Quality over quantity - how big brands do not always work

As more and more people have less trust of the big brands, niche becomes the preferred option.  They don't need the volume like the big brands do.  Lesser known employer brands could maybe learn from this?

Social Recruiting Presentation

Interesting and very good presentation by Jason Buss. 

Intrigued by some of the $ suggestions.

Recruiting With Social Media

View more documents from Jason Buss.

Cost-per-hire <£100 anyone?

What if your boss said you had to get your cost-per-hire to less than £100?  Assuming you are smart enough to already have it to £500 then that is an 80% reduction!  That's pretty much what Intel have had to work out for their new Atom chip.

New Facebook Fan Page - great new design for Welcome Page

Really pleased with the new landing page; maybe you can become a Fan?  Click here to see it for real!

Just one......recruitment process

A recruitment process is a recruitment process.  No one is that special that they need a special recruitment process.  Of course they have them mapped out and configured into their ATS at great expense and then wonder why they have to change it later, or when it just doesn't work.

If recruiters took an off-the-shelf process and just selected the steps they wanted to use just think how easy it would be to cross-train onto a new ATS.  Usability of the ATS is made a lot harder than it needs to be IMHO. 

• Do Amazon train their customers how to buy?
• Do eBay train sellers how to sell? 
• Do you have help sections for people trying to find and apply for a job (although some should!).

So why make the "back-end" of a system so difficult to use?  I know there are many reasons why it HAS to be like this but imagine if it wasn't.  Imagine a single process and UI.  One workflow.  One standard job template.  Zero user training - because you didn't need any.  Recruiters who loved their ATS.  How would the vendor differentiate then?

Of course this is just not possible.  RSS for example is not proof; neither is HR-XML (I think it is).

But what if all ATS vendors worked to this commonality and stuck to it.  Imagine the simplicity.  Imagine the removal of clutter.  Imagine the quiet in the sales process.  Imagine the focus on one outcome - hires.  Too much I know.  The status quo will remain for the majority whilst the minority plot the next move. 

Time to change the game.  Your move.

Bad service: blame HR

When David Beckham scores the winning goal in the 89th minute of the 2010 World Cup from one of his famous free kicks he will be the hero of the England (again). 

What's a marketing process?

Ask any recruiter and they'll have a recruitment process; even if it is only "in their head" it will kind of exist.  There will also be:

• An interview process.
• An assessment process.
• A new hire set-up process.
• A payroll process.
• And quite a few more besides.

But, ask them what their marketing process is and I'll bet you get a mumbled answer at best.  No marketing process, no way you'll get consistent, measurable results.  You'll chuck a load of money away but that's about all you'll get.  Thing is, it's not actually that hard.  Why's no-one doing it?  Well, it's the same for any part of any business; marketing rarely gets the attention it deserves because it "doesn't work" and costs too much without delivering enough value.  Maybe true in many cases but, it doesn't have to be like this.

How about keeping in touch?

The typical sales and marketing approach to new customers compared to existing customers never changes.  Too much focus on new and not enough on the old i.e. those that have given you money and would give you more if you kept in touch.  None of us are perfect including me.

Maybe if recruiters were allowed to keep in touch with new hires they would get a few more referrals but instead they are always dealing with new applications from Mr Job Board and anyway, they just don't have time.

But, with automation comes new opportunities and the same way that marketeers are learning to automate communication with customers the same approach can be used for new hires.  Imagine having a fully automated referral programme that requires almost zero effort from a recruiter but develops a talent pool of fresh new employee referrals.  Interested in knowing more?  Register for my breakfast seminar and I'll tell you more! 

www.hirestrategies.co.uk/masterclass

P.S. It's free to attend but for employers only.

Search matters

On the basis that a lot of Corporate Recruiters still quote job boards as one of their biggest costs they want to reduce maybe a little more effort on site optimisation may help.  My resident SEO Guru Paul (he knows more than me which I know is hard to believe) shared this with me today which is the result of the work he does.

As you will see, search is now the biggest referrer of traffic and yes, it doesn't cost anything.

Not sure what it all means? Feel free to ask.

Who's buying who in the ATS market? Stepstone and Mr Ted anyone?

It is only a matter of time before Axel Springer finally acquire Stepstone. For further details read:

STATEMENT BY THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF STEPSTONE ASA IN CONNECTION WITH THE MANDATORY OFFER MADE BY AXEL SPRINGER AG

The other rumour on the mill is that Mr Ted are being acquired by Success Factors.

Personnel Today Guru ponders his future

Now I know why he always has his eyes closed; dreaming of what he would like to be. Dream on Guru, dream on.  Mrs Guru just wants you to get on with the DIY work at home.

Are you a Master Recruiter?

Some people think of “the system” as their recruitment system which is fair enough. I am thinking about a lot more than just the ATS.

McDonalds is a hamburger joint to most people but to McDonalds Corporation it is the “system”. The end result just happens to be burgers and fries but Michael E. Gerber, author of the E-Myth, argues that having a system such as this will work for any business. A lot of what he says makes sense for recruitment.

Who's got a pretty Face(book Page) then?

Luckily not too many – yet! But the number is growing and here are a few to look at.

Ernst & Young – the one everyone talks about.

Hutchison 3G – early days yet.

Welcome Financial – good Twitter integration.

Bootsjobs – nice looking Page.

DLA Piper – really good and gives EY more than a run for their money; one of the best I've seen!

These are just a few of the companies (NOT EY) that have attended our workshops and then started to get more from Facebook. You can get a Page one up and running in a few hours (without any branding) or a little bit longer if you want to make a great landing page – it doesn’t need to cost that much either.

But, don’t just do it for the sake of it. Make sure it is part of your recruitment strategy otherwise you’ll look back and see it as a failure; and we don’t want that. If you're not sure where to start get onto our next Social Recruiting Workshop and follow their lead.

Bloggers: the loud minority or another dying breed?

I subscribe to 20 blogs.  I have left my reader unchecked for about 6 weeks as a test to build up 717 unread posts.  Here are some interesting stats:

1. 550. (Mashable)
2. 71. (AllFacebook)
3. 17.
4. 17.
5. 12
6. All others in single figures.

I was quite surprised by the stats.  You could of course take out Mashable as it is more of a publication really which still means that the majority of posts is by 1 blog. 

So are bloggers dying off?  Do I need a new list? How does your RSS list compare?

The digital operations manager

The continual growth of social networks has pushed more site designers/owners to add more social modules to engage their visitors.  According to a New Media Age article Kellogg's for example are hiring a Digital Operations Manager.  Chris Wermann, Kellogg's Regional Corporate Affairs Director said

"Consumers are using new media to research anything they want to buy, so we have to define a clear strategy for all marketing, from social media to paid-for formats such as display and search."

The same applies to recruitment i.e. you need a strategy for ALL marketing.  So if you are still dabbling with social recruiting and/or Google Adwords the quicker you get onto one of our workshops the better.  The longer you leave it, the better it is for your competition.

www.hirestrategies.co.uk/workshops

How job boards killed job ad creativity and how Twitter brings it back (maybe)

When I was a young recruiter we used the local press to attract staff using semi-display ads.  For those that have never heard of these, or have just forget, we paid by the line.  The more lines, the more cost and the less our bonus would be that month. 

Automating your Twitter account can be good. Really.

I said it.  You can automate your Twitter feeds and not bother having any conversations with people on Twitter.  No longer do you need to be tied to your Twitter account responding and commenting on every sip of coffee, bite of toast, moment of woe....... Of course the social media police will be after my login and the social media experts/gurus/consultants/know-it-alls will decry me as some kind of anti-Twitter and burn my profile at the s(tw)ake.  But life goes on.

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.

HR: New name, new responsibility. Time to save the World!

Are we already out of recession and into recovery mode?

I suppose it depends which journalist you believe really. Whatever happens and wherever we are in this economic cycle I have decided to rename HR yet again. An old customer of mine always referred to HR as Human Remains but as a factory manager of 3000+ people he did have a few opinions about HR!  But that aside, I have decided that our fate lies in the hands of HR who are responsible for getting everyone back to work.

No, it’s not down to Gordon Brown and his cronies but HR or Human Recovery as I now call them.

Two great videos