Wanted: mighty business power losing ground to upstart competitors seeks whiz to jumpstart its social media operation. A fluency in enterprise software, plus consumer-facing tools/applications a must. The ideal candidate is a persuasive communicator able to convince upper management that a Twitter feed and YouTube channel doesn’t mean you’re a social company. Interested applicants please apply to Google.

Okay, we haven’t yet seen the classified ad for Google’s new head of social, but we’re imagining it might read something like that. It is GigaOm that comes closest to spelling out what Google is searching for in a new social media heavy, having obtained a letter from the recruitment firm tasked with finding it the next Zuckerberg. The letter reads:

This is a new and very strategic position, as Google knows it is late on this front and is appropriately humble about it. In Google’s view, conceptually, there are two ways to tackle social, each impacting who may be successful in this senior post: 1) building an innovative offering specifically in this area; or 2) developing the capability and integrating social into Google’s existing portfolio.

The tech press of course is having some fun with Google’s humble admission that, so far, when it comes to social media, we’ve blown it. Orkut, anyone? They could just as easily point to more recent missteps: the Google Buzz bomb and the cacophonous Nexus One phone launch. These launches were classic Google – sophisticated pieces of engineering that would earn kudos from fellow geeks, but would be greeted with indifference by the general public, or worse, a backlash. Google Buzz, for one, proved that when it comes to social media, Google truly has a tin ear.

Oddly, Google now finds itself in the same position as so many mega-consumer brands outside the tech sector. It has to scramble to beef up its social media expertise quickly before it falls too far behind competitors and, worse, risks growing further detached from consumers. But where to turn?

It could pull a page from one of the most successful brand marketers ever, McDonald’s. The fast food giant last month hired Rick Wion, a PR veteran from Golin Harris in Chicago to serve as its first-ever director of social media with responsibilities ranging from conducting targeted outreach efforts with influential food bloggers to managing customer problems. I have my doubts that any PR specialist can successfully defuse the wave of customer service complaints that arise each day, but the hire shows ambition and a strong sense of what the social media specialists within an organization will have to deal with in the future. In short, it involves every part of the business that intersects with the customer. If that sounds like every part of the business, full-stop, you’re right. Even traditional media companies like Britain’s ITV see the social media director as someone more than a glorified digital marketing guy.

Google’s head of social media may yet be the toughest gig to crack. There isn’t a part of Google’s business that couldn’t use a social overhaul. Case in point: YouTube, for all its vastness, would be a much more vibrant forum with even more community input. Sometimes, we want the human touch, not an algorithm that spits out the most popular each day.

Google made its billions on the back of genius coding. That was the easy part. Its future success will be determined by winning over a much more complex machine: us.

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