How Glassdoor Gives Candidates an Inside Look at Employers

Many different integrated apps have tried to introduce recruiting and job finding into Facebook, but none have been entirely successful. I was invited to one I had not heard of before – Glassdoor – and it seemed interesting so I tried it. I will now review this app and website – a new way to find jobs and leave feedback on past and current employers, anonymously.

Glassdoor was voted the ‘Best Employment Site 2012’ by the Webby Awards, and is touted as ‘a free inside look at jobs and companies’. Employees can leave anonymous salary information, reviews, interview questions and photographs from current and past employees. Think TripAdvisor for jobs – if you are considering a job offer from a particular company you probably want to check out what others think of it.

Activation

Whether you are invited to join Glassdoor (as I was) or you search for the app via Facebook, a connection page first appears, where you can alter profile visibility. As with all apps, you can set the visibility as ‘Public’, ‘Friends’ or ‘Me’ – which may be useful if you have current employers or colleagues in your ‘Friends’ list. This automatic connection to your Facebook profile allows Glassdoor to use your original Facebook profile information (such as schooling and jobs) to create a separate Glassdoor profile (you can change/delete this information later on).

A typical Glassdoor profile lists only ‘Work Experience’, ‘Education’ and ‘Connections’ with current job title under your name and uses your current Facebook profile picture (so make sure it’s a good one, as you can’t change it!). The profile information is linked back to Facebook-type pages for each company (to be discussed later).

Profile Completion

Once signed up, I had a 60% complete profile with a ‘Basic’ membership. The first important step was to complete my profile with Glassdoor giving me a list of tasks to do, each with a percentage that would total 100% when all three were done. My three tasks were ‘Add current city’, ‘Invite 3 friends’ and “‘Like’ or ‘+1’”. The ‘Add current city’ was an easy option in the Profile, with drop down suggestions for town names and locations.

The ‘Invite 3 friends’ option was annoying. This is done through a page where you are invited to ‘Include’ a certain amount of Facebook friends (either ALL of your Facebook friends, or all of your colleagues from school, University or a workplace), with the idea that the more friends you have, the more connections you will have. The invite window (a “private” request) is not very helpful either – you cannot remove people – so you cannot choose specific people to invite to the app.

The Like or +1 element of the profile is a clever marketing tool for the company’s social pages. You have to complete both elements – liking the Facebook page and +1 the company on Google+ to gain the added 10%. Once you ‘Like’ the company, it will appear on your profile page, enticing your friends to sign up. This will allow Glassdoor’s presence on both sites to increase.

You are then asked to write a review/salary/interview post or upload a workplace photograph to grant yourself an ‘Unlimited’ membership. There are two types of membership on the Glassdoor website – the ‘Basic’ membership and the ‘Unlimited’ membership.

The website states that “all new members automatically get a Basic Membership with 1-month of access to everything posted by our community.”  However, no payment is needed for unlimited membership (as the site is financed by large ads on every page), as it “only takes a minute” to upgrade. “Simply give back to the community by posting an anonymous inside look of your own — remember, your posts are anonymous.”

The wording is extremely casual and friendly, and shows a sense of applying to a younger generation – maybe graduates or people looking for their first job. It is also a crucial point that everything is anonymous – no matter whether you are posting a positive/negative report, you will never be found out.

Connections

The front page of Glassdoor boasts the bold sentence: “Most jobs are found through an inside connection. Each friend that joins Glassdoor allows you to see more connections at more companies”. The main aspect of Glassdoor is the more people you add (who then accept), the more connections you will have, and also access to a higher number of companies will be granted. However, people have been getting annoyed at the app requests on Facebook (as a simple Twitter search of ‘Glassdoor Facebook’ will show), as not everyone may be looking for a job at the time you invite them!

Writing a Review

When you write a ‘Company Review’ or post a Salary, you are asked to select between Current or Former Employer. If your employer is not yet listed, you are asked to enter some details (website, type and number of employees (from drop down menus), and the Headquarters City).

Once submitted, a new form appears (with again a reminder that it is anonymous at the top) and the user can rate a number of elements of the job, as well as give ‘Pros’, ‘Cons’ and ‘Advice to Management’ as well as whether you would recommend this employer to a friend, and where your job prospects are looking for the next 6 months (up or down). Next to each submission form is an important ‘Message to Our Community’, a sign that fairness and good quality is crucial to Glassdoor.

When submitting a photo, the rules outline that a “behind-the-scenes look” is needed and the user is informed that they may upload 10 photos. All content is reviewed before being posted on the site – a simple way to ensure that people cannot tarnish a company or the website itself.

The website is then split into four sections – ‘Jobs’, ‘Companies & Reviews’, ‘Salaries’ and ‘Interviews’, with a separate blog.

Jobs

‘Jobs’ lists available Jobs in a certain area, with change range and date posted. Each job links to the Company Overview, Reviews, Salaries and Interviews of the company posting the job – and these elements are extremely detailed (the Review has an average rating from all posts).

Companies & Reviews

Under this section, there are the ‘Featured Companies’, with the ‘Most Popular Companies’, ‘Best Places To Work’ and ‘Companies and Reviews By Industry’. Each company is given its own page on the site (which they can edit to describe the company’s missions/morals and other details), and a link to its Facebook and Twitter feed. Everything about this website is based around sharing – sharing information on companies, sharing connections with your Facebook ‘friends’, and sharing your use of the site.

Salaries

The ‘Salaries’ part of the website is the one which may be the most problematic – for two main reasons. Firstly, people may lie about their salaries, either directly (to sound as if they earn/have earned more) or indirectly (mistakenly inputting the wrong salary).

Secondly, current employees of the company could use it to look up other people’s salaries (either for the same job title or the same company), and this could cause friction in the workplace and even complaints (if someone was secretly earning more than you, but doing the same job). This is the section that Glassdoor have to take care with the most, to ensure it does not cause more harm than good.

Interviews

Interviews are listed by job and company, with the most popular from both in separate tables. Interviews are also tagged, with the most used tags in a chart at the bottom of the page. When an interview question is clicked on, it can be answered, tagged or commented upon. This is useful for interviewees (to prepare) and interviewers alike (as they can change the questions they ask, in case it becomes a very popular post on the website).

Is Glassdoor useful for job seekers?

Yes. It is an extremely handy tool which people can use to choose the right company and job to apply for (by using the reviews and salaries section). However, it needs to be handled with caution – rogue posts (both positive and negative) may have passed through the system, and it should be used with a pinch of salt.

Is Glassdoor useful for employers?

It is more necessary than useful for employers. Again, the posts should be taken with a pinch of salt, but may be needed to improve work ethics at the company, and fairness in terms of salaries, as well as changing interviews to make sure that every candidate passes the interview easily.

Pros?

There are many different pros for Glassdoor:

• This website is one of a kind – there is no other major site where you can review your company, post your salary, photos and interview questions, all anonymously.


• Reviews are always checked before they are posted to ensure for a fairness, with guidelines clearly set out so as not to allow any malicious posts.


• Glassdoor uses prizes to get people to write anonymous reviews or salary posts – in this case I was offered the chance to win a free iPad in return for a post – so you may receive a really good prize for writing 100 words.


• It is extremely difficult to find negative reviews – there is no lowest rated company chart etc. This makes it fairer to companies to ensure that they are not brought down or trash talked.


• It has a clear layout, with easy navigation and titles, and an interesting design.

Cons?

• The ‘include’/invite friends element is the main con. Sometimes with these apps, you don’t want to include all your friends (such as bosses/fellow colleagues which you may have in your Facebook friends). A quick Twitter search of ‘Glassdoor Facebook’ brings up a lot of frustration about the app requests sent by friends.


• You cannot change your picture (say if you want a different photo to your Facebook profile picture).


• The website is coded in HTML, and could be made to look slicker and smoother.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Glassdoor is an interesting website with many pros and cons. It works in terms of ‘connections’, so is extremely similar to LinkedIn. Is it trying to be a better LinkedIn or just a simpler LinkedIn (that anyone can connect to), with the added anonymous review elements? I feel that Glassdoor is extremely useful for first-time job seekers (as well as employers), but is more aimed towards the Facebook generation, who like to share a vast amount of information – as it easy to use with its casual language, prizes and large graphics.

via How Glassdoor Gives Candidates an Inside Look at Employers.

How Glassdoor Gives Candidates an Inside Look at Employers

The State of Social Recruiting [INFOGRAPHIC]

Our friends at Jobvite have just announced the results of its annual Social Recruiting Survey. Now in its sixth year, the Jobvite annual Social Recruiting Survey is the most comprehensive of its kind. The survey was completed in July 2013 by more than 1,600 recruiting and human resources professionals.

This year’s data underscores that social recruiting is an essential HR practice used by 94% of surveyed recruiters across industries, up from 78% in 2008, the first year the survey was conducted. In an indication of the increasingly competitive hiring environment, only 1.5% of respondents predict that hiring will become less competitive in the coming year.

The report affirms the ROI social recruiting, with 60% of recruiters estimating the value of their social media hires as greater than $20,000 per year, and 20% estimating the value as greater than $90,000 per year. LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter continue to be the most used channels by recruiters, with an increase in adoption of emerging, specialized and localized social networks including GitHub, Yammer, Stackoverflow, Pinterest and Instagram.

Recruiters Use Multiple Channels to Build their Hiring Funnel

With 9 out of 10 surveyed companies using social media in their recruiting strategy, candidates and companies are now in direct communication, all the time.

• Recruiters use LinkedIn 93% of the time to search, contact, and keep tabs on candidates in the hiring process.


• Facebook and Twitter are the main channels that recruiters use to showcase employer brand – 65% of recruiters surveyed use Facebook and 47% of recruiters use Twitter to post about company culture.


• Recruiters continue to use social media even after sourcing and contacting candidates — a reported 18% use Twitter and 25% use Facebook to vet candidates after the interview process.

Law of Attraction: The Best Attract The Best

The best employees tend to attract the best candidates. Whether there is an overlap from college or at a previous job, every employee contact is also a potential candidate. Social media has opened candidate networks far larger than recruiters have ever used before.

• 1 in 3 recruiters report that social media recruiting improved both the quantity and quality of candidates.


• Referrals represent the highest quality source of candidates (64%); social networks and corporate career sites have also jumped in significance (59%).


• 43% of employees from referrals and company career pages stay longer than 3 years, while only 14% of job board hires stay longer than three years.


• Referrals are the highest-rated source of new hires, and it’s far easier for employees to share jobs through social networks. A reported 73% of recruiters report they will increase their investment in social networks in 2013, while 62% report they will increase their referral incentives.

Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll: Don’t Share Exploits Publicly

Qualified job seekers should note the increasing importance of their total social presence beyond LinkedIn. 93% of recruiters report reviewing candidates’ social profile in the hiring process. 42% have reconsidered a candidate based on content from social profiles.

• Illegal drug usage meets with the most universal disapproval, with 83% of recruiters reporting a negative reaction to such posts.


• Sexual posts (70%) and profanity (65%) are also frowned upon by recruiters – a 5% jump from the 2012 survey.


• In a year of numerous high-profile gun-related incidents, gun references trigger negative reactions among 50% of recruiters. However, a majority of recruiters (65%) remain neutral toward overtly political posts.

via The State of Social Recruiting in 2013 [INFOGRAPHIC].

The State of Social Recruiting [INFOGRAPHIC]

How Job Seekers Use Social Media and Mobile in 2014 [INFOGRAPHIC]

Our friends at Jobvite recently conducted a nationwide online omnibus survey of 1,303 U.S. job seekers who are currently in employment. Here are some of the main takeaways (scroll down for the infographic).

Social job seekers

86% of job seekers have an account on at least one of the six online social networks included with this study; Facebook, Linkedin, Google+, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest. Social job seekers are younger, more highly educated and more likely to be employed full-time.

Facebook

76% of social job seekers found their current position through Facebook. Three most popular activities on Facebook:

• 27% contact shared a job opportunity


• 25% contact provided an employee’s perspective on a company


• 22% shared a job opportunity with a contact

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Linkedin

LinkedIn is where they do most of their job-seeking activity

• 40% contact referred me for a job


• 34% contact shared a job opportunity


• 32% made a new professional connection


• 32% contact provided an employee’s perspective on a company

Twitter

• Twitter is the most popular place to ask others for help and advice:

Next three most popular activities on Twitter:

• 29% shared a job opportunity with a contact


• 28% contact provided an employee’s perspective on a company


• 28% contact shared a job opportunity

Privacy

46% of job seekers have modified their privacy settings. Job seekers are as likely to delete their account completely as they are to remove specific content from their profiles. And recruiters are looking:

• 93% of recruiters are likely to look at a candidate’s social profile.


• 42% have reconsidered a candidate based on content viewed in a social profile, leading to both positive and negative re-assessments

 

The college educated are also 4x as likely to update their LinkedIn with professional info than those who are high-school educated or less, and almost 2x as likely to do so on a mobile device.

Most popular social networks

While job seekers flock to Facebook, recruiters prefer Linkedin when searching for candidates. Most popular social networks for…

Job seekers:

• Facebook 83%


• Twitter 40%


• Google+ 37%


• LinkedIn 36%

Recruiters:

• LinkedIn 94%


• Facebook 65%


• Twitter 55%


• Google + 18%

While 94% of recruiters are active on Linkedin, only 36% of job seekers are.

The mobile job seeker

Frequent job-changers are more likely than average to have searched for jobs or had contact with a potential employer on their mobile device: 64% of adults who change jobs every 1-5 years vs. 43% overall.

43% of job seekers have used their mobile device to engage in job-seeking activity

• 27% of job seekers expect to be able to apply for a job from their mobile device.


• 37% of millennial job seekers expect career websites to be optimized for mobile.

Percentage of job seekers rating the following “important” in their job search:

• 55% ability to see job openings or listings without having to register


• 27% ability to apply for jobs from a mobile device


• 23% website optimized for mobile devices


• 11% ability to use Linkedin profile or online resume to apply for a job

Mobile and social

Mobile job seekers are more likely to turn to Facebook than Linkedin in their job search. Percentage of job seekers who have done the following on a mobile device:

Updated their profile with professional information:

• 15% Facebook


• 11% Twitter


• 6% Linkedin

Searched for a job:

• 12% Facebook


• 7% Linkedin


• 6% Twitter

 

via How Job Seekers Use Social Media and Mobile in 2014 [INFOGRAPHIC].

How Job Seekers Use Social Media and Mobile in 2014 [INFOGRAPHIC]

How Employers Use Social Media To Screen Applicants [INFOGRAPHIC]

We all know recruiters use social media to screen candidates on a daily basis. But how are they doing this?

The good folks down at Reppler recently conducted a survey of 300 professionals who are involved in the hiring process at their company to understand the use of social networks for screening job applicants. The results of this survey are shown in this infographic below.

Takeaways:

• Whether you like it or not, hirers are using social networks to screen job applicants. This means it is important to carefully manage your image on these types of sites.


• Facebook and Twitter are being used a lot to screen job applicants. On Facebook and Twitter, we believe hirers are trying to get a more personal view of a candidate, rather than the resume-like view they will see on LinkedIn.


• Hirers are looking at the social networking profiles of candidates very early in the process. This means that job seekers need to have their online act in order before they begin looking for a job.

The bottom line is that it is important for users, whether they are looking for a job or building up their professional reputation, to manage their online image across the different social networks they use.

via How Employers Use Social Media To Screen Applicants [INFOGRAPHIC].

How Employers Use Social Media To Screen Applicants [INFOGRAPHIC]

The Most Popular Skills to Show Off on LinkedIn

With 313 million users worldwide and counting, you’d be a fool not to be on LinkedIn. But according to an infographic from LinkedIn, you might be overlooking one of the networking site’s key features. Having a profile on LinkedIn is all about telling the world what you’re good at. So why aren’t more people using the Skills feature? Perhaps because they’re not sure what to add. The people who are using that feature, however, offer an interesting look at how job seekers are presenting themselves. Here are a few of the unusual findings from LinkedIn’s analysis:

Health Care Skills Remain Popular…

But food preparation and knowing your way around a cash register are also popular skills to show off. In fact, cash register operation is the second most popular skill across LinkedIn’s network.

Non-IT Skills Matter

American LinkedIn users are all about downstream oil, forklift operation, and medical-surgical skills, according to the infographic. But if you head south to Mexico, you’ll find adult education is big (in addition to architecture, which is also popular in Turkey, Italy, and Argentina). The fastest-growing non-IT skills include CPR instruction, Zumba instruction, and being a barista. Who knew?

Gadgets Gain Traction

Why list your professional skills when you can flaunt your mastery of Xbox One? According to the infographic, some users have taken to adding the gadgets they use to their professional skillset, including Google Glass, Rasberri Pi, and GoPro. If you have a gadget obsession, why not flaunt it?

Bosses, do you like to see these kinds of extra-curricular skills on applicants’ resumes?

via The Most Popular Skills to Show Off on LinkedIn | Inc.com.

The Most Popular Skills to Show Off on LinkedIn

Why Companies Go Beyond The Resume And Hire People Via Social Media

The last time John Fischer sought resumes for an open position at his company, StickerGiant, he received more than 200 — a list that took precious time to condense to interview-worthy candidates. Today, StickerGiant uses online surveys to find the best and weed out the rest. Indeed, companies are using a variety of tools—chief among them social media platforms—to move beyond resumes to match the right people with the right jobs.

Resumes are not obsolete, but the concept of them has changed tremendously, said Josh Bersin, principal of Bersin by Deloitte, a human resources research firm owned by Deloitte Consulting.

“Now your resume must be online, and linked to your LinkedIn LNKD +1.87% profile, which you have to make sure is always current.”

And because there’s so much data available about people on the Internet, companies are mining job candidates’ social media footprints to find out about them, evaluate their strengths and weaknesses, and assess whether they’re a good cultural fit. Bersin noted that a number of startups–including Gild, Reppify and TalentBin–aggregate information about people via their social media profiles for recruiters to use when seeking talent.

The way that companies recruit can itself be a test of potential employees’ savvy in specific areas–including social media. For example, when Enterasys, a network infrastructure firm in Boston, recruited for a social media marketing position last winter, it posted the listing solely on Twitter. The firm promoted the position via tweets, and accepted applications only from candidates who tweeted their interest using the hashtag #socialCV. In addition, candidates had to have more than 1,000 active Twitter followers.

These criteria enabled Enterasys to quickly narrow down the field and hire “an award-winning social strategist.” Vala Afshar, Enterasys’ chief marketing officer, said the experience convinced him that Twitter recruiting is the way to go: “The Web is your CV [curriculum vitae], and social networks are your references.”

Optimizing resumes with online insights

If your company isn’t quite ready to hire someone via Twitter, don’t worry. There are plenty of organizations that still use the on-paper CV as a primary method for evaluating potential employees. But to reduce the woes that hiring managers like StickerGiant’s Fischer faced–too many resumes from under- or over-qualified people–Bersin of Deloitte’s Bersin recommends that companies ask all applicants at least one open-ended question that must be answered in long form.

“A good [question] will hone in on a person’s real work experience,” he said. “Like, ‘Describe a work experience in which you were successful: Why did you succeed? How did you do it? And how did you measure that success?’ The answer will tell you a person’s capabilities, experience and his or her interest in the position.”

Looking at it from the perspective of potential employees, Bersin recommends that job seekers spend as much time on their Internet presence as they do on their resumes.

“Recruiters are going to look at your LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter profiles, so you have to think about all those as your marketing tools,” he noted.

While jobs in communications, marketing or social media may benefit most from a candidate with a star online presence, taking the time to craft a digital profile for recruiters can benefit anyone in any industry. As proof of social media’s power in the job search in an increasingly connected world, Bersin described a recruiter scouting for an engineer who worked at nuclear power plants and was familiar with the failure of the Fukushima power plant in Japan after it was hit by the tsunami in 2011. He searched LinkedIn’s forums and found someone who had started a chat on that exact issue. The person obviously had some good qualifications, but it was his interest in the topic that made him the recruiter’s top candidate.

Social media do’s and don’ts

To effectively leverage social media in your job search, there are some things you should do and some things you definitely shouldn’t do.

Do set up accounts on the major social networks: Twitter, Facebook, and, especially, LinkedIn. Also, follow the companies you want to work for in the future.

Don’t let your accounts sit idle. It’s not enough just to establish presence on these sites; potential employers will be looking for productive activity on these sites, as well–ask questions, make comments, share. This is especially true for fields in which social is heavily leveraged and valued.

Do ask for people to write you references on LinkedIn, and write references for others yourself.

Don’t forget that everything you put online stays there–somewhere–and that anyone from prospective employers to former bosses and coworkers can find and see it. Questionable photos, potentially offensive comments, criticisms against current or former employers, etc., will come back to haunt you.

Not so long ago, employers and potential employees relied almost solely on resumes to, respectively, fill positions and demonstrate the ability to fill those positions. Today, a company’s Twitter presence could be the thing that attracts the next employee, while that blog you’ve been writing faithfully could be the thing that gets you that dream job.

via Why Companies Go Beyond The Resume And Hire People Via Social Media.

Why Companies Go Beyond The Resume And Hire People Via Social Media

How Your Facebook Picture Can Damage Your Personal Brand [INFOGRAPHIC]

Can a good picture help your personal brand? Maybe. Can a bad photo on Facebook ruin your brand? Absolutely.

Here’s a nifty infographic from LinkingR about the level of damage your image can make to your online identity on Facebook and other places.

Minor damage is incurred by using a default picture (imagine the egg on Twitter). A little more damage is done by using a low-res photo or something blurry altogether (so forget those holiday snaps please).

Dual damage is when you use someone elses photo, especially if that photo is bad as well. In the graphic below they’ve used Brad Pitt which probably mitigates that damage just a tad. Severe damage is caused by using an offensive image that will shock your grandma.

The highest level of damage is apparently the use of pornographic imagery. Funny that, I see lots of these images on Twitter by spammers and it seems to work for them, mind you they’re not looking to boost their online personal brand of course.

via How Your Facebook Picture Can Damage Your Personal Brand [INFOGRAPHIC].

How Your Facebook Picture Can Damage Your Personal Brand [INFOGRAPHIC]

What Does Your Online Persona Say About Your Personal Brand?

Social networking sites are often advertised as a place where you can socialize with friends, family and acquaintances. Nobody ever thought they’d find purpose in background checks! But then more and more recruiters and employers are using these sites as a valuable tool when screening potential employees.

So if you’re currently looking for a job, seeking a promotion or jumping into a different career, then you may want to be wary of what your online profiles contain. Some of the things you post may seem harmless or even funny to you but without context, it can project a different image of you to a very calculating recruiter.

You may not be aware of it, but here are a few things that your online persona can say about you:

Sociable or Loner?

If you only have two friends on your Facebook account (i.e. your parents) then you may not be considered a good candidate in sales or marketing as this involves a lot of human interaction On the other hand, if you have a lot of followers or friends, you can be perceived as sociable. However, pictures of yourself hanging out with a biker gang or on unruly drunken night outs with your buddies may show that while you’re fun to be with, you may not exactly be the serious type.

Prim and Proper or All Out Wild?

Pictures and comments your friends post on your social page can either be constructive or harmful. You may have been aware that recruiters now look at social pages so you keep your wacky pictures or comments on the wraps but what if your friends aren’t aware of this? You could lose a potential interview spot if a friend comments about how you were running naked on the beach completely wasted.

Honest or Two-faced?

We all struggle to keep our thoughts and personal opinions to ourselves and put on a pleasant face. But if a recruiter took a quick peek into your Twitter posts and saw exactly what you think about sensitive issues (e.g. race, sexual orientation, creed/religion, color, etc.), would you still be complacent that you will get the job? Being honest is okay; being insensitive and crude is not.

Reasonably Emotional or Nothing but a Complainer?

It is perfectly understandable for everyone to be completely emotional about some things some times. But then complaining about every other thing all the time can send out an impression that you’re going to be such a pain to work with. Nobody wants to hire a complainer! Make sure your social pages don’t reflect this side of you.

Good or Bad?

Have you just managed to conjure such a winning masterpiece of a resume filled with all your greatness? Good for you if it gets you an interview. But then too bad if you have falsified some information on your social pages before in your employment, called in sick (when you weren’t), participated in an affair, or worse.

Bottom Line

Be careful of what you post out there. Be mindful of what your friends do too. Keep things or thoughts that you don’t want to reflect negatively on you in private. Don’t let your personal escapades ruin your career!

via What Does Your Online Persona Say About Your Personal Brand?.

What Does Your Online Persona Say About Your Personal Brand?

Startups Tackling LinkedIn, Onboarding, Hourly Hiring, Resume Screening, Interviewing

You know those short summaries at the top of LinkedIn, where the person describes themselves and what they do? Like this:

Connecting Talent With Opportunity At Massive Scale

or this:

The “Mad Scientist of Online Recruiting” – Specializing in Talent Acquisition, Employer Branding & Social Recruiting

or just a simple:

Public Relations Director, Human Resource Services, PricewaterhouseCoopers

Well, a new tool will help companies and employees put those summaries together. It’s just one of many new technologies in the talent acquisition field. Read on.

Brand Amper is a creation of Jason Seiden, whose previous company was called Ajax Workforce Marketing. This new company, and new tool, he says, “takes employees through the process of reconciling their profiles.”

What he means by that is by having employees put together a summary of themselves and perhaps their company or their role in it on LinkedIn, and in shortened form on Twitter, it gives employees a bit of a blueprint for who they are and how they’ll be posting and tweeting and updating and sharing. “This is the key to the kingdom,” Seiden says. It’s not just a summary for a LinkedIn, but a proverbial “elevator pitch” summarizing their work/life.

This Brand Amper tool is one of many that’ll be unveiled at an event this month in Las Vegas called the HR Technology Conference & Expo. Some of the tools have been written up on ERE, but some of the new hiring tools you may not have heard of include:

Wonolo,”to fill hourly/daily jobs on-demand.”

10Rule, to figure out what’s driving your top 10 percent of performers, and help you hire people like them. I just talked to a healthcare company who’s been piloting 10Rule, and is quite pleased with the results its getting.

Xperiocity, for “high-performance onboarding.”

MosaicTrack, to look through resumes and predict who’s going to fit your jobs and culture. Something uncommon: Its pricing ($177/month) is clearly listed on the home page.

DaXtra, also making resume-search software.

Great Hires, to keep track of who’s interviewing who, and when, and how it went. Among its customers: Intuit. A recruiting leader at Intuit tells me its Great Hires pilot is working well; people can jot notes into the app after an interview, and can even quickly “pivot” if a candidate would not be good for the job they were interviewing for, but would be good for another job. Whether Intuit adopts the tool more permanently may depend on how well it integrates into other parts of Intuit’s hiring process (for example, whether it would work smoothly with employee assessments) throughout the company.

Meanwhile, I’m hearing that at least one and maybe two major applicant tracking systems are working on creating a tool like Great Hires.

Startups Tackling LinkedIn, Onboarding, Hourly Hiring, Resume Screening, Interviewing – ERE.net.

Startups Tackling LinkedIn, Onboarding, Hourly Hiring, Resume Screening, Interviewing

Which Social Network Has the Most Job Search Activity? [INFOGRAPHIC]

Another day, another cool infographic about social media and job search. Recruiters, employers and jobseekers are all out there using social networks. But what do people think about using LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus for career purposes?

Our friends at Jobvite commissioned a study of 2,049 adults aged over 18 across the US, asking them for their opinions on using social media when finding a job.

It discovered that though almost all of those surveyed seemed to be socially active, just 16% used social networks solely to find their most recent job – but a massive 54% have used Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn in some way.

Here’s an interesting result: Most job search activity takes place at Facebook (44%), LinkedIn (26%) and Twitter (23%).

Other key findings from the study were that:

• 45% of those employed were open to a new job

• 86% of active and passive job seekers have a social profile

• 40% are ‘super social’ with over 150 contacts

• One in six found the last job through a social network

 

via Which Social Network Has the Most Job Search Activity? [INFOGRAPHIC].

Which Social Network Has the Most Job Search Activity? [INFOGRAPHIC]

How to Sell Your Skills Beyond a Boring Resume

One of the best ways to get your name and portfolio out there is to set up a site that potential employers can visit to see your work. A “nameplate” site, or a simple web site with your name, a short bio, and links to your work and contact information, is an elegant way to showcase your portfolio and web presence to future employers—or anyone who wants to learn more about you. There are dozens of professional nameplate sites on the web, but the best one for you depends on the skills you want to show off. Here are some options:

The Most Popular, Easiest to Set Up: About.Me

If you have a web presence you want to show off at all, About.Me is a good option. The service is free, looks great, and links users directly to your other social profiles or web sites where they can learn more about you. About.me pages take moments to set up, and when you’re finished you get a short custom URL you can give out or put on a business card. You can even sign up for an about.me email address for those contacts to use when they want to reach you.

For Designers and People With Portfolios: Flavors.Me

Although Flavors.me is very similar to About.Me, Flavors.me offers a bit more flexibility when it comes to page design and linked sites and services. You could use it strictly as a jumping off point to your social profiles, but the service also allows you to add photos, video, and custom pages to your profile, so if you have work to show off (pages you’ve designed, illustrations you’ve done, etc), your visitors don’t have to go too far to see it. If you have a lot of work to show off and you want it front and center to anyone who visits your profile, Flavors.me lets you do that—especially if you pony up the $20/yr for a premium account and all of the features that come with it.

For Students: Seelio

Seelio is a new service that gives students a way to showcase their activities, hobbies, internships, volunteer activities, and clubs in a fun and interactive way. Most students don’t exactly have a long resume loaded with work history and special skills, so Seelio offers students a way to add videos, photos, and testimonials to their list of skills and experiences. Think of it as a supercharged resume for the people who need it the most: the ones caught looking for opportunities that require experience, but who need experience to get started. Plus, Seelio is frequented by recruiters and hiring managers looking for student employees and interns.

For Business Owners and Entrepeneurs: Sidengo

Previously mentioned Sidengo offers business owners and people who have a lot of information to communicate to their visitors a set of pages—not just a single nameplate page with links—that they can customize with plenty of information about their business. For example, if you own a restaurant and want a quick, attractive website, you can create one for your business, have a separate page for the menu, a separate page for hours and contact information, and another for photos of the food or seating areas. It’s faster than rolling your own website, comes with mobile versions rolled in, and even the free plans offer powerful customization options and features. It’s probably overkill if you’re selling yourself, but if you’re starting a business, it’s a great option.

 

 

For People with Boring Resumes: Vizify

For those of us who don’t fall into the other categories or just have a boring old resume that could use a little spice, previously mentioned Vizify links to your social accounts and web sites and generates an attractive, multi-page visual profile page complete with your work history, social profiles, education history, and more—all without you lifting a finger. You can tweak any of the pages or add or remove social profiles if you think it knows too much about you, but when you’re finished, you’ll have a beautiful interactive page that potential employers can use to learn all about you and get right to your LinkedIn profile, personal website, and more.

 

 

For the DIYer: Roll Your Own

If you don’t like the idea of putting your professional portfolio in the hands of a web service, you can get the same results by rolling your own, either by building your own site from scratch or by using a content management system like WordPress or Drupal. You’ll need to register a domain of your own—preferably something like www.yourname.com—and get it hosted with a web host of your choice. If you go the WordPress route, themes like John Saddington’s digital business card and Elegant Themes’ Business Card Theme can quickly transform your site into an attractive and informative nameplate, loaded with links to your social profiles, resume, and samples of your work. When you roll your own, it takes more time, but the sky is the limit when it comes to what you can show off to a visitor.

 

 

Don’t Overlook the Power of Your Resume

All of these personal profiles are great, and when you pick the one that best matches the skills you want to show off you should push it as much as possible, but don’t underestimate the importance of a clean, good-looking, plain old resume. We’ve discussed how getting creative with your resume can help, but don’t go too crazy. After all, most hiring managers are looking for standard resumes to scan into their HR system. If you go crazy with QR codes and custom design and images, you might find your resume in the trash because it doesn’t scan easily or can’t be easily imported to a resume database.

We’d strongly suggest picking the best service for you and then dropping the URL (especially if it’s a domain you own, like yourname.com) on business cards, on the top of your paper resume, and in the signature of your emails, but don’t neglect your regular resume, and don’t start thinking you don’t need a normal resume because you have one of these services. We may be moving away from traditional resumes as the primary way people get hired, but they’re not dead yet. Good luck, and let us know how your job search goes!

via How Can I Sell My Skills Beyond a Boring Resume?.

How to Sell Your Skills Beyond a Boring Resume

27 LinkedIn Tips: LinkedIn Best Practices For Entrepreneurs

LinkedIn may be the best source of sales intelligence on the planet for finding and reaching out to a prospective customer.

This is definitely the month of LinkedIn with my fellow columnist George Anders‘ Forbes cover story telling the latest in the LinkedIn story. And when you are done here, Susan Adams, a Forbes Staff expert on LinkedIn, gives you four more tips and here is a link to 31 LinkedIn Tips for B2B Prospecting.

From our perspective in the inside sales industry, we have found LinkedIn has become one of the leading tools inside sales reps use to connect to and meet qualified prospects.

In fact, we get so many requests for tips on how to use LinkedIn efficiently, we’ve compiled a sales LinkedIn eBook with 42 tips (some the same as listed below, but some new ideas, too) on how to use LinkedIn for sales intelligence.

Here is what works:

1- Use CEO clout through LinkedIn to close deals: Dave Elkington, our CEO, just shared a great technique he learned from Josh James, of Omniture/Adobe fame. Often the CEO or sales executive can reach out to prospective clients and resolve last-minute issues holding up signing a sales agreement. They can push it over the edge. (And I’m writing this on the last day of the quarter. Any of you in sales knows the pressure to finish out a quarter with great results.)

LinkedIn helps reach out quickly.

2- Grab your names: If you haven’t already done this, get on LinkedIn and grab your name and your company name. Edit the URL on your profile so it reads with your actual name like this: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kenkrogue. If you leave what LinkedIn automatically does for you there will be lots of extra numbers and characters which confuse people.

3- Complete your profile: Nothing screams “Rookie” like an unfinished profile. Take the time and get it done, both for yourself and your company. There are a few other essentials to getting started. A new book called The LinkedIn Essentials by Asia Bird is helpful, as is the eBook How to Use LinkedIn for Business by Hubspot.

4- Connect to your warm market: If you can’t figure out who to connect with, start with friends, colleagues, and family. The average wedding planner knows that any given person knows about 250 people to invite to a wedding. Make your wedding list. If you are an old timer, make your funeral list.

5- Use LinkedIn to follow up after other communications: Don’t make the mistake of trying to connect with lots people you don’t know. LinkedIn will warn you, and then shut you down if too many people don’t respond to your connection request. Whenever you receive an email, business card, or leave a voicemail; put a “PS” that you are going to also connect by LinkedIn right at the end. Then people make the connection as someone they know and approve your connection request.

I also recommend that you change the standard connection request message that LinkedIn puts in to something you write that is more personal.

6- Select your “Doorway” people: LinkedIn lets you see two levels deep of connections for free (and more with the premium version – highly recommended). I’m a Doorway person in my company because I connect to nearly 3000 sales people, managers, and executives. If all my sales reps are connected to me, when I connect to people in companies, they can see them also.

7- Teach LinkedIn strategy and tactics to your employees: Get your people together and coordinate your efforts and strategies. Years ago, my business partner Dave Elkington, started a company-wide Friday morning meeting where we constantly share new approaches and ideas with each other as part of our culture. We even started a Social Media group of super users who really push the envelope.

8- Expand your LinkedIn reach with Twitter: There is a little checkbox at the bottom of your “Share an update” box that copies everything you share with your Connections to all of your Twitter followers.

9- Use your “3 Free Backlinks” with all employees: Google uses backlinks to drive search engine results. Every LinkedIn account has a place for 3 Free Backlinks, and LinkedIn leaves these links open to indexing by Google. We have 110 employees, times 3, that’s 330 potential backlinks to drive your website up the search engine results list, hmmmmm.

10- Freely give and receive recommendations: The Internet is a world of views, likes, shares, and comments. But best of all is a heart-felt recommendation, which you can do on LinkedIn. Nothing boosts morale, loyalty, and friendship, like an unsolicited recommendation. Try it. And don’t be afraid to ask for it from co-workers, friends, and even customers.

11- Define your offensive sales strategy: As an old football coach, I know you need both offense and defense. Offense on LinkedIn is sales, marketing, and recruiting. Defense is preventing your best employees from being recruited away and your customers stolen by the competition. Everything you learn to do here and elsewhere, recruiters and your competition are learning as well. Keep that in mind when accepting invitations to “connect”.

12- Find doorways to prospects: Just like you want to focus certain people in your company to be Doorways (lots of connections), there are people at almost every other company who are naturally more connected than others. Connect to those that are highly connected in their own company and they open the doorway for you.

13- Teach 3×3 analysis to all inside sales people: Before your sales reps make a call to a prospect, have them spend 3 minutes and find 3 things on LinkedIn to talk about. It’s much more compelling than talking about the weather. Steve Richard of Vorsight shares this LinkedIn technique with clients.

14- “Test and Invest” in premium services: I have tested the value of Premium Services on LinkedIn (the packages that cost money for Sales, Recruiting, and Job Seekers.) We have found it to be one of the lowest cost, highest return values for lead generation.

15- Use InMail strategically: InMail is a great service LinkedIn provides where they guarantee a response through a request for introduction, or they give you a credit to use another InMail.

I recently interviewed an industry training consultant by the name of Jamie Shanks, of Sales for Life who uses LinkedIn InMail to generate leads for himself and clients for about $20 a lead. He gets a 12% contact to meeting ratio on the first attempt with an increase to a 20% rate with a multi-contact approach.

In a world where Google Adwords leads often cost well over $100 (speaking from experience), LinkedIn is proving to be highly effective.

16- Knock response rates out of the park through LinkedIn: At InsideSales.com we constantly test different media through which to send messages to prospects, in addition to testing the content of the messages themselves. In terms of response rates, emails range between .1% and .3%. The exact same message sent by LinkedIn in our early in-house tests responded 300% better. Recent tests are much better (but I have to keep a few aces up my sleeve.)

17- Have sales reps join industry and local LinkedIn Groups: The old days of lunch clubs and breakfast networking groups are being replaced by online groups. I wrote a while back about Trish Bertuzzi, the Founder and CEO of The Bridge Group, in Boston. She formed a LinkedIn industry group called Inside Sales Experts. When I first joined there were 8,000 members. I checked today and there are 17,755. I don’t know anywhere else on the planet where that many inside sales professionals congregate. Over the years I have now met hundreds of them and I count them as friends. I got involved in their discussions and made friends and acquaintances.

Trish’s only rule? No self-promotion.

18- Use advanced search to target specific titles and industries: Besides Groups, you can search for the exact title of people and industry of companies that fit your perfect target prospect. The Premium service lets you see many  more profiles when you search, and it provides more powerful filters to search by. The Premium service pays for itself in saved labor costs alone.

19- Follow your customers: Using the LinkedIn company accounts feature, post your own company information, but also follow other companies. Follow your customers. LinkedIn ties you into news feeds. It helps you meet the right people to offer a better experience.

20- Follow your prospects: Information and sales intelligence often provide “trigger events” that help you know when your prospects may be expanding or growing and thereby needing more of what you sell.

21- Use “Tags” to categorize your connections: Tags are like Circles on Google+. They are categories you can use to organize your Contacts or Connections. Add Tags in the Contacts section of LinkedIn. I use them to differentiate friends, partners, prospects, large prospects, customers, students, press, etc.

22- Use LinkedIn in your trade show strategy: [KEN"S NOTE: LINKEDIN HAS KILLED LINKEDIN EVENTS!] LinkedIn Events can be invaluable to promote your own events and to gain more value from events you will be attending. We have a rule at InsideSales.com never to go to a trade show unless we can set enough appointments before the show starts to pay for the entire show. Shows like Dreamforce by salesforce.com, LeadsCon are exceptional at this.

The American Association of Inside Sales Professionals (AA-ISP) is just starting to find success with this.

LinkedIn Events list hundreds or thousands of attendees that you can reach out to and arrange meetings with prior to the show.

23- Ask for referrals through LinkedIn: Salespeople all know that the best way to do business is with referrals. The problem is people can seldom think of someone to refer you to. Now you can spend a few moments in their LinkedIn Contact list and find just the right people you want to be referred to. Ask each contact for the referral connection and give the specific names of the contacts you have in mind.

24- Set up your defense: In an earlier article I have warned that all of these great tools can also be used against you.

25- Manage recruiter connections carefully: If you are a Doorway in your company, be careful who you connect to.

26- Manage competitor connections carefully: Ditto!

27- Never SPAM! Don’t send out mass sales messages by LinkedIn. This is another word for SPAM. Marketers zealously overused direct mail, the phone, fax, predictive dialer, and email by sending SPAM and driving people nuts. If someone does that to me I actually respond and let them know that only rookie salespeople do that in LinkedIn.

Just don’t do it.

via 27 LinkedIn Tips: LinkedIn Best Practices For Entrepreneurs – Forbes.

27 LinkedIn Tips: LinkedIn Best Practices For Entrepreneurs

Social Media And The Job Hunt: Squeaky-Clean Profiles Need Not Apply

A young friend who just scored her first internship at a NYC recruiting firm recently told me that she’s uncomfortable with her new job description. Instead of filing and sitting in on interviews, she’s spending her summer days in a high-walled cubicle poring over the social feeds of countless candidates applying “mostly,” she says, “for low- to mid-level financial and legal positions.” Her new bosses seem impressed with her comfort with the technology and are pleased with her vetting of new hires, but she describes the task as akin to “stalking crushes on Facebook,” something she’s “gotten embarrassingly good at in college.”

Either way, at 21, she’s become the gate-keeper to employment for thousands of New Yorkers and I was surprised to hear about the barriers to entry. Wedding pictures? Great. Baby photos? Even better. Photos with friends at parties, beaches and concerts? An absolute must.

“There’s a sense that a profile with no character has probably been scraped of some racy stuff or else the person has no social skills and won’t fit in.” Either way, she says, that candidate has been moved to the bottom of the pile.

According to the 2012 annual technology market survey from Eurocom Worldwide, “One in five tech executives say that a candidate’s social media profile has caused them not to hire that person.” Another recent survey shows that 37% of firms across industries browse social media profiles to evaluate each candidate’s character and personality .

But with all of the common wisdom floating around the web (and this site) on how careful job seekers must be about curating (read: editing) their social presence online, it seems to be that our advice might have crossed over from helpful to problematic. In a popular post on Forbes from contributor Lisa Quast in April, she says it’s important to leave out photos from Saturday night’s party in order to communicate a more professional demeanor. With so much time focusing on building a strong professional character on our Facebook pages and LinkedIn profiles we might possibly be leaving out a very critical element: our personalities.

By 2012 experts on using personal branding for professional purposes have really given up the notion of any real distinction between personal and professional presences, which was, until recently, the oft-repeated wisdom for job seekers. But keeping track of two Twitter feeds can be exhausting, and maintaining two Facebook profiles actually violates their code of conduct and could leave you banned from the network.

Instead, at least according to careers expert Joshua Waldman, something of a guru in using social media in the job hunt who gave a talk at this week’s NACE conference on the subject, says that everyone—employed, unemployed and the hopefully-soon-to-be-employed—should adopt a tone of what he calls “Public Private” online. “Think about a TV or radio show host,” he says. “They’re talking about personal details of their lives in a very public way. These details are important because they make themselves seem accessible to listeners but they’re definitely not deep secrets or potentially embarrassing.”

Job-seekers, Waldman says, should keep the public private in mind when posting to social networks or when selecting privacy settings. Aim to post something publicly private to the social graph at least once a week and you won’t wind up on the bottom of an intern’s pile, or worse, become the subject of a more thorough investigation. “Step into the mindset of a celebrity or a public figure,” he says. “There is information about you available online to anyone willing to work hard enough to find it.” It’s better, he says, to tame the lion by feeding it.

 

via Social Media And The Job Hunt: Squeaky-Clean Profiles Need Not Apply – Forbes.

Social Media And The Job Hunt: Squeaky-Clean Profiles Need Not Apply

How Do Recruiters Use LinkedIn, Twitter & Facebook? [INFOGRAPHIC]

Social media has made it easier for recruiters to build and nurture connections, ultimately increasing the efficiency with which a recruiter can source quality candidates. However, current social media usage by recruiters varies greatly. Take a look at the differences in how recruiters use the ‘Top 3′ social networking sites and which ones are most effective for reaching candidates, courtesy of Bullhorn Reach.

No prizes for guessing that LinkedIn is the most frequently used network by recruiters, with Twitter being close second and Facebook not far behind.

According to this report by Bullhorn, they expect increased social engagement from recruiters. The eport evaluates the current social network activity among recruiters and suggests several interesting insights. First, the findings suggest that recruiters are connected to all three social networks, but are using LinkedIn and Twitter much more than Facebook to recruit talent.

While they found that LinkedIn is driving the most views and applications per job posted on the “big three” social networks, the analysis shows that Twitter followers are much more likely to apply for a job than connections on LinkedIn or friends on Facebook. Overall, Twitter and Facebook appear to be highly under-utilized networks for recruiting, but we expect that behavior to change during 2012.

via How Do Recruiters Use LinkedIn, Twitter & Facebook? [INFOGRAPHIC].

How Do Recruiters Use LinkedIn, Twitter & Facebook? [INFOGRAPHIC]

Why Social Media is Important in Screening Candidates [INFOGRAPHIC]

We know that candidate screening is important – but what role does social media play?

This infographic by Go-Gulf.com shows why it’s important.

Takeaways:

• 2 in 5 employers use social media to screen candidates.

• 19% of hiring managers say they found a reason to hire a candidate on their social media.

• 76% of recruiters use Facebook to screen candidates.

via Why Social Media is Important in Screening Candidates [INFOGRAPHIC].

Why Social Media is Important in Screening Candidates [INFOGRAPHIC]

Are Recruiters Hiding Behind Social Media?

The advent of social media platforms and networks has demanded more and more writing of us, be it a status update, a blog post, a tweet, a text message or the old arch enemy an email. Now we write more and speak less than than ever so what is the impact of that work in the context of the communication and advertising mantra that “the medium is the message”? What does following or connecting with someone really say? What about friending them, adding them to a circle, liking their page or retweeting them does that say something different? Given those are actions you give in equal or undifferentiated value to friends, total strangers from down the road or across the globe even to spoof or cartoon character fronted accounts not a whole lot!

It certainly isn’t right or professional to mentally tick them off as recently contacted, there is no personal in social and that’s the difference. In our never ending mission for efficiency in a time deprived age we are eradicating the personal, the friendly and meaningful, compromising the real relationships which are by far the most valuable and nicest part of being a recruiter and a human being.

Social media marketing has a role

I am a huge advocate of social media marketing, and if it is being done correctly it will demand a significant amount of time. What I am saying is that social media should be in undertaken in addition to traditional networking initiatives. Whilst I fear showing my age that’s what the great and senior recruiters of this world did to get where they are today – they picked up the phone and met up with people. Not just solely and explicitly about work, casual chats, can-I-pick-your-brain chats, I-saw-so-and-so chats, did-you-hear-about-x chats, do-you-know-anyone-for chats, nice conversations and professional exchanges of ideas and information.

These conversations have got fewer, it seems to be considered intrusive, possibly old fashioned or over stepping some virtual line to pick up the phone and call someone without a prior appointment. Yet these are the activities that build genuine relationships – a genuine relationship is worth a zillion times that of “an engaged follower”. I’d be delighted to bump into a real business pal on the street, I’m not sure what “an engaged follower” looks like or if I would be feeling anywhere near as comfortable perhaps slightly scared by such a meeting!

Stand out from the crowd – pick up the phone!

Quoting straight from the advertising slogan hall of fame from the 1990′s “It’s good to talk.” Don’t groan if your phone rings, don’t dump the call or respond to the message with a text or email, just pick up the phone, make a call, take a call. Put intonation, your own regional accent, volume and personality into your words. Be open and available to the remarkable technology that dates back to the 19th Century that is the telephone. Set a target, start small make one call a day, chances are that is five more calls than you made last week. Don’t wait to be invited, definitely don’t email to schedule a call, be spontaneous and the opportunities, the possibilities and the competitive edge will deliver benefits to you.

via Are Recruiters Hiding Behind Social Media?.

Are Recruiters Hiding Behind Social Media?

Digging into Social Media with Qualitative Methods for Hiring

The ever-growing use of social media — and the resultant Big Data– excites quantitative researchers. The potential to use social media to collect rich data that can generate new insights excites qualitative researchers. Quantitative methods allow researchers to reveal and follow patterns of posts and responses by users of social media sites. But at some point we need to ask “why?” in order to discern users’ motivation, understand the significance of behaviours and learn how the experience is significant to their personal or professional lives. Qualitative researchers have the ability to do so. Qualitative research approaches allow us to dig below the surface to explore how, why or what, and to explore relationships and connections not readily evident in Big Data—which is why I’ve taken to describing it as Deep Data.

While quantitative researchers typically collect data or track movements posted at a previous time, qualitative researchers can use asynchronous, synchronous and near-synchronous approaches. Social media sites allow researchers to develop new interpretations of classic qualitative data collection approaches: observations, interview and document analysis. (For more on social media communications and qualitative data collection, see my video blog here.)

We have a lot of options when it comes to the type of study to be conducted with qualitative research on, about or with social media. We can look at the online behavior as the research phenomenon itself, or we may look at the online behavior in relation to other thoughts, experiences or attitudes related to life on- or offline.

For example, as researchers we may be interested in how cancer survivors cope, and decide to conduct interviews with a text or video chat function in a social media platform because it allows us to select a more geographically dispersed sample. Or, we may be interested in how cancer survivors use social media to build networks that help them cope. In this case, to understand participants’ choices, communications and patterns of usage on that platform, we may use observations of community events, such as a webinar with a guest speaker, analysis of posts, and/or interviews with community members to collect data. In the first example the social media platform is a means for communication that allows us to understand a research phenomenon. In the second example, the social media platform itself is part of the phenomenon being investigated. This fundamental choice about the research purpose and researcher’s motivation for using social media influences the entire research design, sampling and mode of data collection: what data to collect from whom, how, using what synchronous or asynchronous communications (Salmons, 2012).

Clearly, varied combinations of social media tools and qualitative methods offer a wide range of options for social science researchers. There are many opportunities in the yet unexplored ways to think about qualitative research and social media—as well, there are many unanswered questions and challenges. A few intriguing areas for consideration are:

Ethical dilemmas. Qualitative researchers will always need informed consent for interviews and direct exchanges with research participants. But the situation is fuzzier when the researcher is conducting observations or drawing content from posted materials in online settings where it may be hard to distinguish public from private.

Diverse data types. Communication in social media settings may involve a mix of visual, verbal and text-based exchanges. Qualitative researchers need to decide which types to use, and how to analyze them. As well, they need to consider intellectual property rights of images, or pictures that include other people who have not given permission for their use by the researcher.

Non-neutral platforms: Most social media sites are commercially owned. They are designed to generate revenue, not simply for a social good. Features are designed to encourage users to navigate and participate in certain ways. This means participants—unless they program their own online sites or interactive spaces—are not functioning online independent of technical and other constraints.

What opportunities and obstacles do you see for qualitative researchers in the digital age? Please join NSMNSS in Methodspace, Twitter chats, virtual seminars and a coming Knowledge Exchange Seminar to share ideas and strategies.

via #NSMNSS: Deep Data: Digging into Social Media with Qualitative Methods.

Digging into Social Media with Qualitative Methods for Hiring

21 Social Media for HR Tips You Ought to Know

Heisann… (That’s “Hey There” Or “Hello” in Norwegian). My grandfather was Norwegian. That was for him! I was lucky to have him in my life. Anyways, I was reminded this past week that social and HR is hard.

I am immersed in social media every day. Comes at me all the time. I rarely talk about social media unless I am asked because it feels like I am talking about a telephone. I would rather use a telphone than talk about how it works. That line is for you Joe!

I use social for HR to network, share, recruit, engage with employees, build communities, lead ideas and snoop on what other HR Pros are doing with social and HR. I also use it for employment branding for my company @EnergizerJobs . So you could say I work in social with HR. If that is your goal, interest, situation or opportunity then I would like to point out a few things about social and HR. This is not a tirade, just my thoughts.

My purpose of this list is to share with others the problems I have discovered in the last few years. If you work in a big corporation and in HR, chances are you have experienced some of this stuff.

The problem with social and HR is that…

1. You have to go first. Being the first HR Pro to do social for you company is like converting people to a new religon. You believe it, but others do not. Even though you may not know much about your social media journey, stay true to your beliefs.


2. You have to be comfortable being a chameleon. You must speak and translate between two HR cultures. Traditional cultures who have little experience with it and the social media culture who know it and want to learn how it can help our industry. Careful with the traditional culture. Their ignorance can make your days long.


3. You need to figure out how social can—> save your company money with recruiting, improve engagement, increase brand visibility (i.e., employment branding), attracting talent and share your company’s vision. You need to find metrics to measure this. HR Pros love measurement and goals.


4. Your CEO needs social to share his/her vision of the company. The quarterly town hall is not enough. If you work at a big (greater than 10k people) global company very few people know the vision of the CEO or president. Your job as the social HR Pro is to get them to believe in using it to share their vision.


5. Some people will give you lip service that social for HR is important, but have no idea why it is important.


6. Many senior HR leaders will want to learn more, but not commit to doing social. This will leave you feeling lonely. Don’t give up.


7. HR Pros are paid to manage liabilities. Many will see social for HR as another liability. Show them how it can help. See point #3 above.


8. In the beginning, doing social for HR will add more work to your plate. So be smarter with it. Use it to do your normal (i.e., recruit, network, communicate, engage) HR work better. This will enhance your work like a the remote control did for your TV watching. You will meet new people and know your existing network better. Use social to interact, then meet in real life. Meet the people you interact with online in real life.


9. When you do it well, it will look easy. Nobody will care or realize how much work it took. Same way nobody calls your payroll team to thank them for paying them correct and on time. No body will call you to say you did a good job.


10. Social and HR work isn’t glamorous. You don’t get paid any extra money either.


11. If you screw something up with social and HR it is public. My advice is to screw up when you are small and nobody is watching. Learn from those screw-ups, then do it better next time. You won’t get fired. Just don’t be stupid. And please don’t ask me what stupid looks like.


12. Don’t wait for approval to do social and HR. It will never come. Take authority of social before it is given to you. Your business leaders expect you to be using it to bring them talent. Stop right now and go ask them. I bet they agree.


13. If you build a strong public presence, some HR Pros will think you are all about becoming “famous”. That’s not your problem.


14. You will be critiqued by people in a mean way. Go buy your tissues now.


15. You will be critiqued by HR Pros who have no idea what they are talking about.


16. Some of your ideas will be new and exciting to you and old news to everyone else. Social is fast paced.


17. You will have no resources to make this happen. Find believers in your network and work with them. They will help you.


18. Nobody in HR will care when you get a ReTweet by someone cool on Twitter. Even if it means 1,829 talented people just saw something cool about your company.


19. There is a fine line between promotion of self and promotion of people. Social is about the people. Always, always…always promote other people.


20. If you are introducing social to HR, I pray for you. You will be asking people to use their imagination to do stuff in HR in a different way. This is a new experience to them. So to round off my list like a game of Black Jack….here is the 21st thing that will make it worth it….

Inside each problem with social and HR is an opportunity to lead. There is an opportunity to reach out and build something with people that we can’t build alone. People want to help. People want to make your company better and themselves better while they are at it. Your job is to show them why they should help, then how they can help. The HR transformation is going on around us and will keep going on. Has been for my 13 years of HR. Use social to speed up the transformation.

Social media will soon be like the telephone. Another cool tool that can help us do our jobs better. In the meantime, I will go back to using social for HR. It’s much easier.

via 21 Social Media for HR Tips You Ought to Know.

21 Social Media for HR Tips You Ought to Know

Mobile Recruiting: There’s an App for That!

Remember that old iPhone commercial that touted “There’s an app for that”? Attracting, engaging, and retaining top talent is the foundation of successful companies. A recent study by Simply Hired revealed that 70 percent of job seekers are using their mobile phones to find jobs. In addition, forward thinking companies are leveraging mobile apps to hire the best people, build their brand and enable candidates and employees to talk about their experiences on social networks. Ultimately, the job-hunt is about connecting people and information; yet, there are a plethora of mobile apps, recruiting/talent management software programs and social platforms that can accelerate this process.

Mobile apps make searching for a job easier

Gone are the days when candidates secretly sent emails to employers from their home computers on Sunday nights! Mobile apps allow candidates to discreetly search for positions- anytime, anywhere and quickly respond to postings. Hundreds of mobile apps are available for job search (CareerBuilder, Monster, Indeed, Simply Hired, SnagAJob, Linkup, etc.), plus apps to build your resume (Pocket Resume, Resume App), network for lunch (http://lunchmeetapp.com), prepare for an interview (101Great Answers to Tough Interview Questions), research companies and assess salaries and company reviews (Glassdoor, Indeed), organize the job search process (Fresh Transition Job Search Organizer), and much more. Career Rocketeer provides a list of the top 25 iPhone apps (http://careerrocketeer.com/top-25-must-have-iphone-apps-for-your-job-search).

Apps to Build Professional Network & Personal Brand

Mobile apps have contributed to the explosion in social networks and candidates are leveraging networking apps (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, SnapData Business Cards, etc.) to connect, share and update their profiles, regardless of where you are. For example, Twitter allows you to share content and build awareness of yourself as a thought leader. Twitter’s openness and more casual style make it a useful platform for showcasing your “full self”- interests, talents, style and personality. Allow your authentic self to shine! Network across disciplines and follow/engage with people who inspire you. I consider myself a skilled networker, but Twitter has pushed me outside me comfort zone and I LOVE it! Remember, recruiters will look at your networks consider how your connections frame who you are and what type of fit you would be for a company.

Mobile Recruiting Enhances a Companies Response

Corporations are incorporating mobile apps to facilitate recruitment workflow, making it easier to HR to evaluate candidates, share information with hiring managers and make job offers. It’s critical to have a nimble strategy to reach your target audience, and increase productivity by enabling your team to “work from anywhere.” By 2020, more than 50% of the U.S. workforce will be comprised of millennials. Currently, more than 70% of Fortune 100 companies have not invested in mobile optimizing their career pages. Thus, traditional companies will need to invest in sleek mobile apps to meet the demand of the digital natives.

Bottom line: There are hundreds of apps that candidates can leverage to identify job openings, prep for interviews, expand their professional network and much more. It’s imperative to differentiate yourself, establish a strong online personal brand and leverage your relationships and unique talents to land your ideal job.

via Mobile Recruiting: There’s an App for That! HR, Recruiting, Social Media Policies, Human Resources, HR Technology Blogging4Jobs.

Mobile Recruiting: There’s an App for That!

68% of Job Seekers Use Mobile in Their Job Search

Social media is no longer a nice to have. It’s a must have as part of your recruitment strategy. Here’s why:

• 92% of recruiters plan on using social media in their recruiting efforts over the next 12 months

• 49% of recruiters said social media increased candidate quality

• Recruiters saved $370,000,000 in recruitment expenses with social media in 2012. (See the inforgraphic from iMomentous to more insights about this stat below.)

Recruiting using social must incorporate mobile today

Unfortunately, often left out of the conversation when it comes to social media use and social recruiting is how mobile is critical to the future success of reaching your target candidate especially true when most recent data from GlassDoor reports that 3 out of 5 job seekers are relying on mobile in their personal job search strategies. Recruiting using social must incorporate mobile into the overall strategy. Otherwise, companies and recruiting teams are building hiring strategies with one arm tied behind their back. And that’s not a good thing especially when the job market is so competitive for knowledge workers, engineers and qualified job candidates. We have to have the right strategies and tools to reach, engage and build relationships with our best candidate recruiting pool.

• Mobile is the preferred method to be social. Adobe’s 2013 Mobile survey found that 71% of social media activities where happening on a mobile device.

• Mobile is about now. I call this the Performance of Now. When we are seeking information, answers and connections in the moment we are looking to mobile. Whether it’s a Yelp restaurant review, a recommendation from a friend or a prepping for that job interview as you wait in the company lobby.

• Mobile is personal. Our mobile phones are our personal computer assistants informing us of sports scores and dental appointments and are a way to be fully connected even if we move half way across the US (like I did) or halfway across the world. Mobile makes recruiting a personal yet global engagement at the same time.

via 68% of Job Seekers Use Mobile in Their Job Search – Blogging4Jobs HR, Recruiting, Social Media Policies, Human Resources, HR Technology Blogging4Jobs.

68% of Job Seekers Use Mobile in Their Job Search