Billed as the ”front page of the Internet,” Reddit provides a unique and powerful forum for both those looking for jobs and those looking for candidates. For job board publishers, it’s a gold mine of information to get their finger on the pulse of what potential recruits are thinking and feeling, and what they like and absolutely hate about the job boards they’ve visited during their hunt. For publishers, the Reddit jobs forum is the perfect conversation on which to eavesdrop to figure out how to improve by listening to what the ”Redditors” are saying.

Tell How Much the Job Pays

Work is an exchange of labor for money. It is up to the recruiter to decide how much a given position pays – even within a range. The job seeker then reads the pay range on the job board ad and then decides whether the price is worth his or her labor. As one Redditor mentioned, entry-level workers, people switching fields, people making non-lateral moves or any rational person who doesn’t like putting a price tag on themselves find it super uncomfortable to answer the ”salary requirements” question. Your recruiters have an opening. What does the job pay?

Stick with the Contacts They Give You

This Redditor is not the first to find himself in the uncomfortable position of having a recruiter call at work. The job hunter sent in a resume with a link to a LinkedIn profile. The recruiter checked out the LinkedIn profile, which they like, and went straight to the contacts on the social-media site – not the contact information from the job hunter’s resume. The LinkedIn info they used was his work number, which is bad for someone who doesn’t want their boss to know they’re looking.

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You’re Hiring Me, Not My Facebook Page

As NSA spying scandals and seemingly perpetual information leaks by social-media giants dominate the news, people are clinging for dear life to what little privacy they have left. Keep this in mind and tell your recruiters to do the same. In recent years, a trend has popped up among some companies that asks new recruits to expose themselves to their bosses – digitally that is. Without forfeiting their password or making their Facebook page public, a recruit can’t become an employee. Although it’s up to the job seeker to maintain a positive online reputation, people are allowed to choose who sees what on their Facebook page. The policy of prying is almost universally panned as invasive and unnecessary. As one Redditor pointed out, it’s illegal for a company to ask for a candidate’s religious affiliation on an application, but it’s perfectly legal to demand the right to crowbar their way into their Facebook page and find out for themselves.

Reddit is a unique blend of news aggregate, social-media outlet and message board. Fueled by it’s committed users, called Redditors, the site’s jobs forum gives priceless insight into what real people – not focus groups – are thinking, feeling and saying about the job boards they frequent. You don’t have to participate, but you’d be wise to listen in.

Photo credits: Flickr users Beth Kanter and Alexis Ohanian