Ok so today I have decided to do my first video blog on the back of Bill Boormans Radio show earlier this week on blogging, which of course I was on again. I have combined my love of the Iphone (hence some early shakiness) and video to explain 2 things that I found very interesting from a prospective new client meeting earlier today. Be kind this is my first video blog after all. For those of you who know me, will know that I LOVE TO TALK, you will be happy to know this is only 3 minutes long….trust me 10 minutes would have been a breeze.
Tag Archive for Bill Boorman
An Unconference you say…..
In May this year Bill Boorman is bringing is hugely successful and popular TRU Events to Australia (#truaus) & New Zealand (trunz), something I am looking forward to immensely. As the only person in either country to have attended one of these events I thought I would impart my experience and divulge to you why this event is so special (and no Bill is not paying me to write this, although if he wants to….).
Firstly the The Recruitment Unconference, TRU, is like no other all day conference. There are no presentations, there is no scripted commentary, all rules are thrown out the window, and anything that resembles a traditional conference is quickly dealt with and kicked out the door. You will not find yourself sitting in rows, you will probably stand most of the time if your lucky, and if anyone starts to take over the show, just cut them off, seriously. That’s right, everyone at this event is on equal footing and you are encouraged, if not expected to speak your mind.
The day has one format and one format only, Tracks. These tracks are essentially topics that for a 45min session approx. those who wish to join in and discuss that topic are welcomed to. There will be Track Leaders, who will facilitate the track and encourage participation from all, these track leaders we could call them somewhat experts (bad word to use in Social Media I know) of that particular topic/track. You will find the Tracks cover a wide range of Social Recruiting and general recruitment topics and issues.
The best thing of all though, if you do not like the conversation that is going on, simply get up, don’t worry about excusing yourself, and move to the next track. You will find at least 5 tracks on at any one time, so something is bound to be of interest.
With multiple tracks on at once, multiple varieties of tracks through-out the day, and the ability to attend what you want when you want, a TRU event is like no other event the recruitment industry has seen. It’s a breathe of fresh air and encourages you to get involved and stay involved. The networking and sheer enthusiasm I experienced in London is something i know that we proud and competitive Aussies can double at least.
Now with any recruitment event there is the usual After-conference-drinks. Well of course this will happen as well. We can call it a Tweet-up, a Undrinks event but rest assured it will happen. So with that who would like to help organise this? Melbourne has some of the best pubs/bars/venues in Australia so who is keen to join me in sorting this out, umm did I just volunteer myself?
So with all that, hopefully now you have a better understand of what #truaus & indeed #trunz is all about. In short, you can look forward to a unscripted, unformatted, unreal event talking Social Recruiting and Recruitment topics in May, and unlike any other conference, you will walk away with more information, ideas and energy to get back to work then from any other conference.
And stay tuned through-out the day for a Secret Track, A pub track or something wacky that I am sure will occur, that’s the great spirit of this event, anything goes, well almost anything.
If you want to know more check out the TRU website, drop me a line or even the man himself Bill Boorman
Video and Recruitment – How and Why
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.
Category: Featured Post /
Tags: Bill Boorman, social media, social media recruiting, social media recruitment, video, video recruitment
ROI isn't ROI with Social Media to measure success
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?
Category: Uncategorized /
Tags: Bill Boorman, ROI, social media, social media ROI, social media success, social recruiting
Hats off to Bill Boorman
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4cMIlNnMic&hl=en_US&fs=1&]
UNbelievable……UNconference
So, next week is the UNconference and I must admit I am a little UNcertain as to what is going to happen. UNdoubtedly there will be a lot of people that have UNiversity degrees but I am sure they think it is all going to be quite UNpredictable to. I thought I would UNdo some mystery with an UNbiased view on this UNdertaking and our track leaders,
There are a few things that I do know for sure though. Bill will be UNdoubtedly be UNder the spotlight as the key host and UNique figure head for the day. Matt Alder will be UNabashedly telling us about his new venture, Alastair Cartwright and Alex Strang will be UNambigious in there assessment and views on recruiting technology and Jacqui Steadman will be UNdeniable to ignore with her years of experience in recruitment.
This brings me to the rest of the UNconference track leaders. Andy Headworth will be UNequaled in discussing blog writing, few are UNacquainted with is work. Katherine Robinson and Geoff Webb will help us UNderstand the world of sourcing and Keith Robinson will UNleash his wealth of experience on all us and Lucian Tarnowski cannot be UNderestimated at the age of 25, what he has achieved is UNbelievable.
Finally Mike Taylor & Lisa Scales will UNravel the mystery’s of video and its use in recruitment. As for me, I am probably Unknown.
That’s enough for now, I’m all Un’d out. Till the 19th.
Category: Uncategorized /
Tags: Alastair Cartwright, Alex Strang, Andy Headworth, Bill Boorman, Jacqui Steadman, Keith Robinson, LIsa Scales, Matt Alder, Mike Taylor, News, social media, social media recruitment, Unconference
