Digital Recruiting

Facebook App Overload

Following on from Alex's post, just to see if the blog can take even more streaming media this week! Tim this one is for you!

Is there such a thing as too much streamed video?

You Tube would tend to indicate probably not - but if there is a saturation point for blog posted videos then I reckon we'll be reaching it pretty soon ;-)

Anyway - saw this from e3unlimited (they're presenting at an event I'm also speaking at at the end of the month - Exploding current myths in Graduate Recruitment) - and whilst it's largely taken inspiration and some content from the "shift happens" video (which it credits), it's still a nice execution of mind blowing stats.

enjoy...

Guess this is as good a place as any...

...to announce officially that I'm branching out and going solo. Well more duo actually - but you know what I mean.

After 6 happy and exciting years at ThirtyThree the time has come to go see just how big and bad the world of self employment really is. It'll be a gentle start as the guys at ThirtyThree have asked us to hang around for a month or two longer on a part time basis to ensure the transition for clients is seamless, but as of May 23rd (drum roll please) 3D MarComms goes from dream to reality.

Anyway - busy ole time at the mo, but if you want to find out more then leave your details at our holding page (www.3DMarComms.com) and when we get a chance to do our own stuff we'll make a site (that's kinda quite a big part of what we'll do) and we'll let you know, because we're nice like that. Anything more pressing then you can of course email me directly.

OK - big breath - here goes everything!

:-]

Twitter. What is it? Do you need to care?

Not sure how many of you have caught the Twitter bug, but it really is strangely addictive. When pushed to describe it to people, it's difficult to know where to begin. Telling people  "its micro blogging - instant and mobile" and that "you follow and are followed by people, with whom you're able to share ideas and links" just doesn't do it justice. The cutest way I've heard it described is by Wired who described it as "almost like ESP...a Social Sixth Sense".

There has been some dissenting voices in our space, but - like most things in life - there really is no substitute for giving it a try. Once you've found people you want to follow (the best way to do that is by checking out the followers of people - check out me /Carve on Twitter , Matt Alder and Peter Gold for example. If you follow people (and you've got something interesting to say) people will then follow you.  And that's it. It's only when you're involved in these micro-dialogues that you realise how powerful it can be.  For example, what about an airline providing its followers with real time flight offers, or delays? (one US airline is doing this) Or for a recruiter to send latest contracts via The Guardian recently wrote a great piece on How to get the best out of Twitter For those of you who can't be bothered to link, here's some cool twitter tools you might want to check out:

Finding people

www.Whoshouldifollow.com
www.Twitdir.com - directory
www.Twitterholic.com - the top users and accounts

Searching and organising

www.Summize.com - search for a word or phrase across the entire Twitter feed. www.Quotably.com creates threads of discussions between people.
www.Terraminds.com -  search engine, for users or phrases.
www.Tweetscan.com - search by user and time.
www.Twitterlocal.net finds twitterers near you.

Sharing

www.Twitthis.com,-  lets people looking at your site or blog share the URL via Twitter. www.Twitturly.com - what's being most linked-to and talked about?
www.Tweetmeme.com -  what sort of topics are being discussed?

Visualise

www.Twittervision.com -  Google Maps mashup showing where tweets are being posted.
www.Twitterverse - tag clouds
www.Twittearth.com - visualisation of tweets, put onto a spiralling globe. www.Tweetwheel.com - which of your friends are already following each other?

And..

http://pipes.yahoo.com/ouseful/tweetspeech -  Yahoo Pipes converts (incoming) tweets to speech
www.Twittersnooze.com - hit the "snooze button", briefly, on verbose friends ( if you're a follow of Alder or Scobble you need this ;-p
http://www.wp.korelab.com/yet-another-twitter-badge-twitter-balloon - your tweets superimposed on an image of your choosing.
www.twerpscan.com, avoid followers who befriend everyone: may be spammers.

After the Digital Recruiting blog beers last night, I am also pleased to report that Twittering is good of hangovers. See you on Twitter! Follow us: www.twitter.com/carveconsulting

I can't be bothered to think of an interesting title for this.

As someone has commented on YouTube, (adopt west coast drawl) awesome. However I was enthusing about it to a client, but that same 'ol glazed over look appeared. Ho hum

No Sex in the office then!

Careerbuilder have chickened out and pulled their video so the link in the previous post doesn't now work. Don't worry though the ERE site has a copy and the full story here

Call me cynical but this whole pulling the video thing smells like a wider publicity stunt, either that or their agency / marketing deparment is having a very bad day today!

Sex in the work place?

Well that got your attention!

Latest viral from Careerbuilder.com as tracked down by Cheezhead

LinkedIn - Follow up post 2

Interesting article here as posted by Peter Gold earlier.  Yes of course you would expect this to happen for a social media marketing manager role  (now there's a job that didn't exist 18 months ago!) but I still maintain it's the beginning of a major trend. My original thoughts are here and the first follow up post is here.

How many UK publishers are living on borrowed time?

Interesting article here from The New York Times. Gives an example of yet another US newspaper closing it's print edition and then goes on to profile how publisher IDG has transformed it's revenue base to become a majority digital business.

How many UK publishers can say they have done the same and how many have proper plans in place to do so? There is much hype around but personally I've seen only a tiny handful that truly get it, know where they need to be and most importantly know how to get there

Still the combination of falling readership, falling ad revenues, growing digital literacy, growing digital ad revenues and an economic slowdown will no doubt expedite the process. So cast your votes; which UK titles are going digital only first and which ones are just going

Matt

FR2.0

As we seem to be having Social Media week here on Digital Recruiting I thought I point out, to those who hadn't noticed, that Friends Reunited has had a web 2.0 face lift. Too little too later or perfectly poised to capitalise on having an alleged older demographic than Facebook? Who knows these days but I suspect the former. Despite the new platform (which does have some nice features) I couldn't see any clever job content integration, just a co-branded feed for Jobsite. So is it one last roll of the dice for ITV or just some tweaking to help them offload it?

A vision of students today

Just come across this - as today seems to be video link day - and thought I'd share.

have to say found this to be particularly compelling & thought provoking (my head now hurts - and no, not just because I've strained my eyes trying read some of the comments!). Geez there are some clever people out there.

Happy birthday?

My colleague has just informed me that it is the 15th birthday of the internet as we know it today (see how I pass the buck of blame there, for all those of you who know better), and she very kindly sent this ad from 1994.

Made me smile, so I thought I'd share.

DEC - Glimpse of the future, 1994

Social Media

This one is dedicated to Alex and Tim!

More corporate lip syncing japery

Just spotted this on Jim Stroud's blog

Digg Dubb: Groove Is In The Heart from Trammell on Vimeo.

Not as good as this one but a nice try!

"10 Downing Street" is on Twitter but who are they?

You may have read that "10 Downing Street" is now updating us on various facets of the Prime Minister's day via Twitter. While the thought behind this move must be applauded, it's a shame that the execution misses the point somewhat. There is no pretence that Gordon Brown himself is writing the updates which is good but they are coming from the anonymous www.twitter.com/downingstreet  and this is not how Twitter works. The point is that when you're talking on Twitter you are a named person. Even if people don't know you they know that they are listening / talking to a real person. If a big brand came on and starting Twittering as a product name there would be uproar so why should it be any different for the Government?

I've asked Downingstreet twice now for some more details about who is writing the updates but as yet I've not received a reply. It's definitely a real person (or people) as they've referred to themselves several times in the first person. Why not be completely transparent and let us know who you are!

Anyway as I can't get a reply on my own I'm enlisted help from all you other Twitter users out there. Send Downing Street a message when you're next Twittering and ask who they are....maybe with weight of numbers we'll find out who is really behind the virtual door of Number 10!!!

Matt

Follow me on Twitter here

Web 2.0 - unleash the potential, but be ready the storm

I recently gave a presentation to an eFinancialCareers breakfast seminar about "Making the most of web 2.0". Considering where most organisations are in regards to Web 1.0 let alone web 2.0, I made sure that at the same time as (hopefully) evangelising about the fantastic benefits that you can realise for your employer brand and linking with target talent through such platforms that are encapsulated by the Web 2.0 collective noun (or is that verb?), I also offered pragmatic advice about making sure you were ready for all that stepping into the Web 2.0 mass communication and contribution arena potentially brings with it.

If you’re in any doubt as to what opening your brand to what Web 2.0 can mean then can I direct you to Dilbert. Very recently (I think over the weekend) they’ve moved from their normal site to a beta one thatis  more of a Web 2.0 style platform. Well as if they ever did – and so the debate goes. 

Only 4 other words for the change: BRING BACK OLD SITE!

I really don't like the new website at all. I'm going to find a different site that aggregates the comics without all this flash garbage.

close to zero % positive feedback must be an industry first! you might be on to something there, scott.

I only signed up to get the daily strip in my e-mail. I don't think I will ever come back to this site; it's a marketing hell of pop and fizz.

The only reason I've signed up is to say how awful the new site is.

So what might we take from this:

1.    Although it’s dressed up as Beta (which is kind of modern web parlance for “this excuses us from making a complete arse up of the new site”) there’s still no escaping they’ve made a royal mess of trying to take the site on a step. BAD

2.    There is no getting away from the fact that Dilbert has an amazing reach of very passionate individuals who aren't afraid of engaging / being engaged across the web. GOOD.

3.    Could they get a worse PR to launch their new site off the back of – there’s no doubt this is / will be right across the blogosphere? (it also fails to fill my Gadget feed for my daily Dilbert fix on my google home page). BAD.

4.    The very fact that this is a format that engages with the audience and allows them to communicate with the site ensures that there can be no doubt as to how the new site is being received – and then do something about it. How much, in Web 1.0 days, would that kind of focus group have cost (and then not got right because it would only have scratched the surface of a select bunch of consumers/candidates)? GOOD.

5.    Some audiences don’t deal well with change very well – and sometimes they can be very vocal. GOOD & BAD.

So you can look at this kind of event in a couple of ways – but for me. actually the test will be how ready they were / are for the negative feedback they're getting and what they do with it. And that message has to be the same whatever field you’re working in when considering Web 2.0 enhancements. I personally feel  the positives still outweigh the negatives even in this extreme case (get beyond the initial shock and some of the enhancements are actually a vast improvement), but only if you’re ready to face the negatives head on, and then put the resource in place to address those and maximise on the positives.

I’ll leave you with this, perhaps the embodiment of a pure Web 1.0 or print based delivery? Maybe sometimes ignorance is indeed bliss:

Some brief thoughts on blogging and Twitter

Brief Interview with me in the The Recruiter.....wish I'd been able to find a more up to date photo!!

Matt

LinkedIn - Follow Up Post

There were so many interesting comments in response to my recent thoughts on LinkedIn that I thought I’d post a follow up. The revolution it would seem is well under way. It was good to hear from John who has just successful landed a VP of Engineering role by using his LinkedIn profile rather than having a CV (well resume in his case!). I was also very interested in Jacco’s comment about the ING job site which is already allowing candidates to upload their Linkedin profile as part of the application process. Finally Peter Gold pointed out the widgetisation  of the site, something that reminded me to add a link on the blog to my own LinkedIn profile.

Revolution it may be, but this week I also got proof that the UK recruitment industry still isn’t embracing the site as it should. The extremely well connected Louise at UK Recruiter asked permission to publish my email address in her newsletter and on her blog so that her connections / readers could link to me on LinkedIn as an “Open Connector” . The response was brilliant and I got over a hundred new connections in a couple of days. I was surprised though that such a small percentage of these came from the UK. It’s certainly not always the case with online recruitment but, in this instance, it would seem that they are a significant distance ahead of us in the US.

I’m still convinced though that this is going to change and when it does what are the longer term implications? What’s the future for job board CV databases, CV writing services, CV Parsing companies etc etc. Are they ready, with their future strategies already mapped out, or will they be caught on the back foot? Would certainly be interested in people’s thoughts.

Finally a new equation for you and a taster of an article that I’m currently working on for another site

Linkedin + Twitter = Business Facebook

Valid for the moment but the continuing uptake of Ning could certainly make the algebra a bit more complex in the near future!

(to connect to me on LinkedIn add me as connection on the site using my email address matt.alder@barkers.co.uk, to follow me on Twitter follow this link)

So that's how you do it!

I'm pretty sure that some people in our industry actually think this is how you build web sites!

The best "Rick Roll" so far?

Doubt they come better than this

LinkedIn and the death of the CV

I’ve always felt that in the rush to debate and trial innovation in digital recruitment the basics get neglected and the obvious gets missed. LinkedIn for me is starting to fall into the obvious category, at least in terms of where the debate should now be.

Compared to Facebook and the like it’s growth seems slow but at the end of last year it reached the million UK users milestone and I think I’m making a pretty safe prediction to say it’s second million is going to come pretty quickly. It seems to be discussed more and more these days and I know a lot of people who got hooked on social networking during the Facebook boom (is there a bust to follow?!) that are now turning to LinkedIn to explore online business networking for the first time. LinkedIn also seem have got their act together in recent months, there are more paid for advertising / engagement options on the table and rumour has it that there is now a UK office.

So what’s in it for us from a recruitment perspective? Well, in my opinion, three main things. Firstly and most obviously there is a captive audience to market /advertise to. I’m not going to say anymore about this other than to refer you to mention of a London sales office in the paragraph above. Second is pretty obviously as a source of active and passive candidates. Again I’m not going to say much about this other than that I’m amazed that there are recruiters in the UK who are unaware of LinkedIn or who are just not using it as one of their sources!

Thirdly and most interesting is what I want to focus on. Is LinkedIn the beginning of the end of the CV? I’m already starting to see people sending links to their profile rather than their CV for jobs in the digital / technology space. This a trend that is only going to continue and jump to other industries as Linkedin becomes even more mainstream. After all why bother digging out, updating and resending a word file continuously when you can have your career history in one place, update as you go and just drive potential recruiters there when the time is right for you. Makes sense doesn’t it!

Now I’m sure that lots of people won’t agree and that I’ll be inundated with 101 reason why CVs aren’t going the way of press advertising (did you see what I did there). However maybe there is another way to think about it all while we wait for the revolution to run it’s course

How often do we find ourselves in the awkward position with recruitment sites (be it a direct employer’s or a job board), where huge amounts of passive candidate register but no information is collected that is really usable. Its great having a nice email database of interested people but how do you know whether they are appropriate for your role or not? It’s almost as if we need a half way house……something that allows candidate to leave lots of usable data in a way that requires no time or effort on their part. I’ve not seen a space in a registration form to upload your Linkedin profile URL yet but surely it’s only a matter of time! Watch this space…

Matt

Really insightful article about the Uk digital recruitment industry

Find it here

Ah it must be Friday!

Twitter Revisted

Almost a year ago I wrote a brief blog post about Twitter, used it for a few weeks then got addicted to Facebook and forgot all about it. Recently I've become aware of more and references to it and read Jim Stroud's recent posts on Twitter and recruitment with interest. Anyway I dug out my password, took another look at it today and was really impressed. Lots of very interesting conversations and information sharing going on, I've downloaded a useful desktop app and will be joining in regularly in the future. There are some good Twitter tips here and if you want to "follow me" you'll find my profile here

Matt

Gen X / Gen Y - or just Generally Lazy

I’ve never been a particular fan of pigeon holing and mass generalisations, especially when it comes to recruitment and the web. It’s probably a chip on my shoulder accentuated by approaching another birthday, but whilst I appreciate the need for them in some discussion contexts, when it comes to recruitment I think the way many people jump on such terms such as Gen X & Gen Y when trying to define job seeking / applying behaviours is little more than lazy.

But it’s not so bad – just as I was feeling dejected and non-pigeon-holeable – not Gen Y in age, not Gen X in digital traits, Pepsi have given me and people like me a pigeon and a hole of our very own. I only just fit in (I don’t hesitate to add), but it would seem I’m a 'Reborn Digital' (35 to 48-year-olds). Frank Cooper, VP for flavoured carbonated soft drinks at Pepsi-Cola North America. "…there's a group in that category that's 'reborn digital.' They've lived through the change and learned to adapt to it."

If I were being picky, as is my wont, I’d suggest that such a group have actually learnt ‘to adapt it’ to our requirements, as opposed to 'adapt to it'. I may even be so bold as to suggest this group will have played a significant part in shaping the development and success / failure of many aspects of the digital environment in which we find ourselves and continues to evolve – but I’m probably a little comforted to belong to some grouping none the less.

The digital world is moving at such pace and is such a personal as well as environment / circumstance dictated experience, grouping one entire generation as a defined user group for recruitment, which must be considered a micro activity (as opposed to a macro activity such as accessing news, utilising communication channels etc), makes most debate built around this of little relevance. Especially considering that these days we can generate real track-able results that we can harvest and scrutinise, therefore reducing the need to fall back on such massively crude generalised boxes.

I’ll concede that there may at times be some merit in talking about recruitment as a general activity, but our assimilated knowledge and tools available today should make recruitment activity, if not quite scalpel-esque, certainly more carving knife than sledgehammer in approach. And if that’s the case then surely the debate should move well beyond lazy people with their generic claims and nothing new ‘guff’ hiding behind generational groupings which have little relevance to clued up recruitment specialists. And make no mistake, recruitment is a specialism not a generalism, so please let’s try to make sure we’re not guilty of being lazy in our debate. Come on, let's push that bar – gen’.

Oh - and if you're genuinely Gen addicted, try considering Gen C instead ;-)

Bless him

They don't win very often, so we're letting him have 'his moment'...

Everyone's going green - including us

It's only taken us 3months since agreeing on a new look and feel to get it on the site - so by our usual collective efforts on this blog that's pretty quick.

Is only simple (like us), but hopefully a fresh look will help soften the debate and help everyone find a happier place full of love and respect. OK - that's rubbish - but it helps stop this 2bit blog looking like every other 2bit blog. :-)

Thanks go out to Rachel & Simon for making this small but significant step happen for us.

Please do let us know if you like / hate / couldn't care less. A blog is all about comment after all. 

Matt's 15 most read blogs

I've been inspired by the comments on the link I posted yesterday to start thinking about what makes a blog popular and even what makes a blog powerful. I also realised that while I've often been asked to list my favourite blogs, I'd never previously investigated which I actually read the most. So here, courtesy of the "trends" function on Google Reader, are the 15 blogs I've read the most in the last month. The results were somewhat of a surprise........

1) PDA

2) Indexed

3) Cheezhead

4) Louise's UK Recruiter

5) Jim Stroud

6) Guru

7) Techcrunch

8) Brazen Careerist

9) Micro Persuasion

10) Adventures in Digital Marketing

11) Mashable

12) Wikinomics

13) E-Recruitment in Retail

14) Recruitment Views

15) Six Degrees from Dave

Good to see Louise and Stephen featured as they were two of the people who commented on the original post. Perhaps it would be interesting to see some other people's lists!!

The world's 50 most powerful blogs

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/mar/09/blogs

Anyone subscribe to all 50? ;-)

Going Down?

1) House Prices

2) My Football Team

3) Google's share price

4) Facebook's UK traffic

I'm not really an authority to comment in public on the housing market and number 2 is just depressing..... so what about points 3 and 4?

A very small reality check for two big brands, absolutely. The beginning of the end for monetised search and social networking, absolutely not.

This is still the beginning of the beginning!

What makes a blogger tick?

well - what makes this particular blogger tick anyway? Well you'll not really even learn that, but I completed a virtual interview with Louise at UK Recruiter as part of her series interviewing recruitment industry bloggers and thought I'd point you in my responses and her blogs general direction.

And if you go to her latest piece there's some nice coverage of the contribution Carve's (and DigitalRecruiting's) very own Paul Harrison made at the recent Enhance Media conference.

And as for the opening question - what makes a blogger tick? Probably a modicum of Enjoying Giving Opinion (if you know what I mean)

;-)

Great tone of voice

I was playing around on the internet and came across the graduate recruitment site for Ogilvy ... i thought you would all be interested because it is a great example of how to link the emotional with the rational.

http://www.ogilvy.co.uk/fellows/

You would hope so - as they are an advertising agency.

But - have a look and make you own mind up.

Technology is great – but let’s not forget: it’s all about the HI!

HI? Of course an informal way to say hello (which I naturally extend to you), but in this instance I’m using it in the context of Human Interaction.

I spend a disproportionate amount of my life peering into this screen (mine as I write this, not yours as you read this – that would just be too Matrix!). Not as much as many I’m sure, but a damned sight more than is probably healthy. So as much as I can I try and force myself to think hard about the human aspect of things I’m involved in the delivery of – whether the candidate reading an advert / web page or navigating a site, an applicant completing a job application, a recruiters logical workflow whilst reviewing / processing response to a campaign etc etc etc. Unfortunately it’s all too easy in our world to look around and see glaring examples of where this hasn’t been considered at all – certainly not beyond a passing “and this is where on screen 8 of an undisclosed number of screens we’ll ask them to load a CV if they want to”.

But I heard a tale from an ex-colleague recently about a job application experience they had which just goes to prove that it’s as much a task for “Recruitment Professionals” to take on board as it is for a developer or web builder or creative or indeed anyone else in the recruitment communications industry.

Having applied to an ad with their CV to a recruitment consultant’s email address (as instructed) they waited. And waited. Nothing. Not a peep to even say the CV was there. An auto ack would have been simple and served a purpose (using technology to enrich the candidate experience whilst minimising the effort) – but that was clearly a step too far. So as the closing date neared they tried to call. Consultant not in (are they ever?), so left a message and sent an email asking just for confirmation that the CV had been received. A day passed. Then a weekend. Then another day or two – still nothing.

Anyway – I could go on, but am sure you get the picture. In the end having squeezed out a response that the CV had indeed been received and was being “considered”, there was then more of this silent treatment over the next week or two in terms of “thanks but no thanks”, “we’re still considering” or even “you’re crap – sod off”. It’s amazing and horrifying at the same time. Through all this process, managed by a consultant who would either be on a retainer for their “efforts” or else expecting a nice fat fee at the end of their “work”, the difference some Human Interaction, electronic based or personal, would have made would have been immense. And we’re not talking about a junior role here (perhaps for a £12k admin role this might be more excusable – although I personally think not).

So where am I going with this? Well just that in a career where I’ve been pretty lucky in having many of my career moves find me, this was a confirmation as to how job seeker experience, Employer Brand and Product Brand are inextricably linked. In short, this candidate certainly won’t be in a hurry to buy any of these guys financial products in the near future – and pretty unlikely to apply to them again.

Of course – this can always be fobbed off as a supplier delivering sub standard service etc etc, but if the HR / Resourcing team and the wider business truly appreciated the importance and impact of their Employer Brand then 1. why run down your internal team to the degree where you have to outsource in the first place 2. where are the checks to pick up how your activity is actually managed / the hard and fast SLAs that set out how a candidate should expect to be treated when being engaged by your brand?

I very much appreciate that it’s a full on board room battle to get Employer Brand and recruitment and retention the kind of business critical recognition it deserves – over an above the annual CEO statement that “people are our greatest asset”. I’d say today we’re in a better place than ever before to generate and track the MI (management information) to prove the bottom line impact and value of getting this part of the business right – but to do that you have to invest in the people who understand it and ensure that it penetrates every level of your business and recruitment process, with the technological investment to make this as efficient and effective as possible.

Cheap gets you employee churn (poor hiring decisions & poor retention of good people). Cheap gets you outsourced second rate service (which actually costs you more anyway). Cheap gets your business a greater marketing spend to try and repair the highly personal negative experience you delivered to disgruntled applicants. Cheap isn’t really cheap at all – and it can only ever be short term.

So next time you’re undertaking some recruitment activity, or planning it on behalf of a client – stop a moment, put yourself in the candidates’ shoes and think, “are we making sure that in this process we really do deliver HI?”

And another one...

Another recruitment video and this one is certainly different!

Video: Two men, two baby blue tuxedoes, two pianos

The rational and emotional factors when looking for a job …

I am going to try and remove my head from my own arse with this posting … but it is a difficult one to do it with. Why? Well some people think that emotion and rational thought are separate – well it is not true. Emotion surrounds rational thought and is thus rather important when advertising.

Emotion is key to advertising because … emotion creates attention – AIDA as a model does not work. The emotional connection is needed to create the attention in the first place. Without it you will not generate any response.

So why do we pay so little attention to emotion when planning? I have a few answers but I feel there are more.

Firstly, it is not something that has ever really been part of our mental models and we don’t change mental models unless there is a problem. I think there is a problem with the quality of planning in the industry but I am not sure that is the opinion of clients or agency heads.

Secondly, it is really difficult. As with most things in life the best way is not the easiest way. We are all busy, stressed, tired and maybe a little bit hung over. BUT we are paid to think – so think.

Finally, the lack of integration across and accounts - creative and media are still planned and delivered in vacuums. It is only by working together we achieve the best results – it is the clients and Account Directors who need to push this. Make it happen.

Wow, I am amazed that I have done a whole post without mentioning a book or research paper. There are plenty that go behind my thinking – if you want to know what they are email me and I will send a list (see trying to mot be up my own arse).

Skills Emergency

Just wanted to say thanks to Sam and the team at Chinwag for inviting me to be on the panel at the Digital Skills Emergency debate last night. Some interesting points raised and it soon become apparent how massive a topic this is. We really only managed to scratch the surface in the time available

From my own perspective the key issues for companies in this space are how they widen their talent pools, be cleverer about how they recruit and how they increase the sophistication of their staff retention strategies. It was interesting to see that companies like Conchango and AMV are already embracing these concepts and moving to more direct sourcing models.

Overall though I think there is a long way to go. It's crazy that most companies in an industry with such an acute skill shortage aren't even advertising their vacancies on their own web sites, let alone considering broader branding, attraction and sourcing strategies. It's only a small first step in solving a deeply complex issue but surely one worth taking!!!

Chinwag have produced a really good report on the issues which is available to download from here

When Google's parents leave town.....

This is funny.......but be warned it contains strong language and some mature content..............that should make sure you all watch it ;-)

Close but no cigar

Just heard from Louise that Digital Recruiting has come joint third in the UK Recruitment Blog of 2007 competition. A big thank you to everyone who voted for us and of course to Louise for organising the competition. Congratulations to Peter Gold who won and who has proved that being controversial is good for business

Here's to Digital Recruiting going two steps further in the next competition!!

The Lives of Others

Think of 'Allo Allo' the 1980's comedy set in occupied France during WW2. Now think of Herflick the Gestapo commander character uttering the phrase 'Ve 'ave vays and means of getting you to tell us the truth'.

Now think of Facebook.......eh? Bear with me on this one.

I was sent the below link today by Nicola on our team. Its an article on Facebook and I don't think I have ever read an article about the Internet that has filled me with so much dread. Its a pretty long article on Facebook and the political and philosophical views of the people/venture capitalists who are behind it. The gist of the article is that Facebook 'is some kind of extension of the American imperialist programme crossed with a massive information-gathering tool'. We are all voluntarily giving our most private thoughts and information up to a company who hold right wing Neocon views and who will provide our information to big corporations to advertise to us.

The article is obviously one sided, however it does make me wonder that whilst the Internet is incredibly positive in so many ways there are some areas that concern me in a Big Brother kind of way.

With Friends like these...

Five things to watch in 2008

I have been inspired to try and predict a few trends for 2008 – I have it down to five that I see for 2008.

1. The growth of virtual advertising. More and more ads are created that are not focused on our client; candidates or those we even bother to run in the media. Still, they look nice and win awards.
2. Media and creative continue to be planned with little thought for the other. Just because they are consumed together it does not mean we need to think about how they work with each other. The gamble makes it a little bit more exciting.
3. A number becomes CEO of an agency. With all the CTR, ROI and benchmarks flying around people forget that numbers do not think and people do. All original thought is lost.
4. Bonus schemes are cut. Even thought 2008 ends up a bumper year for profit and turnover we all earn less. Shareholders love a good recession.
5. Digital media planner wages cause inflation. Gordon Brown steps in and ends up giving up his job as prime minister to move into media planning. Everyone has a price.

Who knows what will happen in the year ahead – but I am feeling confident about the above.

This Is Cracking

Carrying on the corporate video theme from last year ...

Innovation - lifeblood or more "pearls" before our industry?

So in the run to Christmas I may have had the need to visit some e-tail outlets. Time poor / inspirationally barren – who? moi?!

Anyway – something struck me on one particular site. Hadn’t been there for a good while (maybe even 12months previous) – but I went back and forth to it a couple of times over a few days. Didn’t purchase. Indecisive? As if!

Anyway – I then get an email from this site offering me a 20% discount incentive to convert my browsing to purchasing (which I did – Tight? Never!).

Coincidence? Now I’m not certain, but I actually don’t believe so. It would make perfect sense that they had a means of tracking my activity as a one time customer (most likely Cookie based), and rather than pestering me all year round and risk my annoyance followed by a swift request to be removed from their database for ever more, they wait for me to return to their virtual shopfront again – and then, when I’ve identified myself as a “ditherer”, use their intelligence to incentivise my repeat business. Impressed? You betcha!

And it got me thinking – it’s a whole virtual world of wonderment out there, and yet are we guilty of dragging our feet too much in the recruitment world? Imagine a facility that really knew who was back browsing your site and alerted relevant recruiters when a relevant candidate was coming back into a position where they could be more open to influence by particular elements of the employer brand / proposition. But then I got to thinking - does it really matter how pioneering solutions providers are – I’d be interested to hear how many of the “other than run of mill” facilities UK plc recruiters actually use. My money says that like with most of us and our use of Microsoft packages – they probably only harness a tiny fraction of the power it offers.

So are there any readers of this blog from one of the plethora of ATS providers who can / are willing to comment on how their systems are used? Perhaps I’m very wrong and actually an encouraging percentage of recruiters are working their systems and facilities effectively and efficiently – communicating with their candidate base and embracing new innovations to facilitate better employer brand penetration. Or is the “talent pool” more of a “talent swamp” were interested potential employees are left to fester with little contact or hope of being engaged – until next time they happen upon the employer again (probably on a job board) and realise on trying to apply that they actually have a candidate account from which to apply already?

Go on – stop me from being such a cynical bugger in 2008.

:)

From award winners to the day-to-day - hoping there's always something in common

I’m writing this post on the train on the way into London to one of our industry’s annual big events - the RAD awards (long story as to why I wasn’t in London anyway – suffice to say rubber gloves and mop needed for family duties!).

Now having heard at the end of last year how much Sinead & John (Buffey) enjoyed, and were very positive about, being a part of the whole judging process – together with the RADs steering team really making a concerted effort to enable the awards to reflect the direction that the Digital component is taking Recruitment Advertising (a shame to say it’s not vice versa - yet) – I’m quite excited to see the standard of work and what has won through. It’s always a good bash whatever, but I do really enjoy the opportunity to get inspired by seeing some of the best work from our peers and betters, something I just don’t seem to have enough time to do in my day to day.

But the journey has got me thinking about something that I picked up from within my agency last week. I was perusing a national newspaper web site – as is my wont – when I happened to spot one of our client’s logos. Just sitting there. Now it jumped out to me, which was great, but I quickly realised that the only reason it did was because it was a logo I knew. So I clicked on it – and through I went to a job description. Fine? Not really. What particularly alarmed me was that the job wasn’t even one that you’d associate with this particular client (I would guess some clients are that well known that in the right sector the logo alone is enough to get relevant traffic generated).

So why am I blogging about this? Well it struck me that applauding the great and the good is absolutely healthy and to be encouraged, but at the same time we have to remember just how easy it is to get it completely wrong too. Now I’m not interested in pulling apart how that banner got there – whether it was the site “doing us a favour and filling space” or someone having a bad day and firing across a logo rather than a made up banner - but by having a simple reveal of job title, location and then the logo (if nothing else it’s nice and colourful and helps ensure it’s viewed as a real job) the space suddenly becomes something infinitely more fit for purpose.

So whether creating the slickest of campaigns, the best brochures, the sexiest websites or placing simple job ads on a couple of contracted sites, let’s hope we all remember to check ourselves and ensure that it’s all about being fit for purpose. And if it’s fit for purpose in regards to getting the right candidate’s attention and selling them a job to apply to, whatever the budget or scale, then it’s definitely fit for purpose for the client and their recruitment requirement.

Here’s to an enjoyable night – and not too painful a morning recovering.
:-)

Happy New Year, anyone struggling?

Happy New Year everyone! I hope Santa brought you everything you wanted and that if he didn't you made a decent amount selling whatever you got on Ebay.

I know there are some controversial posts coming the way of this blog soon but in the meantime I spotted this on Dave Mendoza's site. I thought it might give those of you still befuddled by Xmas excess a quick reminder of what this blogging lark is all about!

Peace and goodwill to all, oh and please vote for us!

Well I was going to finish the year with a rant but decided that I'd postpone that until January and instead get with the general mood of mutual love, respect and sharing....even though it's doing nothing for our traffic figures (lets get back to arguing ASAP in 2008!).

I'm off for a couple of weeks now so just wanted to wish everyone a Happy Christmas and thank absolutely all of you who have written for, commented on, talked about or read Digital Recruiting in 2007.

Just before I go though the ever lovely Louise has asked me to mention the Best Recruitment Blog of 2007 award she has organised. You can read more about it here. To make it as easy as possible for you when you vote for us here is a link to the X factor style voting page ;-)

See you all in 2008!

Matt

Collaboration, Innovation and People

I finished my last new business pitch of the year this morning and I can now allow myself to wind down a little and reflect on the past year. Yay!

What a year its been! so much has happened that I can't sum it up in one post so I wont try, but overall its been great.

I will instead blog about my morning.

When I was getting ready this morning I was, as usual, listening to Terry Wogan on the radio when the news came on. One of the stories summed up a key theme that has permeated 2007 and will continue to be a real influencing factor on the business, social and political world in 2008 and beyond.

It centred around the development of medicine for Aids sufferers. In the past, patients would have had to take around 30 different tablets a day, often on an empty stomach. Today they can instead take one tablet to treat their symptoms. This is quite an amazing transformation, but how has this vastly improved scenario come into play?

- well, three of the major pharmaceutical companies who are major competitors collaborated to make this a reality. The sharing of intellectual capital and resources for a greater good...fantastic.

Collaboration between companies, people and organisations is transforming the social and business world we now operate in. This goes back to my earlier post in May when I got excited to hear about Proctor and Gamble operating an open source policy, something more and more companies and organisations are doing to great effect.

What has enabled this age of collaboration? - The Internet.

The company we pitched for this morning is the world's largest steel company and through research over the last couple of months it been really interesting to note that three of the most important factors affecting businesses, certainly according to Global CEO surveys are Collaboration, Innovation and People.

In a knowledge economy, collaboration, innovation and great people are critical to business success. Its clear that in 2008 things are going to get even more interesting for us all

To my fellow bloggers, its been a real highlight to work and get to know you all in 2007 and thanks everyone for contributing to the discussion. Look forward to chewing the fat in 2008.

Have a lovely Christmas and New Year everyone.

p.s. thanks Matt for getting the whole blogging thing started.

JobsGoPublic giving to the Bangladesh Relief Appeal, Whitehurst / TMP love-in: it must be Christmas

For those of you who haven't picked up on it yet, JGP have launched a blog - CTO Eben has recently posted an interesting piece on job board security. You'll also see there that JobsGoPublic is donating £10 to the Bangladesh Relief Appeal for every job posted on the site throughout December and January. Good on them, and a great excuse for using the site if you've never used it before. Full details here.

What with this commendable gesture, and a general feeling of "industry togetherness" that I have not experienced before, there is definitely something in the air. Certainly everyone I've spoken to in the online recruitment space is looking to 2008 with great enthusiasm - and with good reason.  Working with both consumer and recruitment brands, I have to say that recruitment could really lead the charge in terms of  the effective use and monetization of the new digital channels of engagement. (Having said that, helping launch a designer perfume for dogs was hard to beat in terms for viral pass-on-ability... ;-)

I am hoping to shatter the Christmas spell when talking at the Enhance Year Ahead conference on 1st Feb. The subject will be Employer Brands & Conversations, and I fully intend to pick out some of the crowd for embarrassing-Facebook-profile-related-tomfoolery, so if you're coming make sure you change your privacy settings now...

Hope you all have great Christmas

Paul, Carve Consulting

Death of the mouse

I’m currently trying to finish writing a controversial post to end the year on but December is proving to be madly busy work wise! In the meantime though I just wanted to mention the Chinwag Event I attended last week. Very well run and some interesting thoughts on where the digital industry might be in 5 years time.

One of the thoughts that came up was the changing nature of the human interface with technology and the “death of the mouse”. It was mooted by someone that perhaps the key development in this area had already happened in the form of the Wii. Either way I reckon I could probably do with getting one of these for Xmas!

La la la ... happy i did not go to small circle

I am a very happy man today.

Firstly, because of last Wednesday, I was sitting at home feeling sorry for myself and fellow bloggers were out having a party. It is not that which made me happy but the fact Tim, Dom, Michelle and the guys from JGP came out.

I had already made up with Dave from TMP … but it also made me reflect on Tim (NORAS has had a lot of stick at times) and the wholes idea of this blog … to talk, discuss and rant (I think I do that a lot).

But having Tim out for beers with us and Al quoting us is what I have always wanted.

No bad intentions are there. This is to create an open forum for the industry that has never really been around before … talking is what makes the difference. Just look at the RADS this year.

So talk, discuss and remember we are open.

Build on what we have.

Keep the faith …

John

Everyone is welcome … here is to a great 2008

Forever Blowing Bubbles

Thanks to Alastair for name checking us in his interview on Louise's Blog the other day. Never being one to disappoint I therefore thought it was time for another vaguely business related amusing You Tube video. This one really made me laugh!

Happy Birthday to us - a very nice evening thank you

I can say without fear of contradiction that those of us who attended our first birthday drink on Wednesday night would have all had much bigger and messier nights, but for me last night’s gathering was everything I might have hoped it would be. Good company and a bit of impassioned discussion and debate over a few beers.

Have to say though that for me there were, for me, a couple of stand out elements to the night (to add to Mr Harrison’s recollection :)

Awards: Now after I was criticised last year for daring to comment on this blog about what I saw, in my very personal opinion, were some very strange judging decisions that saw a hardly viewed at all dancing faeces on youtube scooping best work of the year at the last RADs, RBI undertook a period of consultation and have reviewed not just the overriding format, but also clearly given consideration to the skillset they need to have within the invited panel. With the increasing prevalence of digital execution and creativity within recruitment activity it’s absolutely crucial that this is reflected in the judges background – because, as recently discussed on this blog in regards to some other curious award decisions in the NORAs, there actually are some fundamental elements in digital execution that should make something good or not so good. Elements that are all too often  are clearly ignored / not appreciated / forgotten in the judging process.

Anyway - both Sinead and  John (Buffey) had recently completed a gruelling couple of days (and to be honest I never realised what hard work it was trawling through the great and the not so great this industry produces) participating in the RADs judging. Now a large element of any creativity judging is, of course, subjective, but I was heartened that both were so positive about the rigorousness of the process this year and in agreement that the panel had indeed, for them, sorted the wheat from the chaff. It’s great to hear that two people steeped in digital delivery being given a clear opportunity to inform and educate a judging panel so that a healthy debate about appropriateness and effectiveness rather than “spin” can ensue – exactly how it should be. I’m looking forward to January (thanks for the invite Gemma ;). Of course if it’s all pants then John’s the skinny blond fella and Sinead the raven haired Celt sitting next to the dance floor.

Second life: of course this was always going to raise it’s head – but when you get some passionate visionary types together (not necessarily including myself in that grouping) it actually becomes clear where this kind of environment can indeed add value to the recruitment process and employer branding activity. For me, with the current “let’s be really honest about how many people are really on it and using it” user levels as they are, then online careers fairs are more about the PR than delivery, and that PR ship has now surely well and truly departed – but when you really consider how you might engage with an audience through establishing some best-practice skills evaluation with potential training benefits offshoots within this virtual world then you start to get the idea of just where the real potential lies. Exciting – no, really!

The next big thing: now it wasn’t that we sat about talking about what might be “the next big thing” – that would just be silly – but instead I had a very interesting conversation with a gentlemen about what he and his team have been doing of late. Am not going to name check – not my place to steal anyone’s thunder (and was getting a little lubricated at that point so not sure how secret squirrel they are about it all), but my god I think they’re onto something. Something that just could, leveraged as effectively as they seem to be in a position to do, actually change the face of recruitment (certainly within some sectors) rather than, as mos