Hire Strategies Blog

Ambitious? Well maybe your Klout score does matter.

Over the last few months there have been a few posts and discussions about the value of your social media profile from a recruitment perspective. Most suggested it didn’t matter how well you connected you were. I disagree.

If you are highly ambitious you will want to work for a company with ambitions. Companies such as Ford and Dell are very much focused on weaving social into their corporate DNA. Salesforce.com talk about the social enterprise and how the companies of tomorrow will be led by the young people of today who have grown up with the Internet and social. These companies will be connected to everything and everyone and they are very ambitious; they want to be market leaders. Their employees, at every level, will be connected. No questions about it.

So if you are a social laggard, which is absolutely fine, just don’t expect to have the edge at an interview for your dream job with that dream company. Little Johnnie snot face with his amazing Klout score may just nudge ahead; courtesy of his friends, followers and influencers!

Please note: I don't just mean Klout score; it is just one example of social measurement.

Brave New Talent compared to G4S Talent Community

Having stirred up such emotions and opinions after my last post So Brave New Talent, WTF are you? I thought I'd do a comparison of the Open Community versus the Private Community idea.

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? 

 

Great learning happens in groups; collaboration is the stuff of growth

The teacher should teach the way the learner learns NOT the learner should learn the way the teacher teaches. Amazing thinking and fantastic way of communicating the message through video. 11 minutes well spent.

 

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?