people who know nothing about social media, networking or WordPress, and have no knowledge of the practices of modern talent acquisition.  I’m not sure that is true though.

Are there possible other explanations?  Sure.  Perhaps the term “networking” to them means having a plan to actively recruit at a food truck near one of their customer’s competitors (which actually isn’t a bad strategy and I should try it sometime). Or, perhaps that they believe that you still must resort to traditional methods (e-mail/fax/walk-in) to attract labourers and skilled trades and haven’t made the investments to upgrade. Or potentially this isn’t really a legitimate operation.

To me, when I saw this advertisement, it was like seeing a rotary dial phone in a call center and I had to share.

What’s your take?