Digital Recruiting

Just how important is being web savvy these days?

Possibly web savvy is over stating it - but given that the internet is accepted as an immensely disruptive global phenomena, then can you hope to appreciate the potential of it and the speed of change it's enabling if you don’t know how to even use a computer? And how important is that for top jobs - or indeed, THE (debatable) top job?

Picked this up from one of the people I’m following on Twitter (am I becoming a twitter fan? Maybe) and think it raises some very very interesting questions. When considering who should be the next “most powerful person (as things stand) in the world” – surely that person needs to at least be able to “get” why the world has changed over the past 10years and why, at this pace of change, it will be a very different place by the end of a double, possibly even just a single, Presidential term.

And you can argue, I think very well, that if one of the candidates doesn’t even know where the on button is on a computer (despite having what I’m sure would be a “great team of advisors and consultants” etc etc etc) then how can they truly “get” where the world is going to a decent enough degree so as to make some pretty important state and economy leading decisions. Or would a political camp actually concede that the presidential position has actually evolved into not much more than just a figurehead role?

If nothing else – I love the passion of this woman. As I believe the say state side – “you go girl!”.

But bringing this back to recruitment (always good to try and do that on a recruitment blog I think) – I wonder how long businesses can function without having Digital Natives or fully assimilated Digital Immigrants at their very heart of their business. And I mean the very heart. Be that Agency, Consultancy or Recruitment Department in a Blue Chip – it’s definitely time to get with the programme (and you still can - it isn't some dark art), or else get people in places to lead and direct your business who themselves “get”, or indeed "are" the programme.

So – onto the video (borrowed from here):

Mark Soohoo, the deputy internet director of the John McCain, was defending his boss for not personally understanding how to use a computer. Tracy Russo, Soohoo's counterpart on the John Edwards campaign (where she was deputy director of online communication), took issue with Soohoo, and then the fireworks started. Here's the video:

Read more on Tracy’s thoughts here 

 

Kindle Suprise

I love books. Not just the fantastic content and knowledge that they promise and often provide, but how beautiful they can be as an object to hold and admire. My favourite books are the old fashioned hard backed classics with gilded spines and pages.

On a recent visit to Havana Cuba, we went on a tour of the government Capital building and we passed the library room. It had rows and rows of gilded hardbacks from the floor to the ceiling and had one of those huge step ladders on wheels to access all the higher placed books - absolute catnip.

Before I went on my holidays I was contemplating what books to take (what high brow books would I take to weigh down my suitcase and complement my essential Jackie Collins read).

It was also at the same time, a few weeks ago, that  I saw the launch of The Kindle; Amazons new wireless reading device with revolutionary electronic paper that provides an experience on par with a normal book.

Hmmn....I was dubious. I went to the site to check it out and see what it was all about. Thinner and weighing less than a normal paperback, allowing a download of a book in less than a minute, a battery life that allows you to read War and Peace in one sitting, (should you wish), I have to say, the flexibility and benefits are really intriguing. You can download daily newspapers to access when you wake up each morning and keep up to date with your favourite blogs.

My next thought was what advertising opportunities can this device offer?  This is where it will get really interesting - I'm sure just as in normal newspapers we will be able to place recruitment messages to relevant people.

Also, perhaps for the first time we can associate our employer brand and message with particular books. We want to target females - we can perhaps be associated with the numerous female orientated books on the best sellers list. We want to target business minded professionals - we can be associated with books such as The Tipping Point and Wikinomics.

The Kindle (and its competitors like the Readius) will be successful if they truly provide benefits and added value to consumers. As a traditional book lover, I have to say, I can see real potential with such a device, especially on my commute or on my holidays, but it may be a while before books are just consigned as lovely ornaments on my bookshelf.

You heard it here first (possibly) - CIPD Awards - the twit from the twit

OK - Head hurts. Quite a bit. Great night though. Don't know if anyone tined in for teh live event, but as promised here are the twits as they happened.

Crap start. What part of 4pm today is "hopefully by 5.30" for shoe repairers?!

On course again. Now to find @jamieasleonard - whatever state!

Hooked up. Big group. All very respectable. So far. :-)

A gorgeous evening. Last time @ Billingsgate was similar. Infamous Jimmy Carr that night. Here's hoping.

Jamie's secret is out. Clip on tie with one for later to drape. I just feel old - tie tied 1st time :-(

@jamieasleonard is onto his draped bow tie already.is this a good sign?!

Jackie Orme - she says economic slow down is the time for us and business to step up. Hear hear aka bring it on!

Oh dear -8.15 and already terms like "bring it on" are spilling forth. Gonna be a long night!   

Starter - roasted pepper, some houmus and goats cheese. I'm welsh but goats have never done it for me - not a good starter here :-(   

Tables around - monster; mediacomm1; tmp3; tmp4;mediacomm1 - flippin nora - I'm in an enclave!   

Complaint from work employees - not ANY eligible males there. Ask Graeme if this is intentional - difficult question it would seem.   

Beth Rowley backing track for the night. No complaints here.   

Hmm. Hard core twitterring can be bad for your immediate environment - fact. We've only broken the table!   

More breaking industry news. Graeme Wright has never been to the Griffin. That's not an advertising career - it's an existence!   

Steak for main - after table change! - pretty tough, which was a shame. Lewis from Reed vanished. Word is julian clarey is the turn.   

Lewis - he back. Rich choclate mouse for desert. Compact & bijou Maustin - compact & bijou. Nice enough tho.   

Sooooooo. Mark beavan - bristol person locked in the toilet last week. Good networking-.   

And the turn is - - - Shappi Khorsandi. ?? Doing good tho. Tough crowd. - but winning them over.   
"you gonna circumcise your son?" "only if he's really bad" :-D   

And she's done. Short and sweet, but very good. And now - we get . . . . . David Mitchell.   

He's championing the loser - genius! 2/3rds of us tonight will effectively be losers. :-D   

Best general ad - it's claire's Accessories (33). Well that's positive for my last employers :-)   

Best written ad - tmp worldwide - pa to the md.   

Graduate award - qinetiq & aia. One a piece for the awards big names   

Art direction - RBS & TMP (supercar)   

Outdoor award goes to - shell &jwt - can you see through obstacles? I'm thinking I can increasingly   

Digital award - drum roll - Herts Constabulary & Hodes - specials campaign on fish4. Well done media on that particularly   

Literature - paul and 'andsome - More bread mailer. No idea?!   

Best website- ohhhh-- drum roll again - Audit Commission & 33. Well that's nice. Am thinking how different RADS are on evaluating work   

Best campaign - royal opera house & aia.   

Best employer brand - Orange and Wilding Mcardle Wilson   

Best effectiveness - astra zeneca and applied works   

Best diversity - brighton and hove and lawton ware. Nearly there - but quick comment - guess they didn't see the abomination that was the HR campaign for these guys!

And the grand prix is   

Claire's accessories and Bo Selector. Well done 33 and a client who clearly trusted the agency.   

So here's where the Dj kicks in and I check out. Geez it' a tedious undertaking, but as Chrstina plays it's been a interesting experience   

Good night. God bless. Well done 33. Well done CIPD Guardian. And big personal thanks to www.mylonglunch.com

Guardian ADS ad delivery to be switched off

this just came into my email:

After many years of reliable service, the Guardian ADS machines (used for sending us mono ads) are being taken out of commission. The last date we will take ads in this format will be Friday 1 August 2008. Please pass this information on to your production departments.

so why is this statement blog worthy (or at least why did I think it was blog worthy). Well when I started as a mere slip of a thing in Recruitment Advertising @ AIA, ADS was just being brought in - and causing quite a stir as all disruptive technology tends to. Like the bromide machine before it and hot metal press before that, proof that the world revolves and evolves - and much of it for the better.

vive l'evolution.

bye bye ADS - it's good to have you interweb.

The great Twitter - Recruitment Land - CIPD Awards experiment

Or not (if you're confused by the heading - read more here). Seems that with less than 24hours (with just 6 twitter followers of @digitalrecing – and at least 50% I know to be going) I guess we can make a couple of assumptions:

Readers of this blog:

• Are all going to the CIPD awards (?!).
• Aren’t great twitterers.
• Are twitterers but are sulking because they couldn’t get an invite.
• Are twitterers but have a life outside of Rec Ad and are happy to read about the results post event.
• Have better things to do than read a welshman’s increasingly incoherent fat thumbed tweets.
• Leave everything until the last minute and we’ll see a rush of followers signing on in the final hours before it all kicks off.

All very possible, some more so than others – but not one to be influenced by popular opinion (you’d know that if you accessed my iTunes library – or indeed my wardrobe) we’re going to crack on unabated.

As promised – I’ll do my best to keep up with proceedings on the night and then will, as best my faculties will allow, on Friday edit out the truly banal and, if there’s anything left, load onto this blog for general amusement or indeed (probably more likely) mass indifference.

See you there (virtually or in person) or not.

Cheers.

Driving Digital Recruitment

I'm back, its been a while. You know what its like, you have plenty to say in your head but don't get round to blogging...

Anyway, imagine the scenario:

'Bertha got into her car to begin the commute home. She had been working in Reading for a global IT firm for 2 years. They were a good company to work for but lately she felt a bit stifled, didn't really see a clear path for her development....if anything she was getting itchy feet and 2 years was a decent enough time to stay at a firm, wasn't it? anyway the incident at the Christmas party still left her feeling a bit uneasy.

The mellow tunes of Magic FM filled the car, she loved that Gloria Estefan track, reminded her of an old boyfriend. After ten minutes she heard a jingle from her satellite navigation system - it was instantly recognisable, similar to the Intel jingle and just as catchy.

Looking at her sat nav screen she realised she was being alerted to that fact she was passing the premises of a rival company. A message filled the car telling her there was a perfect and very relevant position for her at the company with huge opportunities. At the push of a button she could respond by either having an initial conversation there or then or to receive a subsequent email to set up a good time to discuss......

Maybe I will push the button, she thought.......'

Rightio, I may not win the booker prize anytime soon, but I thought of this cool scenario after reading a rather interesting article (you have to register - 'Why Your Car May Soon be Driving advertising) last week. It was all about how satellite navigation systems are allowing geo-targeting advertising and two way dialogue. We were excited when we were the first to use GPRS geo-targeting on bus sides for The Metropolitan Police (community based roles were advertised with digital messaging that changed as buses entered different post codes - nice and personalised)

The satellite navigation scenario is obviously more evolved than what we did for the Met Police but what is also different is that in a car when people are commuting you have a captive audience (much like when flying) which in an incredibly fragmented media landscape is like gold dust.

The digital world continues to excite.

Dangers and Opportunities of the Crowdsourced Company

I think we all generally prefer to try and generate blog posts ourselves rather than just copying – but read this and thought it was simply too pertinent not to share. Have trimmed it a little, and added some of my own thoughts at the bottom, but you can read the whole thing at Web Strategy by Jeremiah_owyang

A new form of the Groundswell has appeared. What’s the Groundswell? We define it as a movement where individuals get what they need from each other, rather from existing institutions. In this case, employees are starting to collaborate, outside of the corporate firewall to connect, share, and learn from each other, here’s a few examples beyond the traditional Yahoo Finance Chat rooms:

Glassdoor: Rate Employers, CEOs, and find out Industry Salaries
This site launched today, although a few of my colleagues were briefed last week. Essentially, to obtain knowledge about company reviews, CEO reviews, and salary information, you have to first submit your information –all anonymously. This stealth startup, which just launched is being discussed on Techcrunch and on Cnet. I just reviewed my former employer to gain access. Essentially, companies are peer reviewed, and you can find out industry averages to see how well you do or don’t measure up to industry peers.

Criticat: Review, Advise and Discuss your employer
This startup, much in the same vein as Glassdoor offers a collaborative view into your company: “Do you feel you have a great solution to a problem in your company but not sure if everyone else will agree with you?”. Essentially, collaboration around company brainstorms happens outside the firewall.

Social Networks: LinkedIn, Xing, Facebook etc.
Of course, it goes without mention that many colleagues are assembling on these social networks, before, during, and afterwork. Some frustrated companies block social networks from their firewalls, while the next generation of workers will simply bypass those shallow walls using mobile devices – the Groundswell is difficult to stop. Instead, brands should lead with policy, embrace, and look for the business opportunities of having a connected workforce.

Dangers and Opportunities of the Crowdsourced Company
The previous examples indicate a trend of what’s happening: The conversations that used to take place at the physical watercooler, has now shifted online, organized, and manifests as something greater. But what are the impacts?

Sometimes false, sometimes inflammatory, and sometimes truthful, yet frustrated sounding information will be posted to these sites from employees, former employees, and customers.

Employees get more control, as their voice will be heard to other colleagues, and in some cases, to the entire internet. Salaries will be puffed, as professionals will seek to demonstrate how much they are valued, I expect salary data to be inaccurate, and inflated.

Candidates will have more bargaining power during hiring process, as they can view not only third party salary.com, but now look at pan-industry salaries –hiring managers and recruiters will refute.
Employees will seek out the hire paying next step job, and develop career-pathing to lead to the larger pot of gold.

Corporations will flinch, and many will setup policies to prevent employees from posting private information outside of the firewall although many of these internal memos will appear within hours on the very sites they seek to stop.

Dissatisfied and passionate employees and customers will assemble on these third party sites to self-support each other, few companies will realize how they need to follow the conversation.

Some savvy brands will get ahead of this Groundswell, and launch their own tools internally and externally, some will successful centralize –then lead –their market conversation.

What other impacts do you see happening from this new pattern of websites that turn power over to employees and customers?

I think that Jeremiah is on the money, as usual, in spotting emerging platforms and trends that are potential landscape changers – and then explaining how. He's just not given it the full consideration that Employer Brand professionals would though – but then that’s not his bag and nor does he profess it is (he’s Product Marketing based so here is straying into “our space”). So whilst he’s focussed on the potential for people using such facilities purely for salary gain, the blunt edge of recruitment and retention, I think those people who get all of this within our space will realise that it’s actually more about e-Employer Brand Management.

Let’s be honest, £5k here or £5k there (pre tax) doesn’t make any much difference (and if you’re a gen pigeon hole subscriber then salary is far less important to GenY than it has been to X or Boomers – although lets see how some economic slow time affects that), however bad recruitment / employee experience (as much as bad customer experience in Jeremiah's experience) has the potential of spreading like wild fire and affecting your potential candidates’ perceptions of working for you. You’ll still generate candidates, sure, but if you're not listening and actively telling your side of the story (as well as ensuring that actually you are a good and / or fair organisation to work for with robust, fair and transparent recruitment processes) then you might just start to find it harder than ever to attract that top talent as word gets out, or at least one strain of your employment truth emerges.

And that’s the point. The digital world broadcasts individual truths – so corporates’ have to get their heads around this and ensure that as well as their employment house being in order (the starting point!) that they are listening, ready and willing to tell me (the potential candidate) their truth.

But remember: that telling of your truth  now happens as a conversation - not a statement.

 

Social contextual search advertising

Although I have read the DigitalRecruiting blog with interest for quite a while this is actually my first blog here...so lets hope I get it right.

Anyway, I came across a very interesting artical from Steve Rubel entitled 'Friendfeed Can Disrupt Search and Reshape Advertising'. Read at your leisure, but its all about the future trend towards easily searchable content created by people you trust, which has certain ramifications for the future digital recruitment advertising industry.

http://www.micropersuasion.com/2008/06/friendfeed-can.html

CIPD award twittering – it’s a goer

So despite the underwhelming response to my question about if there was any interest in twittering an awards event – we’re gonna give it a shot anyway. Perhaps Twitts need to be engaged in the twitter space rather than through the blogosphere (or, and probably more likely I concede, perhaps no-one’s really that interested in being a part of the evening if they can’t get horribly drunk at someone else’s expense – sorry – I mean partake first hand in the ambience of the night celebrating the great and the good of our industries creative output), so we’ll see how many followers we get.

But, if you are a Twitt then you’ll need to know that I’ll be covering it under the @digitalrecing profile (I’ve also created a personal one – which seems to have confused the hell out of the Twitter system (freeware – what can you do?!) – but for the event I’ll be going through the one we’ve established just for “official event coverage”).

Big thanks has to go out to Jamie @ mylonglunch who came good with an invite for me (my very own fairy god mother – now there’s a thought to make you shudder). I’m very impressed with how well his business is going that he’s shouting (in terms of paying for – but probably also in terms of “at”) a full table at the event – and I think it’s pretty typical of his forward thinking ways that he’s so excited to have this industry first run from HIS table. Although if we’re honest I reckon he just wanted to concentrate on enjoying himself rather than remembering to Twitter about award results and the like and so was glad to be associated with this without having to stay sober enough to contribute too much himself.

So just to re-cap – CIPD Rec Marketing Awards Event Thursday 19th @ Old Billingsgate. If you can’t be there and want to be (in a very small twitterati sort of way) aware of / part of the proceedings and results then you’ll need to have a Twitter account and make yourself a follower (or something like that – still early days for me) of @digitalrecing.

Don’t expect a lot of activity from that account on an everyday basis – it’s purely set up for twittering at events such as this (if you want to follow “real people” then from this blog then at the moment you’ll be looking for: @mattalder; @carveconsulting; @alexhens). And then as the fuzzy head really kicks in (as I’m sure it will do having opened myself to partake in some of the legendary Leonard hospitality) then I’ll transcribe (well copy & paste) the night’s tweets (potentially with a little editing for “actually, in the light of day…” type political reasons) onto this here blog for all those who attended and wondered what the coverage was like, or equally those who didn’t attend and actually found something better to do with your time than tune in to someone finding his Twitt feet and almost certainly thinking he’s getting funnier and funnier as the night progresses.

It’s all likely to either go horribly wrong or be plain dull – I’ll of course strive for some middle ground – but whether it’s car crash or paint drying you can decide and we’ll then see about trying it at future events.

Oh – and if you’re at the event – then you’ll have to excuse me if I seem to be rude and have my nose in my phone. It’s all in the name of an industry first don’t ya know!

:-D

Onrec tomorrow - Any Questions?

In keeping with Digital Recruiting's move towards Social Media (see Alex's CIPD post below). I thought I'd give people the opportunity to send me any questions they wanted to ask the panel during the discussion at the Onrec conference tomorrow. I'm chairing an illustrious panel featuring John Salt of Totaljobs, Adele Poole of HotLizard, Laura Stoker of Airs, Emma Mirrington of BskyB and Tony Roy of Careerbuilder. The topic is "How to minimise costs in recruitment during a downturn". If anyone who can't make it (or even those who can) want to suggest a question then either leave a comment or email me directly on matt.alder@barkers.co.uk. I'll blog the responses from the panel later in the week

Matt