Tag Archive for social media recruiting

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)

Category: Uncategorized / Tags: , ,

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.

Category: Featured Post / 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: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Back to the Land Down Under

November 29, 2009 / Justin Hillier / 5 comments

I am writing this not out of pleasure but what I see as necessity. You see when I started this blog it was to discuss all things within recruitment related to Social Media. The tables have turned a little and I am going to practice what I preach and show all the nay-sayers or doubters that Social Media is a powerful recruitment tool. I want to use Social Media from a candidate perspective to find a new job back in Melbourne, Australia.

That’s right, for those of you who know me I am currently based in Europe and due to Visa problems I need to return to my mother land. So my family will be happy to hear, via me directly not my blog, that I will be home for Xmas.

So why am I telling you all of this?

Well I have built up a nice little network of contacts within the recruitment market, via sites like LI and Twitter, and I want to leverage this to find a job that suits not only what I am looking for but obviously what my next Employer is looking for as well.

So how can you help?

Well there’s a few things you might wish to do. Maybe you might like to Tweet the link to this blog to spread the word. You might wish to add a comment to this blog giving your recommendation of your dealings with me to my future employer, or you might simply have someone that you think I should talk to.

The main purpose of all of this is that as someone who is entrenched in Social Media, just like yourself, I think it is important to use the methods that I say are important to include in your recruitment strategy in my own life as well. Practice what we preach.

So I turn it over to you, can you help me find a job in Australia in the social media recruitment space. If not then just simply wish me good luck.

My Resume

I will of course keep everyone up to date as to my progress, thoughts, and if indeed social media helped me find me my new job.

Thanks

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: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

20,000 video applications, isn't this proof that video is the future?

November 14, 2009 / Justin Hillier / No comments

beachI wrote this blog earlier this year and even though it’s only 6 months on I actually can’t believe nothing has changed in terms of video usage within recruitment. Six months is not a long time I know, but the power that utilising video showed through-out the campaign highlighted below is outstanding. Have a read and let me know what you think.

I recently posted a blog regarding a very successful job hunting campaign by Tourism Queensland for “The best job in the world” . This campaign went viral, no job (other then Obama’s) has created so much press all over the world. The result has been 20,000 video applications since the start of the campaign, from all around the world. That’s right, 20,000, it may be The Best job in the World, but it’s a staggering number!!!!

I was recently told that the only reason that the video application is so high, is because this is what the client asked for…… A rather naive viewpoint if you ask me.

Yes the client wants to see video….but why????

Video provides a more dynamic and diverse application method that can offer more about a person then what words on paper possibly can. You can learn more about someone in 30 seconds via video, then you can in 2 minutes reading their resume (and yes I know it only takes about 30 seconds to read a resume you will tell me but you get my point).

Whilst video will never replace a traditional CV, and nor it should , it does add a greater dimension to the persons personality and potential cultural fit then a resume can. We are after all hiring a person, not the words on the piece of paper. So why wouldn’t I want to see that person in the flesh, however you can, at the earliest possible stage?

There have been 20,000 video applications to this job, an amazing number. The majority of applications have come from the US, with Italy, Germany and Britain making up the top four. But this was not the only method to apply.

What this ad shows us is that globally, candidates will apply via video if you ask them to, others will apply via a traditional CV, either way candidates will stay with what they are comfortable with, and is their anything wrong with that? What you will get from the video CV is a person,a person with personality and substance, what you get from a traditional resume is words, areas that will need clarification, and more then likely things that are missing. Video can fill in gaps and give you a greater understanding of WHO it is you are reading about.

Video applications/profiles/CV’s are happening, their is some education required about the right approach and use, but as the online recruitment strategy was a no go zone only 10 years ago, the video application world is, and should be a natural progression.

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

Video Resume's, Expectation not Discrimination

November 13, 2009 / Justin Hillier / 3 comments

video resume pic
Firstly, I want to shoot down the claim that video resumes, applications or anything similar can cause more discrimination by an employer/recruiter. If ever I have heard of a more outlandish comment, this is it. The harsh reality is, is that if someone is going to discriminate, they are going to do it regardless of what medium is used or how the candidate presents themselves. If this is in their genetic make-up, then they will, you can’t blame the video, it just highlights a bigger problem.

So for those of you who are still left (which I sincerely hope is 99.99% of you) how do you position video to not only avoid the unlikely chance of a candidate claiming discrimination, yes you can avoid any misunderstanding, but to ensure that you are getting the most out of the tool as well.

Firstly, you’ll be happy to know its quite simple and something that for every other act you do in your job works for video as well. It’s all about “expectation”. Video in recruitment circles is still a very new concept for everyone, from all levels. The fact is, the level of education and understanding from all involved is still quite low.

Candidates have no idea what they should say, and Employers have no idea what to expect. A candidate is going to claim you have discriminated against them due to their video, as it’s an easy target. With no guidelines or expectations, what do we expect?

And this is where we can change the game. Employers/recruiters it’s up to YOU.

Video Resumes/Profiles or whatever we call them, need a guideline. Many candidates struggle to know what to include in a word.doc let alone a 2 minute video, so we need to guide and educate them. Employers should provide a “What we want to see and hear” advice piece as to what is it they require from a video resume/profile. By doing this you are ensuring that all (ok most) video’s have the content that they require but also that people don’t sit there dumbfounded as to what to do.

Video Resumes/Profiles provide a great opportunity to look at person’s communication skills, and evaluate if they are not only the right person to take to the next stage of the interview process, but also allow you to see how each candidate would represent “your company”. Whether you are wanting a cultural match video, skill based overview, or something left of centre and creative, the screening and decision making process can be made a lot easy and with constant review.

Now not every candidate will feel comfortable creating a video resume/profile and we shouldn’t force them to, but for those who do, why not help them. Your candidate video expectations should form part of your social media strategy. If someone is going to discriminate, it doesn’t matter what tool or part of the process they do it, it’s all the same. Just don’t blame the video.

If all parties know what is expected of them, then discrimination is something that can never be argued. Video is a wonderful tool, you just have to plan on how you are going to use it.

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