Hire Strategies Blog

Less seems to be so much more!

I already know I subscribe to too many blogs, have too many Twits to follow, get too many people who have absolutely no relevance to me following me on Twitter.  I have more Linkedin contacts and invites than I know what to do with.  I Stumble Upon more social media experts than social networks who seem to be outnumbering network members.  I'm signed up to newsletters about subjects I haven't even heard of.  I know I have way too much information being thrown at me from so many different sources; and I'm not even looking for most of it!

Starbucks brand management

On my previous post 'Starbucks employer brand collateral damage' I included details of a few e-mails that had been circulating around a year or so.  And as had been expected I received some feedback on this post (see comments). 

There are conflicting views around the e-mail which you can see on Google which suggest the e-mail is a hoax.  But this is not the point.

(Some of the other aspects of the post are factual).

Starbucks employer brand collateral damage

I received this in an e-mail from a friend in one of the armed forces who had had it sent to him in a kind of e-mail chain.  I have no idea if it is accurate or not but, what damage could this do to Starbucks from an employment aspect?

"Recently Marines in Iraq wrote to Starbucks because they wanted to let them know how much they liked their coffees and to request that they send some of it to the troops there. Starbucks replied, telling the
Marines thank you for their support of their business, but that Starbucks does not support the war, nor anyone in it, and that they would not send the troops their brand of coffee.

So as not to offend Starbucks, maybe we should not support them by buying any of their products! I feel we should get this out in the open. I know this war might not be very popular with some folks, but that doesn't mean we don't support the boys on the ground fighting street-to-street and house-to-house."

Buying an ATS | Got a new HR system

So what should you do if you have a new HR system and the vendor is recommending you also buy their Applicant Tracking System (ATS)?  Are the integration benefits worth it or is a niche/specialist system better?

Vurv CE Support Group

Over on Talent Cloud I have started a Vurv User Group.  Of course Vurv/Taleo will be wondering why?

Users are of course unsure what the future holds but still have a (recruitment) job to do.  V/T are of course still providing support but Users can sometimes get what they want from each other.  So rather than V/T being afraid they should see this as positive.  It may of course not be used very much and V/T may jump and shout; maybe they won't.  Maybe they'll see they need to make sure their support is greater than the User Group.

It's not up to me or V/T if it works; it's up to the Users.  All I'd say is that the other ATS Vendors need to keep up!

Moving recruitment adverts

Not the best photo's in the world but Blackberry Curve's are better phones than camera's.  You should get the idea anyway. 

I am

I've noticed that a few advertisers are starting to display search terms on their TV adverts rather than a URL.  Two examples are 'navy jobs' for Navy Jobs(!) and 'I am' for Orange mobile!!  Orange then in turn use SEM to ensure they are at the top of the search page.

Internet advertising is, like all fads, overrated

According to Dan Sabbagh Media Editor of the Times, Google is crap and Internet advertising is a fad.  He has an interesting inclusion on Wikipedia which shows off the accuracy of his journalistic talents!

Normally I ignore what journalists tell us as they are either all hype, doom and gloom or swing violently between both camps in the same article.  But, for someone who is supposed to provide decent reporting, how can someone who clearly has little idea or evidence (although when did journo's care about that) about how Google Adwords even works?

 

Should you integrate with Facebook?

Of course it depends on what you are integrating it with so 'where and where not' is the real question.

The key areas where I am thinking are purely from a Talent Management stand point so includes:

• Career sites.
• Blogs - internal and external.
• Corporate social networks - internal.

From ‘good to great’ – how internal social networking can transform your business

In Jim Collins book ‘Good to great’ one of the key differences between a good and great company was the people; having the right people on the bus and then involving the people in helping to solve the challenges the organisation faced. 

Given the current level of consumer confidence never has it been more critical for organisations to apply their collective brain power to maximise their customer proposition.  But with so many external influences on your organisation, perpetuated by the Internet, how do you fight back?