Tag Archive for facebook

Social Media Inception

August 9, 2010 / Justin Hillier / 10 comments


Over the weekend I finally went and saw Inception. Unless you have been living under a rock you know this movie has something to do with dreams, and stealing them. On the surface that is initially what it is about, however as the movie progresses the key plot is planting an idea in someone’s dream/subconscious so that when they wake they will think the idea is their own.

Sounds simple right, wrong. And without giving away any more of the movie for those who haven’t seen it yet, (Go see it now) I want to focus on that point, “planting an idea in someone’s dream/subconscious so that when they wake they will think the idea is their own”.

Something dawned on me when I heard this and thought back to my recent Social Sofa episode with Steve Ludlow. Steve mentioned that the benefit that his business receives out of Social Media is that he gets to communicate with his network and does not feel the necessity to sell to them at every opportunity. With a more engaging and sharing approach, Steve has been able to fill 25% of his positions via Social Media in the last 12 months, without the need to sell or broadcast/spam his jobs.

Engaging with your network, providing interesting and varied content, encouraging feedback, conversation and no selling. When someone within your network is seeking a new career opportunity, they reach out to you, without the thought of another company. Without realising it they have you in their subconscious as the “Go To” company and it was all their idea. Did I hear you say Social Media Inception?

If this is not your strategy perhaps it should be, or at least be forming a large part of your social media communication, engagement and content creation strategy.

Social Media Inception, not a bad thought/approach if you ask me, what are your thoughts?

Category: Featured Post, Social Recruiting / Tags: , , ,

Australian Social Media Stats – Nielsen Report

March 15, 2010 / Justin Hillier / No comments

Amazing stats this morning from Nielsen showing the growth of Social Media usage in Australia. If this doesn’t make the HR/recruitment industry realise there is a HUGE LOST OPPORTUNITY in not being in the Social Media game then I don’t know what will.

Here is a brief overview:

9 million Australians now interact via social networks
Content sharing is the most popular activity
4 in 5 Australian Internet users have shared a photo
Twitter usage grew by 400% in 2009
Nearly 3/4 of Australians read a wiki
2 in 5 Australians interact with companies via social networks

Add to this that LinkedIn reported last week to now have 1 million users in Australia and the arguments just keep stacking up for everyone to jump on board. You can download the 3 page report here

Category: Uncategorized / Tags: , , , , ,

Use "The Force" Luke

March 11, 2010 / Justin Hillier / 2 comments
Social Recruiting Use-The-Force

Social Recruiting Use-The-Force

Ah Star Wars, how I love thee. Three amazing films, well ahead of their time with ideas and special effects, and then 3 movies that left a little bit to be desired, but I’m not going to go into that today. The Star Wars story, the original 3, centered around Luke Skywalker and his father Darth Vader, Jedi Knights with abilities that mere mortals can only dream of.

They can convince people to do what they wish, move items at will, fight with a light sabre like its a chopstick and essentially are the keepers of peace, and the instigator of evil. One wants to rule the Universe, while the other is there to keep things in harmony. “The Force” which gives these Jedi Knights their powers is EVERYTHING. It is the living organisms, the buildings, people, anything you can imagine has some element of The Force surrounding it. The Jediss use this to their advantage (or for Evil for Mr Vadar) and extract what they can out of every situation.

The most famous line for me, and one that we all use on a regular basis is “Use the Force”. When I want something done, or someone else to do something, “Use The Force” is always thrown in there. Maybe I haven’t grown up, but that’s not the point and I have to eventually relate this to Social Recruiting.

So what is “The Force” for recruiters and companies trying to find the best talent in the market? Your Network!

Call it a community, a tribe, a bunch of people, call it what you will, but a recruiters “Force” is the breadth and extensiveness of your professional network. You see the more you are networking, be it via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Blogs, Events (yes something offline, it still exists) the list goes on, the better access you have to finding what you are looking for. If you are not using Social Media to assist with this, I have nothing to say other then YOU ARE MAD!!!!! Never before have you been able to network so EASILY…..

It may not always be a candidate for that open position, you could need some specific industry information, a recommendation on your work or help with just about anything and your network will be there for you, Use the “Force”.

So next time as a recruiter you are sitting there wondering where your next candidate or client is going to come from, or you need that specific piece of information that will win you a deal, or best yet you are seeking a new position, double check how much time and effort you have spent building your network of contacts across the various social media channels and how you can leverage “Your Force”…..or are you mad?

PS. George Lucas has no copyright on this blog post at all.

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

Minority Report

February 2, 2010 / Justin Hillier / No comments

Social Media

Does anyone remember this movie? Tom Cruise starred in a futuristic movie where 3 collective minds could predict vicious murders that were going to occur in enough time for the authorities to not only stop the crime but to catch the criminal before the act even occurred. An interesting concept, an interesting movie and great special effects for its time.

I was thinking about this movie the other day and noticed some stark connections between the concept of a collective mind producing outcomes for a desired positive goal. You see the 3 collective minds, lets call them, Twitter, Facebook and Youtube, were all working together to produce a result. They all had their unique strengths and all played off each other to get the desired outcome.

Tom Cruise, lets call him “HR Director”, would watch all of this play out on video and be one step ahead of the game thanks to the forward thoughts of his assistant, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. The three would talk to him in a unique way that no one else had access to and allow him to forward plan strategies to save the day.

Armed with this knowledge there was nothing that “HR Director” couldn’t achieve. HR Director had the deepest insights into the rest of the world, lets call this the “global community” and could plan well in advance. Now that HR Director understood his community, the engagement levels were heightened to a level that was never previously dreamed of. The Community was now a juggernaut and there was no stopping it. Plans could be changed well in advance and industry changes and community sentiment were known before others had thought about researching it.

So does life imitate art or does art imitate life? Or have I had to many sleepless nights of late?

Category: Uncategorized / Tags: , , , ,

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?

Category: Uncategorized / Tags: , , ,

Jobs Boards – Ditch The Resume DB Please, get SOCIAL

December 1, 2009 / Justin Hillier / 6 comments

Ah, the good old resume database. How I hate thee. Might sound a little harsh but having worked at job boards in a sales capacity for 6 years I think I have every right to say they are fundamentally floored in today’s market. You see if I had a $ for every time I had a client say “It’s a waste of money, all the candidates are old or not relevant” I’d be a millionaire.

The major problem with the Resume Database as we know it, is that it is WAY to simple for a candidate to put the resume up there and do nothing else with it. This causes many problems. Often they sit there for years and more often then not they classify themselves in the wrong way. So how can job boards take the resume database forward and socialise this aspect of their sites.

I have one word for you, “Community”. The Resume database on most job boards is a formant sleeping giant. The candidates are asleep and the Employers/Recruiters are getting lost in the maze. Where is the interaction and engagement, what’s the point of having 300,000 people on a database if talking to them is near impossible. Greater engagement would mean greater value, not only to the job board in terms of revenue but to the candidate and employer in terms of faster matches.

So rather then candidates simply uploading a word doc, here is what it perhaps should look like.

1. Candidates creates Profile similar to Visualcv.com with added fields to create competencies that show specific situations of soft skill usage ie Leadership, Organisation, Decision making etc. Provide examples.
2. All Fields are searchable and the candidate has the ability to keep any fields “Private” as to avoid current Employer finding them.
3. Employers have their Company Profiles integrated in to the Community to enable candidates to shop around, search jobs, leave messages for HR or line managers.
4. Candidates and Employers can engage via SM tools such as chat, video messages, twitter feed, Forum engagement, connecting with like skilled candidates (similar to connecting on LI or Facebook)
5. Candidates can communicate with each other about current job searching issues or experiences and Employers have the ability to see this and react.
5. Employer talks/finds candidate they like. Candidate and Employer can organise “Virtual” interview via video next time they are both on line.
6. Candidate and Employer meet face to face and candidate is hired.

And this is just a start…….

Not only will the whole process be more transparent, but the interaction and engagement will be far more beneficial for both sides. And I’m sure far easier to justify the price of the database “Community”, then it is now.

Katherine Robinson wrote a great blog this week that focused on the front end for the advertisers. I totally agree with her comments.

Perhaps we are both barking mad, but I seriously think job boards will need to adapt and move with the times in order to maintain their value. The Greg Savage “Post and Pray” methd is simply not effective, and allowing candidates to just “spray” their CV’s off also needs reviewing. Something does need to change.

Job boards may not die, but they certainly will if they don’t move with the times.

And don’t get me started on ATS platforms, grrrr, but that’s for another blog.

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

Is your social media strategy, 120, 240 or 360 degrees

November 22, 2009 / Justin Hillier / One comment

So chances are you have heard of social media and you have a strategy in place to reap the benefits of the new wave of interaction that is now available to us all. You are using Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube, Xing, Delicious, Digg, ah the list goes on and on.

Your strategy is sourcing you a great deal of traffic and to date you have somewhat figured out there is a benefit in doing all of this and you are starting to see some return for your efforts. Well done, this will and should occur with a defined plan in place. Whilst it is still very much early days and the approach may very well change in 5 years time, we must get the most out of it’s current structure while we can, why not, it’s an opportunity missed otherwise and what is the business value in that?

So for now you have solved what is the puzzle of social media and recruiting. But is that really it? It can really be that “relatively” easy can it?

What if I was to suggest that your strategy is only 33% complete? And there should be in fact 3, yes 3, parts of your social media strategy.

1. Attraction + Engagement + onboarding

This one is a bit of a no-brainer for the first 2 uses, but who is using social media for onboarding? Attraction and engagement is great when talking about utilsing all of the above mentioned sites to spread the word about your company, the fantastic opportunities you have, and what a great business you have become.

But what about on-boarding. Do you encourage new employees to connect with current employees prior to starting and entice them to start getting involved in the business in any way they can. Either just by following a conversation or getting up to date with current projects that they will be working on.

2. Retention + Engagement + Collaboration

Here is where your social media strategy provides you your greatest ROI. You have attracted talent, hired them, they have under-gone a great on-boarding process and they are starting to hit their straps. You’re employees are all over social media as we know, however how can you harness social media internally to improve outcomes and enhance engagement and more collaboration. We do after all enjoy the people we work with, more then the job itself most of the time.

Supplying your staff with the ability to create chat groups, pose questions to the rest of the business and move projects along with more communication is every companies dream. Imagine allowing managers the ability to have a better understanding and the “pulse” of their staff by simply getting more involved in what they want to talk about, business or otherwise.

With meetings always cancelled or shifted to a time when not everyone can attend due to sickness or holiday, the meeting itself never resolving or covering every discussion point required, and follow up more and more difficult as some people just cannot be tracked down, why not have your staff continue moving things along with the power of a community platform.

Not only is this great for speeding up discussion and greater collaboration, but if you ever have a question why not pose it to the rest of the company in a non-intrusive manner. Who knows what answers you will get and what other business enhancements may be raised from one conversation alone.

3. Exiting + Alumni

It is suffice to say that people move on at some stage, but does that mean your communication should cease entirely. Understanding why people leave is never easy or straight forward, and answering surveys, being involved in discussions and simply making them feel like their voice is still being heard is crucial.

You may not want to stay in touch as a business with every ex employees but it would be remiss not to have some connection with former employees for either future job opportunities or business deals. You never know who might be your client or vice versa moving forward.

This is just a snapshot of course, but how many of us can say, we are indeed utilizing social media and its power to its full potential. My mum always told me if I’m going to do something do it properly, I wonder if this relates to social media and its use in recruitment as well?

Category: Uncategorized / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
 
SocialRecruiting360.com