Hire Strategies Blog

Is Facebook a B2B channel (yet)?

You can dress SPAM up anyway you like, but SPAM is SPAM is SPAM. Or is it?

Job boards vs. social networks. #in

The job boards pretty much took the entire job advertising market from print in around 10 years. The social networks could take the market from the job boards in maybe half that time; so it is now the job boards market to lose. Here's a few things they could try to save it.

I am man - I am Google. I am woman - I am Social.

Search hasn't changed but social has changed the game as far as advertising is concerned. But what do we men know anyway?

Pages, pages everywhere so where does my career site fit?

(Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/patrick-smith-photography)

As a recruiter you have your coveted career site but you also have Pages; Facebook, Linkedin, Google+ and no doubt there will be more incarnations to follow. But as more "brands" push people to their Pages rather than their website (X-Factor is a typical example) where does that leave your own site? Redundant or different? The road ahead is daunting.

What's in a name Costa?

Toffee or caramel. Does it really matter? In most cases it doesn’t which is what some bright spark in Costa product marketing thought. But try telling that to the kids - or the baristas!

Social Media in Recruitment Conference 7 April 2011

The third Social Media in Recruitment Conference takes place in London on the 7th April and Mike Taylor has put together another great programme with a good variety of speakers and topic areas. 

So Brave New Talent, WTF are you?

I read today that Lucian Tarnowski is expanding his social recruiting empire to the US. So, in advance of his epic journey to conquer America, I pose a simple question. What is Brave New Talent? 

I am sure Lucian will grace me with his presence here to answer the very simple question but let me help if I can.

BNT (always reminds me of BLT sandwich when he calls in BNT) is a job board for Graduates. Wow. What an amazing concept. Hmm, problem is there are not really any jobs. I mean, according to this article it's a Facebook for Corporates and major companies including IBM, L’Oreal and Tesco have signed up to the site. So I took a look.

L'Oreal

Yes they are there with some jobs. I applied with the scant profile I created. So far OK.

IBM

Yep, more jobs. Experienced Cognos Consultant? Questionable until I realised it was just a feed from Indeed and not even direct from the IBM career site. Great.

Tesco

Well, no jobs and some odd videos coming from YouTube posted by a student careers advice site.

Others

Looking around at other employers such as BBC, Google and Apple all I came across were profiles that stated "This profile's content is sourced from the public domain". In other words, they are not an advertising client so chances are nothing here to see and no jobs to apply for. The point of this is???

So, I thought I'd check out some of the Discussions. I see more discussion in our social media camping discussion on Facebook and there are only about 10 members! So BNT was not exactly compelling.

So now I am at a loss because here's what Lucian told me at TRU London last month.

"We are a laser focused product company"

So there you go. Milkround fear not. Jobsite sleep easily. Monster let your daughters out. America...... we love you and so does Lucian. In fact, as much as we all love Lucian (and he is a really nice guy - seriously) - you can keep him.

Good luck Lucian, the yanks will love your story in the same way they loved Jason Goldberg and Jobster. I reckon you've got at least another $30m to burn before anyone realises.

Or have I missed the point? WTF did Northzone invest in? Can anyone enlighten me on this prodigal Entrepreneur and his Graduate job board with no jobs? 

 

Case Example Facebook ads - Nestle show how not to do it.

This ad above caught my eye whilst gossiping on Facebook so I thought I'd take a peak. This post is not about having a dig at Nestle though but showing a typical bad example of using ads like this.

Social recruiting: we only let Friends apply?!

Here's the question.

Should you place a big "advert" on your career site homepage promoting your Facebook Page thereby diverting candidates AWAY from your career site?

Are you inadvertently saying you have to be a Friend to apply? Of course you're not but maybe there are mixed messages going on here.

 

One night stand, short term affair or full on marriage?

Recruiters tend to dip their toe in the water and flirt with the latest sexy tools although in some cases they shy away because it all looks a bit too hot to handle. Everyone seems to be in bed with the job boards but then they are just a bunch of media tarts really.

Google is a bit of a geeky looking type that's hotter than hell if you spend some time getting under their skin but most think Facebook and Twitter look sexier but just flirt with them and never take it any further. Fickle lot these recruiters. But one night stands rarely live up to expectations and short term affairs are just a bit too risky which is why most just go back to hum drum job board land. Some recruiters do of course get their kicks from their job board and are happy to stay where they are but some are not yet they just won't take the plunge and try something more than just a dip in the water.

If you are going to flirt with SEO, Adwords, blogs, Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook or any of the others can I suggest you go into this with long term in mind. Campaigns are fine as a one-off if you can get by with these but building a talent pool, or a community, or a Linkedin Group, or SEO, or Google Adwords need more than one night. Enough said.