Archive for January 28, 2010

My Blog Challenge – TO YOU

January 28, 2010 / Justin Hillier / 3 comments

So who thinks writing Blogs day in day or, or at least 3 times a week is tough? Well when i first started (and to be fair its only been a few months) I thought the same. Where would all my ideas come from, when would I have the time to write them all, and would anyone want to read what I have to say.

Well after a short while I realised I had plenty of things to write about and once I got the hang of it, each blog took about 20 minutes, that’s 1 hour a week if you aim for 3 blogs each week. So as you can see finding the time to write each one isn’t that difficult. The ideas though are the easiest. What I also realised is that I can write about anything as long as you can relate it to recruitment even in an abstract way.

Today I was sitting in the reception area of a potential client and knew I had at least 5 minutes and 2 ideas for a blogs that I had to write down the Titles of before I forgot. What happened from there was crazy. I couldn’t stop, idea after idea, until I ended up with 16 different ideas to write about. This was all in under 10 minutes.

Problem is now where to begin?

Well I am going to put that to you. Below are the 15 ideas I came up with that I want to write about, all with a recruitment related, some not so obvious, but sometimes that’s the point. So I want to hear from YOU, what order would you like to see these ideas blogged about, don’t be shy and put them in order of interest for you.

I am going to write one a day starting Feb 1st, not only to put these idea to paper, so to speak, but to highlight how simple blogging can be sometimes.

1. Should every company have some Social Media presence?
2. Why I blog
3. Why having Employer Brand Ambassadors are important
4. Why Social Recruiting can’t be left to one person
5. Are you dis-engaged
6. Be Socialable
7. The Social Sofa
8. The Network
9. Information Overload
10. Social Media has made the world our own backyard
11. Minority Report
12. Use the Force
13. Tortoise and the Hare
14. Just because it’s important to you…
15. #TRUAUS

So what would you like to read about first?

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Why should I be on Twitter?

January 20, 2010 / Justin Hillier / 4 comments

Believe or not, over the last week talking with clients I have been asked this question 4 times now by prospective clients wanting to get into the Social Media/Social Recruiting space. It wasn’t necessarily the question that shocked me (well it did but) it was more the fact that these companies had not as yet done there research and identified what benefit Twitter can bring to their business as well as to their own knowledge in the market place.

As with any new tool or fancy gadget it is imperative that you undertake all of the necessary research first to find out if it is right for you, but also what benefit you can expect from your investment in time and money. You won’t just go buy any 52″ LCD TV now will you? Social Media is no different. I myself was totally against joining Twitter when I was first introduced to it, however my scepticism of it “being a waste of time” was quickly shot down.

Here is a list of why I now value Twitter so highly.

1. Build a network of contacts within your industry that you never had access to or knew about before, not just locally, but globally.
2. Share your knowledge and expertise on a global basis
3. Discover new opinions and thoughts from like minded people in your industry, locally and globally
4. Great way to engage with future clients, the Twitter community are a very approachable bunch.
5. Great way to engage with current clients.
6. Build your company reputation through constant engagement and quality content.
7. Build your personal reputation as a thought leader and industry specialist
8. When it’s organised, great way to meet your network through Tweet-ups and like minded events, building your personal contacts and forging friendships.
9. Your Network will bend over backwards to help you with things that you never would have expected. Trust me, it’s true.
10. Listen, watch and learn. You don’t have to contribute 24/7, there are great learning’s to be had just by watching your feed sometimes.
11. It’s FUN

If that is not enough reasons then maybe Twitter isn’t for you. But if it is, what are you waiting for?

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Only Fools Rush In…….

January 13, 2010 / Justin Hillier / No comments

I am noticing more and more lately that companies are rushing in to social media for the sake of it. It’s the latest craze and “we just have to be there”. That’s all good and well, but what damage is a hap-hazard, 2 bit, thrown together job going to do for you. Pasting your company brand all over the place, typing whatever into each profile section, and not thinking about each platforms demographic, functionality and relevancy to your objectives could leave you with a dogs breakfast.

Social Media is like any other undertaking that you are going to do in the business world. Don’t take the easy way out just because you think “if we are not up and running in the next 20 minutes we are going to miss out”. And believe it or not there is more then Twitter and Facebook out there, and they may not even be right for you anyway.

One very simple old school line comes to mind. Fail to plan, and you are planning to fail.

P.S If you don’t know where to start or want to make sure you are on the right track contact me. (Yes shameless plug but hey why not)

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Video and Recruitment – How and Why

January 11, 2010 / Justin Hillier / 10 comments

After today’s show with Bill Boorman regarding video usage in recruitment, it dawned one me that the general view of video use is fairly narrow in terms of alternative areas of use outside of Employer Branding and Video Resumes (I hate this term but for ease of explanation for now).

Many people scoff at the thought of video as an effective tool for recruitment r employee communication, however in the age of Web 2.0 tools and companies competing for Talent, video is one of the key tools in connecting and engaging with a candidate more then most. I have blogged about this before on ERE

So here is a list of what aspects of recruitment and employee interactions that companies can use video with.

Attraction
Typical Employer Branding video’s, Day in the Life style content, we all know this so I don’t think there is that much to say. Don’t go out and produce an Oscar winning video, make it real, make it in line with your company values and culture and make it now.

Onboarding
Typical starting dates are 2+ weeks after the letter of offer has gone out, so why not take this opportunity to use video to introduce future team members. A quick 2 minute video of the new employees team saying Hi, can’t wait to meet you, or the line manager or better yet MD/CEO welcoming the candidate can go a long way to further exciting the new employee.

Most first weeks in a new job these days concentrates on training of new systems and processes. Why not use some of the many tools out there to record this training on screen with added voice. These tools are great to not only use internally but can give the new incoming employee a great head start on the systems they will be using and some of the process that is unique to your business.

Training
Sitting in a room learning something new in a class format is boring (trust me I know, I’ve taught English in a foreign country and had many in-company training sessions) Why not spice things up and have a good portion of all the different types of internal training that occurs in your business on video. Not only does this change the dynamic of the learning process but it also means that employees have access to this content at any time and potentially anywhere (stored on your intranet perhaps).

Employee Engagement and Communication
How many times have you sat there struggling to write that perfect worded email to your team or a company wide message only to get fed up and delete it all and start again. Writing is never easy and takes time to make sure that things like grammer, speling nad your message is right. How many times have you forgotten to spell check your email? ( I’m leaving those mistakes there to prove a point). Better yet, you can turn to your colleague and explain what you want to say perfectly, but on paper (so to speak) the words just aren’t professional enough.

DO A VIDEO. Make it personal and exciting. If it’s an exciting piece of information to tell, show emotion. How do you expect people to get excited every time just from yet another email. Similarly, what I would love to see companies do is Senior management send out a video to their teams reviewing the week, month or quarter. They are often more heard about then seen, so put them front personal, approachable feel back to the people that are often more maligned then loved.

Exiting
Staff leave, its only natural. So how could video be helpful if they are exiting your business. Well for whatever reason they may depart, a personalised video message from their direct manager or better yet CEO/MD thanking them for their service to the company is a great touch. Not only does that show that the company has valued your input, but how many CEO/MD’s, or even direct managers do enough to thank exiting staff for their time and service. Not everyone leaves on a bad note.

Interviews
Utilising video is a great way to enhance or speed up the hiring process. Maybe the candidate is remotely based, maybe your schedules are not lining up, maybe you want to save time and travel costs. Whatever the reason using video can add a different dimension to the early stages of the hiring process. You certainly don’t need to do this of course for every job, but when appropriate why not try it, what do you have to lose.

Screening
A past post of mine on ERE explains this one.

Candidate Video Profiles
Or Video Resumes as some people like to call them. They are going to happen, maybe not tomorrow but certainly in the very near future. The one thing that is going to make them worth while for everyone is the expectation of what Employers wish them to be. There are many BAD candidate video profiles out there. But can we blame the candidate? How are they to know what is a good video if we do not tell them what is expected.

I have also blogged about this before and this past post should also quell some of those DISCRIMINATION bandits out there screaming that it opens up to many problems.

Video is another tool in your armoury that can add tremendous value to a wide range of applications to the whole HR environment. Don’t be shy and give it a go, there is a reason that Youtube is so popular…….

Also check out Michael Specht’s views on video.

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Google Wave Goodbye

January 7, 2010 / Justin Hillier / 5 comments

So you have this fancy new product and you figure the best way to promote it is to invite 4000 developers to your headquaters, record the whole 90 minute event, and post it to Youtube for the world to see and hope, well know, that it will go viral and be talked about all over the world. You pitch it as “if email was built today, what would it look like” and all of a sudden everyone is listening, and why not, look who you are.

Yep, that’s Google and Google Wave. But where has it gone? It was only a few months ago that every man and his dog that was on the net was begging and pleading for an invite and it was Top 10 in Twitter Trends with no problem at all. It was the new cool communication tool that was a must have, and we all couldn’t wait to get our hands on it. How fickle or quick things change. It has been at least 3 weeks since I have seen anyone reach out for an invite, in fact I tried giving my 7 left away and had no takers.

It seems that Google Wave was either the best viral marketing of a new freeware software communication tool of all time or that Google have actually got this one wrong. To be fair I just think there timing is off. I was totally sold after watching the movie length episode of all Google Wave tricks and treats and what else they have planned for the “new email”. How could you not be jumping over yourself to get your hands on it.

So where has it gone wrong. Firstly, it is very obvious that you need a large network to get the full power of Google Wave. With the limited (understandablle as it’s in Beta) amount of people on it, this makes it a glorified IM platform. Most importantly has Google jumped the gun on Google Wave?

Twitter is still the shiny new toy that we are all addicted to. It’s simple, quick and easy and everyone is on it. There are no 100 page instruction manuals needed, and the added tools that allow you to track a wide range of facets make it the “in thing” Its that addictive that Michael Specht just passed 30,000 tweets. How many waves would that equate to and how many people would you need to have on there to do that?

I don’t doubt that Google Wave will have its place moving forward and will prove to be a great communication tool. But should Google have waited 6-12 months until Twitter and Facebook start becoming a bit stale?

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ROI isn't ROI with Social Media to measure success

January 6, 2010 / Justin Hillier / One comment

Has there ever been a more confusing and mirky topic then defining what is a companies or individuals Return on Investment then with Social Media. Defining how to measure success, clarifying what is success and even more confusing what tools and metrics to use to get these answers has everyone scratching their head and coming up with 300 different ways to do it.

Lets consider first that using Social Media sites is FREE. This aspect changes the game completely when calculating ROI, as traditional methodology will have you calculate money invested to money returned, fairly straight forward but how can this work with Social Media. The major investment (aside from creative that you may wish to do or video production etc) is time.

So do we work out how many hours we spend on Social Media sites, our hourly pay rate and the value and then try and work out if we are getting a return on that. Hell No. No matter what it is you are doing, time is key to being successful. Be it time on the phone, time in the office, time spent in front of clients, this metric is always there, very important yes, but Social Media really shouldn’t be valued this way. Time is money of course but time is a constant and a given.

Earlier this week I joined Bill Boorman on his Blog Talk Radio show discussing ROI for Social Media and Bill insightfully suggested that ROI for Social Media should be Return on Implementation. Whilst we didn’t get a lot of time to explore this and Bill’s thinking, I have no doubt there will be some merit to it.

It got me thinking though, what is the right terminology for ROI and social media. Is there one? Probably not, but given that your aim should be to build an engaging community and repeat communication and interaction, Repetition of Interest/Interaction feels right for me.

How often is your community responding to your posts and others posts, be it blog, micro-blogging, video’s etc. how often are they getting involved, and what is the repeat engagement and volume of engagement from your community. If you have 2000 followers and only 20 consistently engage, is this a good ROI (Repetition of Interaction)?

What’s your thoughts? Is traditional ROI really trackable or relevant to Social Media or is Return on Implementation or Repetition of Interest/Interaction more in line with Social Media expectations. Or is it still to early to really say that anything that we track is proof of success?

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