There’s an FAQ on the new site, Talentag, that asks the right question: “What is Talentag and why do you need it?”
Precisely what I was wondering after reading the TechCrunch Europe post about this site. The answer to the first half is straightforward enough. Talentag is the online equivalent of the afterwork social hour; think of it as what LinkedIn would be if it was more like Facebook and less like, well, less like LinkedIn.
Of course that’s not how the site explains it. The answer there is more of a description of what it does. For instance: “Your co-workers and friends can tag you with words or a badge and they can also vouch (for) a particular role you worked together.”
In other words, it’s a way to create a social CV. Talentag connects to your profiles on other social media and will import your work history and friends lists. Then you can connect to them on Talentag and ask them for feedback, get tagged, and, for grins, award and receive badges.
How useful is this to a recruiter? Probably not a whole lot. You can’t use it for sourcing, since searches are limited to your existing inventory of connections from LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Your Talentag friends are pulled in from Facebook, which aren’t too useful for those of us who use Facebook strictly for fun. It’s a point TechCrunch makes, too.
Vouching might have some usefulness in keeping candidates honest. But the feedback and tags? Probably not even as useful as the list of references a candidate supplies.
That said, the site may well evolve into something recruiters might find helpful. For instance, corporate recruiters with a Facebook page could create a Talentag profile, import those Facebook friends, and invite them to create their own “social CVs,” as TechCrunch calls them.
That’s just one for instance. Right now, it’s a long way to go. Don’t count it out though. TechCrunch says the founders are building in more utility. They are the same folks, by the way, that launched Emp.ly, the social media job posting service.