In need of communications professionals with an understanding of social media, we posted our job descriptions on our blog and then tweeted and Facebooked it out to our contacts. To help spread the word, our contacts did the same.

When Clairemont launched, it was our goal to find the perfect blend of traditional communications and social media for our clients. We proudly do just that for our clients, with a high majority of the day-to-day work falling on the social side. That’s why I was impressed when one candidate creatively demonstrated that 1) she understood the importance of social media to Clairemont clients and 2) that she had a working knowledge of how to use it by sending me a thank you note in the form of a blog post. (It was the “Thanks, Dana” sign that did it form me!)

She then took the blog entry and posted it to my Facebook page. To continue using social media as part of the hiring process, I asked my Facebook friends (many of whom are other communications professionals) to like the post if they thought I should hire her. Twenty-five likes and 19 comments later, she was invited in for the writing test that she passed with flying colors.

This smart candidate, Josephine Butler, is now Clairemont’s account coordinator. In addition to conveying how her relevant communications experience from spending the past year serving in the AmeriCorps Project Conserve with a focus on conservation issues in North Carolina’s mountainous region, Josie listened during her interview. She listened so well, in fact, that she picked up on the fact that social media is a big part of what we do. As a result, she used social media to get a job with social media responsibilities.

Then… you might have guessed it… she blogged about getting the job! And she wasn’t the only one. After watching this play out during the “voting phase” on my Facebook page, Arik Hanson included Josie’s story in his post 6 Creative Ways to Land a Job in Digital PR.

A bit more about Clairemont’s clever new account coordinator…Josie is a 2009 graduate of UNC‘s School of Journalism and Mass Communications. Her AmeriCorps assignment called her to serve as the education and outreach associate for the Western North Carolina Nature Center in Asheville where she demonstrated how the organization could benefit from social media.

While a UNC student, Josie was active in the Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA), served as a public relations assistant for Morehead Planetarium and Science Center, was an officer for the UNC Advertising Club and was honored by the Raleigh-Durham chapter of the American Advertising Federation as the 2008 Robert F. Lauterborn scholarship recipient.

Josie will be a regular blogger on this site, will be posting updates to the Clairemont Communications page on Facebook and you can read about her continued social media and new job adventures by following her on Twitter: @ok2hooray.