Digital Recruiting

How Mark Zuckerberg Turned Facebook Into the Web's Hottest Platform

An interesting article from Wired Magazine - Wired Magazine Facebook

New Faces

I can't find any more official stats on Facebook's growth since these. However a quick look at the London network page reveals that the site is now approaching 1.5 million members just associated with London. With its growth still in the explosive stage, unsurprisingly Facebook has had more than a few video tributes posted to it on Youtube. As we haven't had a musical interlude on Digital Recruiting for a while here is one of the better songs dedicated to it...

Aspiring to Excellence -Modernising Medical Careers

I am not sure if anyone has seen the report by Sir John Tooke on the Modernising Medical Careers fiasco?  The report highlights a number of issues we currently face when integrating communications with business requirements.

The CIPD offer interesting advantages, disadvantages and tips for any business approaching online recruitment.  I feel a few areas need exploring in more depth. 

The usability of employer sites and application forms – to be honest the majority of them are a joke and actually at times embarrassing. There is a huge skills gap across service providers together with a lack of willingness from clients to invest in research and testing - this is leading to service improvement not being factored into web projects. 

We spend a lot of time talking about creativity in the industry but in the search for creativity we have lost the meaning of the term ‘concept’. Concepts are used to find unity across target audiences for creative messages; it is a great way to stop individual differences putting people off responding.  But a concept should always have a deep connection with reality. 

People interact on three different levels visceral, behavioural and reflective (this is taken from Emotional Design by Donald Norman).  Our traditional communications channel – PRESS – is a visceral medium so our concepts were reflected with unifying images and text.  That representation we have all seen to bring the employer brand to life. 

We need to create an engagement strategy that deals with behaviour … but when you look at the report it highlights the need to more from just thinking about how people interact with websites but also making sure this reflects the business needs.  Something that was missed in the online system created for the NHS.

This really creates a difficult problem to solve – we need people who not only understand how we interact with computers but also with a good understanding of HR practice.

I see this in the need to improve the planning skills across the industry – it is a neglected area.  With the complexity created by the internet our ability to control messages, inspire response and manage the whole process is getting difficult.

I feel that there is a reverse snobbery from practitioners to the models that are formulated from the research and university sectors.  This rejection often misses the point of the models.  The models are designed to help the thinking and decision making process.  Using the models does not guarantee success but they help to improve the likelihood – and often help to avoid issues such as too much response or response from the wrong target audiences. 

When I look at the issues we face I feel there is a need to improve relations between theory and practice.  I also think that more collaboration is needed to look at current threats to the industry. Ignoring the reality of the current business situation - attracting talent to the industry, the need to develop existing skills across practitioners and the need to build our standing – will only make life more difficult.

Controversial Traffic

I was lucky enough the other week to get to ask a group of successful American bloggers what their key piece of advice was to build a well read blog. The answers were brief, but a recent analysis of the traffic patterns to Digital Recruiting reveals that they were also spot on. With that in mind I thought I'd share a couple of their responses

Joel Cheesman's advice was to "write often" and this is certainly something he does. The recently launched CheezheadXtra is also now providing even more content to the original site. Of course he is right and the traffic here peaks every time there is a new post, unsurprisingly this comes in the main from people who have subscribed to the RSS feed.

Jason Goldberg again gave a two word answer which was "be controversial". Absolutely spot on again, nothing seems to drive traffic like a good rant /argument/. Yesterday's rather heated discussion about Second Life a couple of posts down saw us get four times the usual traffic. I also found another great example of this via a link from Stephen's blog. It's a fantastic set of comments to be found here about Monster spamming people in Ireland. Very entertaining reading and already being linked to by several other bloggers!!

When do we do this?

We have been accused of a few things ... so i want to clear up the meaning of a few things and also to say sorry if we have done this.

Plagiarism (from the Latin plagiare, "to kidnap") is the practice of claiming, or implying, original authorship of (or incorporating material from) someone else's written or creative work, in whole or in part, into one's own without adequate acknowledgement. Unlike cases of forgery, in which the authenticity of the writing, document, or some other kind of object, itself is in question, plagiarism is concerned with the issue of false attribution. Plagiarism can also occur unconsciously; in some cultures certain forms of plagiarism are accepted because the concept can be interpreted differently.

WE ALWAYS TRY AND LINK OR ACKNOWLEDGE SOURCES

arrogance
The act or habit of arrogating, or making undue claims in an overbearing manner; that species of pride which consists in exorbitant claims of rank, dignity, estimation, or power, or which exalts the worth or importance of the person to an undue degree; proud contempt of others; lordliness; haughtiness; self-assumption; presumption. Closely related to the act of arrogating.

THIS BLOG IS FOR EVERYONE TO TALK AND DISCUSS ISSUES - WE MAY NOT AGREE BUT EVERYONE HAS A VOICE.

ignorance (plural ignorances)
The condition of being uninformed or uneducated. lacking knowledge or information.

I WOULD SAY THAT NO PERSON SHOULD CLAIM TO KNOW EVERYTHING BUT WE ARE NOT COMING FROM AN UNINFORMED POSITION.

Growth In Classified Advertising

The text below is taken from the guardian ... here is a link to the full story

http://media.guardian.co.uk/advertising/story/0,,2181856,00.html

Mark Sweney
Tuesday October 2, 2007
MediaGuardian.co.uk

Internet classified advertising has surged 72% year on year - the biggest increase in two years - putting further pressure on the print sector, a report said today.

The report, by the Internet Advertising Bureau, also revealed 41.3% growth across the whole internet advertising sector for the first six months of the year - with revenue at £1.33bn - smashing some forecasts that predicted growth would slow to about 30%.

UK advertisers spent just over £277m on online classified advertising between January and June this year - an increase of 72% over the same six-month period last year.

Classifieds now account for more than one in five pounds of all internet advertising spend, driven by advertisers in the recruitment, automotive and property sectors.

The 72% period-on-period increase is the highest recorded by the IAB since the first half of 2005.

However, an IAB spokesman said that the massive growth seen in 2005 was primarily fuelled by the addition to the IAB's audit of websites that take classified advertisin, whereas now the growth surge is purely market budgets being shifted.

Overall, the report, compiled in conjunction with PricewaterhouseCoopers and the World Advertising Research Centre, found that online advertising's share of all media spend is just under 15%.

On the back of this growth, the IAB is predicting that the online advertising sector - which has overtaken the direct mail sector in size - could be worth £2.75bn by the end of the year.

Understanding The Medium

I get a little wound up by the lack of understanding people have of media in the ad agencies. This is not a ‘you don’t understand so you are stupid attitude’.

It is a …

PLEASE STOP TRYING TO SELL THINGS YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND.

I will send my apologies as I am about to rant about http://www.i-jobsforreal.co.uk/ - a little bit inspired by the article by Graeme Wright on ri5.co.uk. This is not aimed at putting the event down - but it is an excellent example of people not understanding mediums.

The basis that you need to understand is how the structure and nature of a medium meet the requirements of the communication campaign. So shall we have a little look at the nature of secondlife.com and Graeme has already looked at the structure.

This is how second life describes itself.

‘Second Life is a 3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by its Residents.’

If you then think about why people use virtual worlds … well it is to get away from the everyday world. People are looking to live a different life. So will they use it to look at an everyday job?

When you look at computer and human interaction – I always quite like Persuasive Technology by BJ Fogg - three key areas are important

1. A tool that makes things quicker
2. A social actor that improves communication and provides support
3. A medium that provides experience.

Where does second life fit into these three areas – well it is a medium that provides experience. Is second life a symbolic or sensory medium? Well it is a sensory medium that gives the opportunity to provide experience – so does the concept fit?

The event is described as the first virtual careers fair – I remember working on one of these in 1999 (it was awful but I would suggest that does not make this the first) and I even remember one for grads on msn last year with totaljobs (that was not much better but at least it was a careers fair). So I am positive it is not the first - maybe the first one on second life.

Sorry I was wondering off then. When you look at the concept – people could use the second life medium to improve their interview techniques, experience group events etc … and talk to employers - all to help with their real life job applications. I am not saying they will - i feel people use second life to live away from the real world - not within it.

This is the process for candidates on the site.

First, you need to choose a role and company you’re interested in, register and upload your CV. The closing date for receipt of CVs will be 9 October.
The organisation(s) you have selected will then review your CV before selecting a limited number of candidates.
Next, you will be notified as to whether you have been successful in getting a virtual interview.
We will send the application forms and CVs of successful candidates to the companies which they have selected for approval.
If you are successful, we will invite you to the event and provide you with all the information you need to prepare for your interviews.

When I look at this … it is not a careers fair. I always though the idea of an event is that you can wander around, get information, ask questions and maybe stumble upon a company you do not know.

Maybe I am being thick … it happens a lot. But this seems nothing like a careers fair and really they seem to be just using second life to conduct an interview. Well to be honest that is what is says on the site.

If this is what is happening … the point of second life has been missed. The BBH move to build a virtual advertising agency – hit the point. Second life is an experience and an experience that is based within the virtual world.

This world can reflect and even support the real world – but the basis of the interaction should be within the virtual world – not the real world. That is why people use it. There is no point running this in second life using the methodology on the site – unless you just want to say you are doing something on second life.

Sorry for singling out this event BUT it is a perfect example of people doing things because they are new. We should work with new mediums, this is the only way we test and deliver innovation.

BUT we really do need to improve the level of understanding of mediums within the agencies and clients. Because if the structure and nature of the mediums don’t meet client objectives then the campaigns will not work – this is a perfect example of an idea missing the point of the medium.

You see examples of this across all levels of the industry from simple job posting campaigns through to the main digital recruiters in the UK. If we say we understand the media – then we should actually understand the media.

http://www.i-jobsforreal.co.uk/ misses the point of how people interact with the internet, the concept of a careers fair and the nature of second life.