Archive for June 29, 2010

The Ultimate Job – What is it going to be?

June 29, 2010 / Justin Hillier / No comments

We have all heard of the Hamilton Island “Best job in the world” competition that ran last year. It was a global success and the use of social media tools to drive awareness, engagement and the overall success of the campaign can not be questioned. While it certainly did sound like The best job in the world, perhaps for many it may not have been, we didn’t really get a say did we.

This is about to change. Drake Intl. have created a competition to find “The Ultimate Job”. The competition is being run right around Australia to find The Ultimate Job in each city. The wonderful thing about this campaign is that the public decides what is The Ultimate Job.

Here’s how it works:

  • Each capital city will have its own Ultimate Job
  • There are celebrity judges who will choose the top 10 jobs to be voted on by the public. An article will outline each of the positions with the opportunity for each Employer to produce a video to promote their position further.
  • Mission Australia will receive revenue raised by public SMS vote for The Ultimate Job, % of job placement fee and all monies raised via Gala Event concluding the competition
  • Companies with vacant jobs will be encouraged, through multiple sources to submit their applications to be short listed for The Ultimate Job.
  • These are all real jobs that the public can apply to. Some companies are actually creating jobs specifically for this competition, how cool is that?.
  • The Ultimate Job will be announced at a Gala Event with the Top 10 companies in attendance. All jobs will be introduced, No. 10 right down to the winner. The celebrities participating in the judging will be in attendance.
  • The winning job applicant will be showcased at the Gala Evennt.

    • This is a fantastic competition that is going to showcase many great companies, and gives them the opportunity to not only showcase a fantastic job opportunity but also their Employer Brand and EVP. The involvement and support given to Mission Australia is brilliant and the calibre of the Celebrity judging panel is outstanding.

    Drake have done a great job of putting together this competition and from what I understand Social Media will be used to promote the competition and allow engagement with the public, which after all is one of the main aims of this campaign, public choice. With companies like Deloitte, Foster’s and Myer already on board, plus many more, it promises to test each company to not only come up with a great job opportunity but might very well redefine what constitutes a great job, or in this case, The Ultimate Job.

    You can check out the competition website here, or follow them on Twitter here.

    Category: Uncategorized / Tags: , , ,

    Recruiting in 2021

    June 29, 2010 / Justin Hillier / One comment

    About eleven years ago Job Boards burst on to the scene to end the demise of print advertising. Whilst that has not entirely occurred, it certainly has made a massive dent in to the once prominent employment sections of the Saturday paper. But what of eleven years from now? Social Media, or Social Recruiting as we like to call it, is starting to make in-roads in to companies strategies of building talent communities to engage more directly with the candidates, but what will 2021 look like?

    Here are some perhaps weird, out there, crazy ideas.

    Augmented Reality
    This one I think has some real merit. Augmented Reality is going to be quite big I believe for the Hospitality, Tourism and Retail markets, but what if you could point your smart phone at a store, company Head Quarters, or just down the street to see what jobs are available. This brings the technology of Location mapping, Augmented Reality and Mobile all in one. Give the candidate the ability to apply, send of their online resume and all of a sudden candidates can apply for jobs just while walking down the street. THIS I REALLY WANT TO SEE.

    Voice Recognition/Voice Sentiment
    Ok, I said some whacky ideas, but what if whenever you said you hated your job or were talking about a really bad day at work, you received some type of message with the latest jobs in your area/industry etc. Ok there are some obvious privacy issues here, but if the candidate had control over these privacy points there may just be another angle to target candidates who are not happy in their jobs. A bit out there but you never know.

    Gaming
    The gaming industry is HUGE. There are already companies out there using gaming to target potential employees, but for the moment it seems to be gaming based jobs or Paul Jacobs using Farmville for Deloitte in New Zealand.

    What if the next time a company is building the next Sim City game (is that still around) or something where you have to work your way though a city that a company has a billboard on the side of the road or an advertisement comes up on the screen. You could target specific countries or even have a game within the game in a strategic manner to find a specific candidate with the skill set you are after.

    Holographic Interviews
    I love video interviews and they are certainly going to be the way of the future for first stage introductions. But what about holographic displays. No, I’m not talking about Princess Leia in Star Wars, but full scale holographic displays that shows every characteristic of the person at the “other end”. The technology is certainly out there, I have seen one company doing great things already (name escapes me) and I’d imagine that in eleven years time that cost, and access will come down considerably.

    Youtwitface
    This was a great joke by Conan O’Brian that in 3022 (something like that), that Youtube, Twitter and Facebook will merge to become YouTwitFace. Although it was a joke, is it really that hard to imagine that not all 3 will survive as we know them today or even be around at all. Facebook may overtake Google with most users and traffic, and it’s certainly heading that way at this stage, so why not in eleven years time would you not simply just use Facebook, or whatever it will be to recruit. If Facebook ever head down the business path with communities I think we can say game over for the rest.

    These are just a few ideas of what recruitment might look like in 2021. Whacky, Zany, think outside of the box, what would, or could, totally change the way companies recruit today, the technology is likely out there, let your mind be free. So, what is your idea?

    Category: Featured Post, Social Recruiting / Tags:

    Block Social Sites at your own recruiting peril

    June 18, 2010 / Justin Hillier / 3 comments

    There are a few, wait, a lot of companies out there that block the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Youtube etc. from their employees as they fear they will spend every business hour wasting time talking to their friends and not actually working. Whilst this might be true of a small amount of employees, to generalise and punish not only the rest of your staff but your business is policy suicide.

    With Social Recruiting now becoming more prominent, companies are now using these sites to attract and source staff to their business. This firstly is fantastic, I love the use of Social Media to engage and communicate with people about wider company values and what makes a business unique. Each company has a personality and any candidate worth their salt will want to know that their personality matches the company they are applying to and there are clear opportunities for growth and development.

    But what happens when a candidate turns into an employee and they cannot use Facebook at work to tell their friends that they just had a great meeting with a client, won an award or are off to a day of fun and excitement with their team. This is where I feel some companies seem to lose their way and restrict themselves from being even more successful.

    Utilising these sites to attract and sell your business to candidates is great and has multiple benefits. So why then would you, once a new employee starts on day one, or day two, let them know that Social Media sites are blocked to employees? What seemed good enough on the outside, now is against company policy.

    There are of course many social media tools to maximise and enhance employee engagement, but by blocking the tools you use as external communication and engagement pathways in to your company, you are sending mixed messages to candidates and employees that what is good enough for some, is not good enough for others.

    Why risk polluting your message and perception by blocking sites and your employees that you could actually be leveraging.

    Category: Uncategorized / Tags: , , ,

    Video in Recruitment – No more excuses

    June 16, 2010 / Justin Hillier / 4 comments

    Very exciting news this morning, that exciting in fact that I haven’t even wasted any time reading my emails or having breakfast yet, Youtube are releasing a very simple and easy to use video editing tool for the every day user. Now every bit of the 24 hours of video that is uploaded to Youtube every minute can now be easily edited with no prior experience in editing required.

    The tool will allow users to edit video clips, combine clips together, add music and audio, and release it to the world. Noise-reduction functionality as well as a library of royalty-free background music will also be available. Best of all there will be no software to download as it will be all in the cloud.

    This is sensational news for all of those companies out there that want to create an Employer Branding video, training video or something fun to showcase to the market and don’t want to pay the high cost of some video editing company or ad agency to do the editing and production of the video. You can now do all of this yourself FOR FREE!!!

    I am a big advocate of video and even the simple to use iMovie editing abilities are tricky for some, however with Youtube moving down this path there is no longer an excuse for not producing a video for your business to attract talent or many of the other uses of video in talent attraction and employee engagement.

    So what are you waiting for, get out your Flip Cam or Video Camera and starting shooting, there really are NO MORE EXCUSES!!!

    Here is a peak at the Youtube editing tool. It will be available in the next few days.

    YouTube Announces A Bare-Bones Video Editing Tool

    Category: Uncategorized / Tags: , ,

    Foursquare – Could it be a recruitment tool?

    June 9, 2010 / Justin Hillier / No comments

    This morning I had the pleasure of interviewing Sam Mutimer as part of The Social Sofa series. During our pre-chat Sam mentioned to me that Foursquare have over 1 million users now in Australia. This figure not only shocked me but made me think immediately how it can be used for recruitment and just how powerful social media and mobile apps are becoming.

    With 1 million people now on LinkedIn, over 7 million on Facebook, approx 1.3 million users on Twitter, 2.3M Australians have created a blog, 1.6M are updating their blog, and 7.1M Australians read blogs! and now with Foursquare proving its traffic, why are companies not jumping in to this space quicker when it comes to attracting and engaging with talent. Some if not all of these platforms should be a part of your Social Recruiting strategy.

    Even with the odd double up, triple up or more, that’s 16 million people (taking the 7.3 million people who read blogs stat) taking part in Social Media activities. If if we said half that figure, is that not enough of an audience to target? If a job board started up tomorrow in Australia and said they have between 8 million – 16 million visitors each month would you advertise on it straight away, remember that’s TWICE the reach of Seek’s traffic?

    Andy Headworth blogged recently on a great strategy for Foursquare (read it here), it could prove to be another great channel to use in your sourcing strategy.

    Any combination of these sites and tools can add an insightful and more engaging experience for a candidate seeking a new career path and should be integral to your sourcing strategy and Social Recruiting activities, why wouldn’t you want to be involved and be involved now?

    Category: Uncategorized / Tags: , , , , ,

    The Social Sofa – Tim Bull from Tribalytic

    June 4, 2010 / Justin Hillier / 2 comments

    This week’s Social Sofa is with Tim Bull and focuses on a great new Australian start-up company Tribalytic. Tribalytic is a twitter analytics tool to help you filter the noise and focus on the topics you need to listen to. Currently they are in closed beta and only index Australian users, however this is fantastic news for all of those Australian companies out there wanting to understand their market segment a little more via social media.

    I have had a play around with the Tribalytic and I must say it is quite impressive. As their stream widens and new features come on board it will certainly be a part of SR360′s tools to use.

    Click here to watch! Scroll to the bottom for this episode.

    Category: Uncategorized / Tags: , , , , , ,

    Some reasons why you should be considering Social Recruiting

    June 2, 2010 / Justin Hillier / No comments

    This won’t be the world’s longest list – I could sit here for the next 3 hours and list every reason I can think of, but I won’t. I just want to make some clear observations and highlight my thinking around a Social Recruiting strategy, which combines with your current sourcing techniques to add value to your business.

    So here we go.

    1. Seek has just put their prices up again.
    I’m leading with this as it is always a sore point with many. It isn’t totally surprising (it is a yearly occurrence), but it does make other alternatives more attractive. I am a big Seek fan (I worked there for many years, so I have a slight bias) but the more the price goes up, the more other options need to be explored.

    2. Market your employer brand with minimal cost
    There are 1 million people on LinkedIn in Australia, approx. 2.5 million on Twitter and over 7 million people on Facebook. If you are not promoting your company via these channels what are you waiting for?

    3. Engage with candidates more effectively
    You want to talk to candidates out there that are interested in working for you. You don’t know where to find them. Look at the numbers above in point 2, that should be a good starting point.

    4. Expand your knowledge of the HR/recruiting market
    There is an enourmous number of people out there (both colleagues and candidates) that love sharing their ideas (I am one of them or you wouldn’t be reading this) regarding best practice, new concepts or whacky ideas for HR & recruitment. Tap in to this huge pool of knowledge and start reading. You might find something you like and can implement to get started in the area. Learn from other people’s mistakes.

    5. Strategic, Proactive, Cost Effective, Multi-dimensional and NOW
    Social media has downsides, just like everything else. The benefits far outweigh the risks, if it’s approached as a strategy and not just a cheap trick. The five words I used as the point title tell you why. If you don’t see the potential in something that’s strategic, proactive, cost effective, multi-dimensional and current, maybe it’s time we talked.

    6. Be seen as innovative
    There are only a few companies doing anything serious in the social recruiting space in Australia. There are many different ways to utilise social media to stand out from the crowd. One of the finest examples is Deloitte in New Zealand run by Paul Jacobs

    7. Social media is not a fad!
    I may have to say this 500,000 times. Look at the statistics, the media saturation of stories, the proliferation of blogs and ideas out there in this space – this is not something which will come and go, but something which is radically redefining the way we communicate and share information. Facebook is trying to out think Google everyday now (badly at times yes) but the trend of people using these tools to stay connected is undeniable.

    8. Are your current methods fool proof?
    The ultimate question. Is your current sourcing strategy 100% effective? Social media may not be the silver bullet, but it can certainly go a long way to providing a different perspective and a wide range of enhancements and improvements to your current approach. It is not meant to replace everything you currently do, but should be seen as an integral component and channel to a candidate market place that has moved on from newspapers, radio and to some degree job boards.

    Category: Featured Post, Social Recruiting / Tags: , ,
     
    SocialRecruiting360.com