Digital Recruiting

The iPad - a Friday kinda look

You may have noticed a little buzz this week just past about a certain Apple release. What? You missed it? Well don't worry - I'm sure it'll be beamed to the space station you must be on someday soon.

There's been plenty written about it already - from people who would love it because it has an apple logo on it to people who hate it because it has an apple logo on it and from developers who hate the fact that Apple operates a very closed development environment to those who really believe that apple have once again (as they did with the iPhone) significantly raised the bar.

It's not perfect, no, but then neither was the iPhone 1.0. Anyway, as I say - plenty written, and for my money Mr Fry, who got to be at the launch event, nailed it (as usual) in his blog post - but I still think this spoof is absolutely brilliant. Enjoy :)

The iPad - watch more funny videos

Crowdsourcing Apathy

Ah, election year....the prospect of shiny new change or focusing your current leaders to deliver on past promises they have made...how exciting! or really....it used to be, but not so much this year.

I don't think I can ever recall being this apathethic about a general election. It's a sad state of affairs to be in, feeling that neither party offers any particular hope.

Just as well then, we have something of interest we can watch from our seats of indifference - how each party fayres in their use of social media in helping to get elected. After Obama came to power on the wave of hope and an amazing social media campaign, the bar has been set very high.

So, first to have piqued my interest and get off the starting blocks is Labour.

Just read that Labour are launching a crowdsourcing campaign Change we See

Insead of talking about what they are going to change - 'Yes We Can' like, they are doing a 'Yes, We Did' type scenario.

Well, they have been in power for donkeys years now, should have done something to be fair.

Nice idea...but as with all social media, content is key....will they have the content for crowds to source? -we'll soon see.

Over to Tory HQ.

RECaid Free Training - 18th February 2010

Support for job-seekers in recruitment advertising. For those people in recruitment marketing who aren’t working at the moment but who are keen to keep their skills up-to-date, help is at hand. RECaid, the recruitment advertising charity, is organising a series of free training and development sessions designed to support job-seekers in our industry. 

The first of these training events will run on the morning of February 18th and will be hosted by Global Radio. This will involve a series of three back-to-back sessions designed to help job seekers improve their interviewing skills, widen their industry knowledge and build their digital design and writing skills. The outline below should help you decide whether they’ll benefit you - or someone you know.

Planning Your Job Hunting Process – Frank Hutton The founder and Managing Director of Ad Lib, a specialist marketing, creative and media recruiter, Frank will focus on taking a planned approach to finding your next job. Having recruited for a wide range of recruitment a recruited for a wide range of agencies at all levels across creative, account handling, digital and production. He has been in demand as a speaker and seminar leader. He was an early supporter of RECaid and continues to care passionately for the Recruitment Communications industry. dvertising agencies at all levels across creative, account handling, digital and production, he’ll draw on this expertise to show how you can stand out in a tough market. A former board director with Riley, Frank combines a huge breadth of industry knowledge with a real passion for recruitment communications. 

Best Practice in Website Design – Tsz Wu In the first of two sessions mainly designed for creative and project management job-seekers, Tsz will focus on helping people build their website design knowledge and skills. Tsz is a founding partner of Pink Squid, a recently launched digital creative consultancy, as well as former head of digital design at TMP, work communications and Barkers, plus a long-standing member of the CIPD judging committee. As such, he can draw on a wealth of web design and development experience to help designers make the jump from print to digital. 

Copywriting for search – Andy Rigden In the second of the creative sessions, Andy Rigden, Joint Creative Director at Bernard Hodes will help copywriters and project managers get to grips with the basics of SEO copywriting. He’ll focus on helping people understand the basic principles and the differences to writing for print, as well as providing an introduction to some of the most common SEO writing tools.

If you want to book one of the 30 places at each session, please contact John Whitehurst on [email protected]. The sessions will all take place in the Global Radio boardroom at 30 Leicester Square, London, WC2H 7LA.

The Mobile Age Cometh

So, I'm thinking  of getting an i-phone..they're pretty cool and being able to access the web wherever I want, whenever I want, is a big attraction, especially since my laptop packed up.

Also, being free from the red light of my work blackberry, which doubles as my personal mobile phone will surely be healthy.

I'm not alone in my desire for a smart phone, in fact, it would seem at long last, we just may be entering the 'Mobile Age' - the perennial prediction comes to bear....

Mary Meeker in her presentation at the Web 2.0 event- convinced me the mobile is all set to be the main device for web access.

 
What's more from past analysis of technology computing trends, the mobile age is all set to be TEN times more utilised that desktop Internet computing:

What does this mean for the world of recruitment?

Employers should be considering what role mobile plays in their attraction strategy- how they can use the unique technology and attributes of this device to ensure they are ahead of the competition and engaging in dialogue with their target audience.

The presentation highlights that currently in Japan, 65% of visitors to the countries most popular social media website; Mixi ,come via their mobile handset - a roadmap of where things are set to go.

So many opportunities are available, whether simple mobile banner advertising, to bespoke apps or augmented reality - the possibilities are endless.

Tuesday 9th of February, we're holding the first annual inter-agency pub quiz to support RECaid at the Hoop & Grapes on Farringdon Road

On Tuesday 9th of February, we're holding the first annual inter-agency pub quiz to support RECaid at the Hoop & Grapes on Farringdon Road. Full details will be distributed shortly, but this is to please ask you to sound out people in your agency about getting team together and ask you to publicise the quiz. Agency can have multiple teams and freelance teams can also welcome, so please encourage as many friends and colleagues as possible to be involved. Please let us know if you want to enter a team and for more information you can see the RECaid inter-agency pub quiz on linkedin. 

Delicious Ambiguity

'...some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity.'

Gilda Radner

I love a good quotation and I think the above is a good way to look at life and all that it presents us with, especially after a year like 2009 and a rather uncertain world in 2010.

At this time of year, people tend to make predictions about whats going to happen in the upcoming year.

I obviously don't know whats going to happen in the upcoming months, but reading different blogs and research, it would seem a given, that mobile, real-time and social are the key trends in technology, business and communication (more on that to come).

Whatever happens, I hope 2010 is a great year and we all appreciate and enjoy the delicious ambiguity that it has to offer.