Digital Recruiting

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!