Digital Recruiting

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.

 

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

Using Twitter to cover a major industry event? What say you?

We’ve had this idea and wanted to run it past our readers to find out if there was any appetite for us to trial something using Twitter (if you’ve no idea what’s this is about then read this blog entry).

As many of you I’m sure are aware, June 19th is the night when many within the Recruitment Industry don their black ties (read black or frilly shirt if you’re a ‘creative’ - a kind of uniform that confirms to the industry stereotype without being a conforming uniform(?!)) and slide / squeeze* into that little black dress / some impractical but conversation inducing party frock* (* - delete as applicable). Yes - it’s time for the CIPD Recruitment Marketing Awards.

I’ve recently been reading some of the blogs published on the Guardian’s Blog Forum Organ Grinder, and I’m intrigued by the ones that live blog during TV shows (only the juicy ones that most polarise people and generate debate of course - The Apprentice, Britain’s Got Talent etc). Now personally I try and separate my TV switch off time from my web time (which I understand makes me sooo GenX), but I still have found it interesting (on occasion) to read retrospectively what someone else has thought and picked whilst I was watching a programme.

So it got me thinking - and I know live blogging occurs for many digital related conferences, so I'm not daft enough to think this is a world first, but still quite new to our industry, and I think it could be a first in the UK. As the date of the awards nears, and as I’m no longer a full time employee of an agency, I face the very real prospect of not making it to the ball at all this year :( although I of course have learnt over the years that pride is for lonely stay at homes and so, as so often before, on awards night I have a tux standing by incase some desperate media fairy god mother has some ingrate client/agency contact pull out at the last minute and are just glad to fill the seat). So I thought there are of course plenty of people who don’t get the opportunity to go (or are perhaps too busy this year, or turn ill a few days before, or simply can’t get into that dress and can’t face the stress of having to hunt down another at this late stage) as I’m sure there are as many more who really can’t be arsed to go to all that trouble / schlep down to London, but at the same time they may like to be in just some little way a part of proceedings and get to hear first who’s won what (and whether the compere was so constrained as to be “not as good as they usually are on Have I Got News For You” and whether a cheesy DJ won over live music for the after dinner entertainment).

By the time I had this thought it was far too late to get anything in the way of “official sanctioning” by the Awards Committee, so there’s still the distinct possibility that it may be a no go-er even if there is any interest (would make fun reading though - having someone twittering from the toilet in fear of being forcibly ejected by the security).

So what do you think? I’m not a Twitterer as of yet, but I’d definitely sign up if there’s enough people interested and we can get someone on the inside of the event. Then for all those who aren’t Twits (but also as a just incase - because I’m led to believe Twitter is somewhat a victim of its own success and has a tendency to fall over quite a bit at the moment), we’d post the evenings commentary the next day on this ‘ere blog.

So what say you?

And if you’re one of those people who likes to read this blog but can think of nothing worse than leaving a comment (don’t worry - you’re not alone - about 90% of web users do the same so they say) - then email me at [email protected] and I’ll compile any thoughts / comments / feedback before we decided whether it’s worth a go.

Go on - let us know what you think. Could be fun. Could be dull as you know what too - but I'd argue that you never know ‘til you try something :-)

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!

:-]

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.

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:

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 ;-)

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. 

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)

;-)