Before I post this week’s links, I’d like to share with you a cautionary tale of hiring horror.

My husband Leif is a UX genius  lead product designer by profession, so his particular set of skills and experience are in high demand and very useful when applying for jobs.

So useful in fact that someone, let’s call him “John”, claimed Leif’s work for Silk.co (a fantastic data visualization app) as his own in an attempt to prove that he had desirable skills to a potential employer.

John also claimed honesty as one of his core values on LinkedIn :/

Thankfully the potential employer was smart enough to do a thorough reference check and learned that John had never worked for Silk.

This reference check saved the employer a lot of time, money and tears.

You have been warned!

Now here are this week’s best HR and social recruiting articles 😀

The Unholy Trinity of HR: Reference Checks – by Dawn Burke

Prepare to be warned again, but this time with the added benefit of Dawn’s useful advice.

This article also contains my favorite quote of the week:

“If you think references are irrelevant, unimportant or worthless YOU ARE NUTS. CUCKOO. MAD AS A HATTER. BELONG IN A BOOBY HATCH.”

What Recruitment Can Learn From Community Managers – by Andy Headworth

Social media and mobile technologies have significantly changed the recruitment process, which is why Andy decided to attend a major conference for community managers.

In this article, Andy talks about what he learned and recommends 10 ways that he thinks all recruiters can learn from community managers.

How to Create a Company Blog That Attracts Talent – by Heather Huhman

Blogging is a powerful tool for building a positive employer brand, but only about 22% of employers make use of the medium for this purpose. If your part of the remaining 78% then Heather’s article is a must read.

9 Things to Considering When Creating a Mobile Friendly Recruitment Website – by Newman Stewart

3 in 5 job seekers are now using mobile devices to search for jobs. – Click to Tweet 

I’m willing to bet that number is actually on the low side! If you want to attract top talent your recruitment must be mobile. Newman’s article will help you navigate what it means to have a recruitment website that is truly mobile-optimized rather than just mobile-sort-of-okayish.

Google+ is Poised for a Big Breakup – by David Nield

Via Andy Headworth’s blog

Google Plus is beloved by many recruiters, including Andy Headworth mentioned above, but recent developments may make the network much less valuable for social recruiting.

Google+ is going to be split into separate services called Photos and Streams. It’s still not entirely clear what Streams will look like, but David speculates that this separation may put an end to G+ as a social network.

Do you use Google Plus to recruit? Do you think that this split will make the network less useful for recruitment?

Let us know in the comments!