Recruitalicious

Last week, I drove all the way from Lombardy Road to good ol’ Lombard, Illinois for the Chicago Talent Acquisition Summit.  Though I’d prefer to withhold this useful information & remain more knowledgeable than the rest, my experience dictates that I share my words of wisdom (or lack thereof).

• Just because it was okay to wear jeans to ERE’s Social Recruiting Summit in NY, does not mean jeans are standard dress code at every somewhat-social-media-related conference.  Oops!
• Jobs2Web is about company branding, getting your jobs out on the web and search engine optimization. I’d advocate learning more about them, stealing some of their ideas, and partnering with your webmaster to implement those fancy whozits and whatzits on your website ASAP.
• Beware of your surroundings before setting down a filled-to-the-brim, metal water jug or you might knock someone’s coffee off the table and onto their laptop.  Double oops. Read the rest of this entry »

Sometimes I feel like I am in a movie looking at a speeding clock.  Where minutes feel like seconds, and the day rolls by like a lunch break.  I grab a piece of paper and quickly jot down my “to do” list.  Yes, I am a list maker, but we’ll get to that later.  Have you ever lain in bed at night, trying to relax, only to find that Father Time has gotten the best of you again?

In this day and age, everything happens in sound bites or megabytes.  The phone is ringing. Which one? Cell phone, landline, or did my Blackberry just go off? Meetings, conference calls, webinars, interviews, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn – it can certainly be overwhelming and figuring out the technology and navigating through these resources as a recruiter can be time-consuming. Speaking of which, should I Tweet the world to let them know I’m blogging right now………..nah that will take too much time.    It’s so busy that my New Year’s resolution was to make sure I put breathing on my daily calendar.  Where is that fresh young kid who once looked forward to the sweet sanctuary of Friday Happy Hour?    Nowadays, I look at that same calendar and think to myself, Friday is coming too soon – I still have so much to get done.  Many people reading this will think, there is no way she believes that Friday arrives too soon, but when you enjoy your career as much as I do, being busy is a good thing.

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Scene One: Winnie the Pooh with dark sunglasses is smoking a cigarette by the window. Man with a girls’ soccer uniform on is playing beer pong. Woman with cheetah ears and tail is dancing to Michael Jackson’s Thriller.

Scene Two: A woman with Uggs on and a colorful scarf appears in the doorway. A girl follows with high-waisted jeans, a turtle neck and sweater vest. I thought to myself, that woman is clearly having a mid-life crisis and I’ll totally lend my September Glamour magazine to this fashion-deprived girl.  I try to act natural but almost strain my neck for further analysis.

When unfamiliar people enter a room, no one is quite sure how to behave or what to say. Facebook—a previously, purely personal place (say that ten times fast)—became a professional place overnight. Employers who infiltrated the social network discovered negative comments about their companies or less than glamorous photos of their Employee of the Month.  Obviously, hoopla regarding scandalous pictures and rude wall posts are not ideal for PR. The resolution was (and still is) to publish articles regarding an “appropriate” Facebook profile, create company policies about YouTube use, and talk about guidelines for proper conduct online.  As a result of this, employees and candidates are afraid to be themselves in online communities because they could get fired or may be disqualified from a position.  Being a social media strategist has not exempted me from this fear.

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Note: The following is a guest blog post, written in response to the social media contest Pinstripe held for the #socialrecruiting  Summit.  Christi Carpenter, a  Strategy Consultant for Monster Worldwide,  submitted the winning post. Congratulations Christi!

Social Media has made a huge impact on my job; making it much easier to give real life examples of how social media can expand your brand. I am a Strategy Consultant for Monster Worldwide. A Fortune 200 client created a Facebook page as a project for their college interns, but had not grasp the full impact of how it could be used to drive traffic to their website or brand. I became a fan of this company, and within 20 minutes a friend of mine in California sent a reply on my page stating, “You are a fan of ABC Company…that is interesting.” My response was, “They are a client of mine…incredible company to work for with jobs available nationwide…check them out.” Within 20 minutes ABC Company’s brand was spread over my network of 594 people in addition to my friend’s network of 434 fans. The client was blown away at how fast this actually happens. It opened the door for me to talk to them about next steps, “What happens when people then arrive at their page…what are you asking them to do?” This has now created strategy conversations around changing their current recruiting process by introducing social media.

A push exists for recruiters to integrate social media into their everyday routines. It’s not just about phone calls anymore– suddenly we’re expected to have a reach beyond the telephone line. Lately, new recruiting efforts have emerged, thanks to the rise of social media. This trend seems as though it’s here to stay. Matt Alder’s article, “Six Key Elements of Social Recruiting,” lays out what he believes are important ideas to strengthen a company’s social recruiting skills. While I agree with his elements as imperative to social recruiting, I think a big part of the picture is to combine the digital world with the physical world. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m new to the Twitter-mania. Yes, I tweet, re-tweet and follow people, but I’m still learning how to use some of the site’s features. For example, I just learned how to use hashtags (and also what that word means, for that matter). I also recently installed Twitterberry to my cell phone. It seems like everyday I learn one more Twitter-related idea. Today’s lesson? Twitter is now home to some of the largest companies’ job boards.

Many large companies, like Microsoft Corp. and Viacom Inc.’s MTV Networks, now list their job openings on Twitter. Since the recession, online job boards have skyrocketed in number, and companies are choosing to go the cheaper route. Although this seems a bit unconventional, after reading The Wall Street Journal’s article, I found myself agreeing with this practice. Read the rest of this entry »

As a recruiter we have so many applications, passwords and user ID’s to track.  How would you like an application that would help you merge several platforms into one?  Now you have one.  On September 30th (that’s tomorrow), Google will launch a beta platform called Google Wave.    This is being launched after Microsoft and Google have been at odds with each other in the news media about Google’s Chrome application being less secure and out-of-date per an article in The Inquirer.

So what makes Google Wave different and more robust? Read the rest of this entry »