Hire Strategies Blog

Do recruiters have time for social media?

Social media takes too much time and recruiters, particularly those that are HR Pro's first and recruitment is "just another job", just don't have the time to waste on social media.  They need to spend their valuable time speaking with their favourite recruitment or advertising agency.

Best Buy: Why (some) UK retailers should be scared

How many UK retailers really display this kind of open, forward thinking, modern leadership?

Social Media: connected or dis-connected?

The Dinosaurs are out in earnest with their claims of "when we were lads this is how WE did it".  All about building relationships, picking up the phone, meeting and greeting.  Not all this social media stuff.

Bill Boorman, who admits to being a recruitment dinosaur is still banging his "pick up the phone" mentality (Check out his free sales competition and then you know why [maybe] you are getting more calls than usual). 

Andy Headworth is now following suit with his latest blog post entitled "Has social caused us to lose the power of speech".

Even Seth Godin seems to be contradicting himself somewhat on the YouTube video below (thank Andy H for finding this).

Job Hunter OR Hunter Jobs

How the job seeker changes over the ages.

60+ years old: Hopefully don't need to bother. (assuming they are nicely retired)

50+ years old: Check the local newspaper.

40 years old: Check the job boards.

30 years old: Connect on Linkedin.

20 years old: Expect a job to find them on Facebook.

10 years old: Why do I want a job?

Will communities take over from unions but with greater power?

As communities get bigger what collective power will they have?  Unions have traditionally been a way for the people to have a collective voice but do they always get the deal they feel is right?  Or do their leaders sell them down the river?  Big debate I know but what if communities get so big they become the voice of the people?

If I were a recruiter would I.....

.....BLOG?

Here's how I see it now. If I were a recruiter I would want my company to have a recruitment blog to help with SEO, company updates, general recruitment stuff etc. Otherwise you end up with an award winning set of blogs a la PwC i.e. one or two posts a year from their young bloggers who do not appear to have the time, inclination or incentive to post more often.

Whereas, give a recruiter a Twitter account and it is easier for them to maintain and allows them to update candidates about specific recruitment activities they as individual recruiters are working on.

Blog = company. Twitter = recruiter.
Both = better SEO and conversations.

Why British business will exploit web 2.0 in 2009.

There is one compelling event already of this year that will result in British businesses utilising web 2.0 and social media technologies.

2009 will demand more than 'expert' knowledge

Knowing how to cook a turkey (because you have a Jamie Oliver cook book from last year) doesn't mean you'll get it right.  And we all know the consequences of getting it wrong!

2009 will not be a place where the know it alls and big mouths succeed.  Anyone can read a few blogs, reports or books on pretty much any subject but it doesn't make you an expert; even though many seem to think it does. 

The last few years have been easy for everyone.  2009 will demand execution of projects or execution of bad suppliers - which are you?

If you feel insulted or picked on by this post then maybe you should think about who you are, what you do and ultimately, what value you really add. 

Learning new skills is part of your growth curve but the opportunity to learn whilst being paid should come because of previous success.  If you are learning at the expense of others, and they carry all the risk, watch out.  It's not the way for 2009. The real experts will succeed in 2009, the hangers on will find themselves with no place to go. 

Let us hope that paying clients, with very focused budgets and people, make more right decisions than wrong ones.  So that put the onus on the real experts to differentiate themselves; bring on 2009!

Don't Facecruit me | I'm in the pub

There is still so much talk about using Facebook to recruit which can be of value if you use it well but the latest discussion I heard was around advertising on Facebook.  I reckon you may as well place a few adverts in the local pub.  Guess what, people in the pub are there to FORGET about work not be reminded about it.  In my view, people on Facebook (or any other SN's) couldn't care less about your recruitment adverts.

BTW: Industry stats are quoting a click through rate of 0.3% of such ads.

Web 2.0 career sites | Is this how they will become?

This site is kind of how I see the smaller/niche/graduate career site looking in the not to distance future.  What do you think?