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Topic: Meet Irina Shamaeva, Boolean Strings Guru: acebook Profile • Your website; my company Brain Gain Recruiting http://www.braingainrecruiting.com • Irina's Personal blog • Groups: “Boolean Strings” Q & A with Irina Shamaeva Six Degrees: Tell us of your home world, Irina Irina: My family is unusual. I have two lovely children, Jane, a 29-year old, and Peter, a 5-year old. I am lucky to have Jane and her family living close by. Jane has a daughter Oksana who is 4 and is close friends with her uncle Peter. My children are the joy of my life. Most of the adults in our extended family are mathematicians; Jane “rebelled” and her education is in literature. She got her degrees at Columbia and UC Berkeley (grad) and is teaching English Literature at a small private high school in Berkeley. We talk daily, are close, and also, strangely, moms of young children. My son Peter has a huge amount of energy and is very athletic and social. My granddaughter Oksana is also full of energy and is already showing her talents in math and reading. I feel blessed when I have both Peter and Oksana in my lap. A big part of who I am is my cultural background. I came to NYC from Russia in 1990 for my first trip abroad ever, enjoyed the trip and got a 3-month contract in San Francisco over email (email was very new then). I brought then 12-year-old Jane to San Francisco, and in the middle of my stay got an offer to stay as an employee. My temporary visit to the US has lasted since. I’ve lived in San Francisco and Berkeley all this time and love the area. My family members Jane, Peter and Oksana are all bilingual English-Russian speakers. My father is still living in Moscow, Russia. At 78, he is an actively working, published mathematician, loves swimming and travels to conferences in the summers, where he is invited to make presentations. Last summer he and I met in Rome; next summer the plan is to meet in London. Six Degrees: What do you do for fun? Irina:I love spending time with my children and share my favorite activities with them. I used to take ballroom dancing lessons; now I go to free-style dancing events and classes. Last summer Peter and I went to a Northern CA dance camp in the Sierras near Kings Canyon Park, and we loved it. I volunteer at Peter’s school weekly, helping his teacher in the Kindergarten classroom. I am an avid backpacker. I especially like high mountains, walking cross country to high elevations with views, rocks and snow. I have been on many Sierra Club trips; Yosemite is my favorite place to go to. I also enjoy downhill and cross-country skiing. I do yoga and meditation. I am interested in psychology, especially character theories, such as the Enneagram. I keep in touch with long-time friends whom I met in high school. They live all over the world now. Last summer, we had a reunion in Yosemite and my classmates came from Washington DC, Boston, San Francisco, and the Netherlands. Six Degrees: How did you get started as a recruiter? Irina: I have been recruiting since 2003. In 1991-2003 I worked as a Software Engineer and later a Manager/Director here in the Bay Area. I worked in Biotech and Multimedia. A few times my jobs ended abruptly when my start-ups shut down during the dot-com era. At one company we were invited to a meeting with a 15-minute notice to learn that that was our last day, and no further pay was given. I worked with recruiters as a candidate quite a bit and it felt like for them it was an easy way to make money. (Indeed, I was once “placed” at a start-up by a recruiter who initially reached me by email and then was nowhere to be found throughout the whole interview process and the offer negotiation but got paid in the end.) I started recruiting on my own as a contingency recruiter while being completely new to this type of business. (Typical for me, since I also was not quite qualified for many of my previous jobs, learned on the fly and did quite well.) I didn’t make any money in the first 6 months, but then it took off. I was really lucky to get together with my Partner Julia Tverskaya. We’ve run Brain Gain Recruiting as Partners since 2004. As I, Julia is a former software manager; she is also a chess grandmaster and won some US competitions in the past. She’s ideal as a partner, smart, reliable, and has mastered the art of interviewing candidates, including some areas that were new for us, such as strategy consulting. Early on, we got on the vendor list for a Big Four consulting company, and stayed on based on our success, when they cut their list from 5,000 people to 100 early in 2008. Thanks to Julia, we are one of the very few companies who are on the vendor list for their Strategy and Change Practice. Over the years our clients have included software development, financial and consulting companies. In the last 2+ years we have mostly been placing high-level consultants in ERP/IT (SAP, Peoplesoft, Oracle, Siebel, etc.), Strategy and Change, and Finances. We are also getting some jobs in the Government sector now. The majority of our openings are in the $100K+ per year range. Six Degrees: What single event had the most impact on your sourcing/recruiting career? Irina: The event was my son Peter’s arrival. When Peter was little and I was a stay-at-home Mom for his first year, I tried to do recruiting. I remembered how I could help friends improve their resumes and find jobs and also how I worked with recruiters as a candidate and so it felt like a thing to try. A few months later, I got a call from a recruiter offering to join their client as a software manager, and ended up placing someone for that position for a $5K referral fee. That was the beginning. In my before-recruiting life, I was often able to help bring in good employees for my companies and help friends find jobs. In 1997 I got my first “recruiting” award of $8K for referring successful job candidates to my company Applied Biosystems. Before that, in 1994, when I was leaving my job, I talked my boss into hiring a friend of mine from Moscow, Russia, to replace me – which he did, without even first meeting my friend face to face. It worked out very well for all. Do you have a mentor to whom you attribute your overall outlook on recruitment, capabilities, and/or model your career after? Irina: I do not have a career mentor. I often learn things on my own. Of course I pick advice from others, especially given the wealth of web-based publications. I feel grateful to Lou Volpe of www.Recruitalliance.com for his advice to “submit only A candidates” early in my recruiting career. Simple as it is, this was the best advice I ever got about recruiting. Six Degrees: Tell us about your company Irina: Our company, Brain Gain Recruiting, is a two-person partnership. Both Julia and I wear multiple hats but my role is mainly a Sourcer for our company. In addition, I have been training multiple recruiting contractors, some of whom came from a non-recruiting background. In 2008 I created sourcing-related forums, blogs and events and posted on many sites. My area of expertise that I talk about is web sourcing. One topic, constructing Boolean search strings, got very popular. So far I have enjoyed blogging and teaching and got many emails and messages thanking me for sharing useful information. I plan to keep it as part of what I do. Six Degrees: (A) What other companies' recruiting operations do you admire or have heard are best-practice examples? Irina: We’ve worked with a number of third-party recruiters as split partners (on both client and candidate sides). I have watched two recruiters with whom we have worked closely that felt as great examples in certain ways. (B) In what aspects are they superior? Irina: The two recruiters I admire know the business inside out, know competitors and news about them, understand assumptions behind job descriptions, can assess resumes in rather complex areas and can speak to both clients and candidates in a meaningful way. We are not bad ourselves but these people seem stronger. Six Degrees: What recent general news story or industry trend do you feel will have an impact on your work in the future? Why? Irina: With the slow economy, we have a challenge and those who are the strongest at what they do and can make changes work for them will be successful. I feel it’s good to have challenges since they make me grow professionally and invent new ways to do business. Six Degrees: List/detail speaking events, awards, publications, where you have you represented your company: Irina: I have written publications and blog posts about web sourcing and Boolean Strings and may go to some speaking events. Some of my online posts are listed on http://booleanstrings.wordpress.com/about; here are selected links: • Two Common Misconceptions about Searching Google for Resumes • Use Facebook to verify candidate’s location and send fewer emails • Boolean vs. "Googlean" • New Year's quiz - 8 fun Boolean questions for all - QUIZ-JAN2009 • Number of results matters • Finding email addresses. • Looking for people based on a target title and a target company name • How to source candidates on LinkedIn even if your network is small • Find the LIONs based on keyword search • How to create a target email list of candidates in no time and for free • LinkedIn Tutorial, Part 2 • I Disagree with Donato Diorio | The Talent Buzz • BountyJobs Competitor Recommended - RecruitAlliance A few more articles will be published soon in TheSource and ERE in January 2009. Six Degrees: What is your next career goal? What do you need to do to get there? Irina: I’d like to grow our company, get more business and hire more recruiters so that I could delegate some tasks and concentrate on the company strategy, expand my sourcing skills, invent new ways to source and teach the sourcing community.…; Added by Dave Mendoza at 12:08pm on February 4, 2009

Topic: Transcript Talent Talk Cafe: Week of Jan. 12th - A conversation on blogging and best practices: great conversation - enjoy! 3:00pm Susan Burns Welcome to Talent Talk Cafe! 3:00pm Susan Burns Quick note before we begin 3:00pm Geri Kleeman hi all 3:00pm Susan Burns You can click on the coffee cup above the chat screen to pop the chat out and make it bigger 3:01pm Lance Haun Good afternoon all 3:01pm Susan Burns Hi Geri! Hi Lance! 3:01pm David Benjamin Hello 3:01pm Susan Burns So our topic today is recruitment and blogging - as an opening question, I'm curious how many of you are actively blogging? 3:02pm Susan Burns HI David! 3:02pm Lance Haun I am 3:02pm Kari Quaas Hi Susan - I am. :) 3:02pm Tracy Tran Ditto 3:02pm Ben Gotkin Hi Susan and everyone else out there in Chatland today. You know I am 3:02pm Becky Metcalf me too 3:02pm Susan Burns Great 0 Hi Kari, Tracy, Ben and Becky! 3:02pm Sarah White i am starting back up in Feb 3:03pm Susan Burns How many of you are blogging for professional - talent attraction purposes and how many combine professional and personal? 3:03pm Ben Yoskovitz Afternoon everyone. 3:03pm Susan Burns HI Ben! Hi Sarah! 3:03pm Becky Metcalf combo 3:03pm David Benjamin I am actively blogging, just started a month ago. 3:03pm Kari Quaas Combo 3:03pm Maren Hogan Well does personal include ego? 3:03pm Tracy Tran Mine is combined. 3:03pm Lance Haun combo-ish 3:03pm Ben Gotkin Professional only, for the company 3:03pm David Benjamin combo blogs, seperate sites 3:03pm Lance Haun mainly personal 3:04pm Sarah White mostly professional 3:04pm Susan Burns If you answered combined - is it within the same blog or do you manage multiple blogs? 3:04pm Tracy Tran Same blog 3:04pm Maren Hogan trying to manage multiple 3:04pm Maren Hogan not suceeding 3:04pm Susan Burns Hey Maren! 3:04pm Becky Metcalf maintaing multiple, but I do try to incorporate both personal and professional. That's the point for me. 3:04pm David Benjamin Multiple blogs. Don't like them combined 3:04pm Kari Quaas multiple 3:04pm Sarah White multiple - i think even on professional, your personality will come out. 3:04pm Maren Hogan Hi Susan! 3:05pm Susan Burns Becky and Tracy - are you blogging for a company or is this our own biz combined with the personal content? 3:05pm Susan Burns Sarah - agree that if your being authentic your personal style will show through 3:05pm Becky Metcalf representative of my company 3:06pm David Benjamin I have different topics I want to address. Some are recruiting, others are not 3:06pm Tracy Tran own biz 3:06pm Becky Metcalf but personal to the point of adding authenticity 3:06pm Susan Burns Is anyone besides Lance, Kari and Ben writing for a company blog - public or private besides your own company? 3:07pm David Benjamin silence :) 3:07pm Ben Gotkin not surprised 3:07pm Susan Burns I thought it would be fund to explore why we blog. What was the movtivation for each of you to begin blogging? 3:07pm Tracy Tran I don't like having multiple blogs because that would make me have different personalities and I do categorize my topics on my blog 3:07pm Slouch hey there. sorry I'm late 3:07pm Susan Burns Hi Jason! 3:08pm Slouch his Susan 3:08pm Becky Metcalf my motivation was to be more accessible to the people I deal with 3:08pm David Benjamin I need to change hosting site so that I can do everything on one 3:08pm Susan Burns David - why did you decide to begin blogging? 3:09pm Sarah White I started to express ideas I was seeing about our industry - the good and bad then some people started to read it. It was more about me expressing myself and less about others reading (wrong or right) 3:09pm David Benjamin provide value, establish credibility, outlet for creative thoughts 3:09pm Ben Gotkin I started writing about recruiting (for other recruiters), but all along I wanted to provide a broad audience an inside view into my organization, and blogging allows you to do that in a highly effective and efficient manner 3:09pm Sarah White David, I agree, for some reason having a blog makes you more "credible" to some clients 3:09pm Maren Hogan I didn't think anyone would be watching and I thought in Omaha, no one else would be blogging, neither of which was true 3:10pm Tracy Tran I was amazed that someone in Thailand read my blog. 3:10pm David Benjamin If the content is good, and you gain a following, then credibility can be established 3:10pm Susan Burns These are great: accessibility, trends, credibility, creative thinking, add value, views into the company 3:10pm Slouch a big reason to do it is so that the likes of google index you and when candidates or clients are doing searches for things, you will come up. Search engines like blogs 3:10pm David Benjamin that too Slough 3:11pm Susan Burns Jason - that was an interesting learning for me in building the Talent Synchronicity site. I decided to move a lot of the content into what will be developed through the blog 3:11pm David Benjamin Slouch, sorry 3:11pm Tracy Tran I think also integration of social media sites. My blog had 5-7 readers, but when I use twitter, it jumped to 30-40. 3:11pm Susan Burns Thanks great Tracy! 3:11pm Ben Gotkin Blog platforms allow you to provide information in a real-time manner. The easy integration of multimedia also makes it a very powerful tool 3:11pm David Benjamin Adding video, podcast to blogs adds variety of mediums 3:12pm Geri Kleeman How exactly is a blog defined? Is it anything where you can type a response? 3:12pm Susan Burns Ben - so true - its really amazing how easy it is to intergrate multi-media and distribute content 3:12pm Susan Burns Geri - interesting question. So a blog compared to what? An article? Website content? 3:12pm Geri Kleeman I guess so 3:12pm Tracy Tran Anything can be a blog: words, ideas, pictures, thoughts. 3:12pm Slouch Geri, it is a page on the web where you can write things without thinking too much about PR and being the fastest and the best 3:13pm David Benjamin From now, I'm just posting pictures and calling it my blog :) 3:13pm Ben Gotkin Susan - It's also easy to drive traffic to other related media, such as your own career website, specific jobs, other sites with content (i.e. Facebook, Youtube, etc.) 3:13pm Susan Burns To add on to what Tracy shared is it also an ongoing process - commitment to fresh content. 3:13pm Kelly Dingee And blogs would typically be hosted on wordpress or typepad, no? And Twitter is the so-called microblog... 3:13pm Susan Burns Kelly - yep - need to distringuish between blog and microblog 3:13pm Ben Gotkin Kelly - Yep, I use Blogger. Microblogs are becoming very powerful too 3:14pm Kari Quaas "Commitment to fresh content" - great description, Susan. 3:14pm Stephanie the fresh content is the part that scares me about starting a blog, frankly. 3:14pm Ben Gotkin I twittered earlier today about participating on todays TTC :-) 3:14pm Susan Burns It does feel that there are higher expectations growing around blog content and it almost feels like some are merging with "traditional" media - articles and so forth as many mainstream publications have started blogs - content lines are bluring 3:15pm David Benjamin Can there be too many bloggers? Sometimes I read blogs and there is so much overlap 3:15pm Becky Metcalf it's so flexible, easy to see the mass appeal 3:15pm Susan Burns Stephanie - I agree! When I was blogging several years ago on HCM Blogspot it was very hard to keep adding something new. With my new blog I'm committing to once a week 3:15pm John Palcisko is it proper etiquette to have original content ot can you comment on a great article ? 3:15pm Tracy Tran It takes time on a blog. When I started 3 years ago, it was more personal, but I keep updating myself to get a broader audience of who I am. 3:15pm Susan Burns David - is it too many bloggers or too many posts by the same person - quality over quantity! 3:16pm Stephanie when starting one, is it best to define what you want from it? applicants, for example, vs more candidate development and long term cultivation? 3:16pm Slouch Stephanie, what are the some of the the things you see as issues with what you do for a living and you must have some ideas how to make it better. That is a good place to start in terms of writing 3:16pm David Benjamin too many blogs on the same topic 3:16pm Ben Gotkin Stephanie - With our corporate blog, we have several contributors, and are constantly on the lookout for stories in the organization, many of which are often already posted on our intranet 3:16pm Slouch yes you need to know your audience 3:16pm Susan Burns John - HI - great question - Yes, I see that alot and as long as you credit the original source and link to the article absolutely! 3:16pm John Palcisko Thanks 3:16pm Tracy Tran I do admit there are a lot of blogs, but find the ones that are trustworthy and you're willing to come back. 3:17pm Susan Burns Ben - I like how your Blog is set up. I also like the model of multiple contributors - one of the things that attracted me to what Lanceis doing on HRM Today 3:17pm David Benjamin I'm looking to write fresh content, something that may not be found everywhere else. It's challanging. 3:17pm Slouch nothing wrong John with taking a few lines or more and saying to read the rest go here. the person you are linking to will appreciate it and maybe link back. it's a slow process but it works 3:17pm Ben Gotkin Susan - It's been a big help. I'm the main contributor, but I don't feel like I have to come up with something new 1-2 times a week. 3:18pm Susan Burns How frequently do each of you post to your blog? 3:18pm Dava Stewart Should ask permission before linking to someone else's content? What is the etiquette? 3:18pm John Palcisko Thanks Slouch 3:18pm David Benjamin Posting a couple times a week. 3:18pm Tracy Tran 1-3 times a week. 3:18pm Susan Burns Dava - its an open web so no, you don't need to but a heads up could be nice 3:18pm Dava Stewart thanks, Susan 3:18pm Ben Gotkin We've been averaging 2-3 posts a week since our launch last July 3:18pm Tracy Tran Always give a Hat Tip when borrowing the story. 3:19pm Ben Yoskovitz Ben Gotkin - can you publish your blog URL in here please? 3:19pm Susan Burns Thanks Tracy - yes, always reference the person or place of the original content 3:19pm Ben Gotkin http://mcgladreycareers.blogspot.com 3:19pm JR Fent I like putting in the link to someone else's content and then sending them a note saying that I did it - make a new friend. 3:19pm Ben Yoskovitz But you shouldn't be afraid to link out - linking is one of the best strategies for generating traffic and awareness. 3:19pm Susan Burns Nice approach JR 3:19pm Slouch Dava, no need for permission as long as you link back and don;t take the entire article. 3:20pm Ben Yoskovitz Ben Gotkin - have you had any concerns that you're running on Blogger vs. another platform? 3:20pm Susan Burns Ben - what are you concerned about Blogger? 3:20pm Slouch it drives me crazy when people do that 3:20pm Ben Gotkin Ben Y - I've used Blogger for a few years now and it works well for me actually 3:20pm Tracy Tran Yes, I always check my wordpress dashboard to see who saw my blog and where did it came from, and I click on the site of the referrer. 3:20pm Susan Burns Jason - what drives u crazy? 3:21pm Ben Yoskovitz Susan - not concerned, but generally Blogger isn't regarded as the BEST platform for blogging. But that's a lot of "technical stuff" if you will that doesn't necessarily matter. 3:21pm Ben Yoskovitz The bigger concern would be the professionalism of it. Ben G has a nice looking design though. 3:21pm Susan Burns Got it - It was the original platform, wasn't it? 3:21pm Slouch when someone takes an article from another blog and posts the entire thing on theirs and then puts a link at the bottom. 3:21pm Ben Yoskovitz Ben G - have you ever thought of using a non-Blogspot domain? 3:21pm John Palcisko will we have access to this entire blog- I read slow :) 3:21pm Susan Burns Jason - agree! 3:21pm JR Fent I agree with Ben. Over the years I actually found that an article manager product was better than blogging. 3:21pm Ben Yoskovitz Slouch - you can't get away from people stealing content. Trick: Link to yourself each and every time, so at least there are links in there BACK to you :) 3:21pm Susan Burns John - you should be able to go back from when you logged on but its not always reliable 3:22pm Ben Gotkin Ben Y - Thanks. We got help from our marketing dept with that - I'm fine with Blogger for now, but we may have an opportunity to try another platform in the coming months 3:22pm Slouch not so much stealing content but rather using other content to populate your own 3:22pm Ben Yoskovitz @Slouch: Ya that sucks. A lot of people do that. Take it as a sign of your growing popularity... 3:22pm Slouch not so much from here 3:22pm Susan Burns New question - What is the most important part of successful blogging: frequency? catchy titles? great format? cool media integration....... 3:22pm Stephanie so if you borrow content, you should be making some sort of commentary on it, not just "reblogging" no? 3:23pm Slouch just in general it is bad manners 3:23pm Tracy Tran Content first, then media integration. 3:23pm John Palcisko something of value Susan 3:23pm Susan Burns Stephanie - if you "borrowing" it may be appropriate to use quotes and then reference source - if your linking - just pointing to the original source and referencing 3:23pm Ben Gotkin Frequency is key 3:23pm Stephanie gotcha 3:23pm Slouch the idea is that you hilight something you think is interesting or your readers will like and let them know that " I thought yoiu would like this and it is about this and here is a little of it and then let them follow the link to the other place 3:24pm John Palcisko so Ben if you put up "crap" frequently" it is good? 3:24pm Ben Yoskovitz Ben G - Frequency or regularity? 3:24pm Susan Burns John - thats a classic line! Thanks for the chuckle! 3:24pm Ben Gotkin ahem, quality and frequency are key... 3:24pm David Benjamin Has anyone gone from having readers and no comments to getting comments? What changed? 3:24pm JR Fent Quality and search engine relevance are the most important to me 3:24pm Tracy Tran Putting badges on my site and my profiles. 3:24pm Ben Gotkin Good question David, I'm curious myself, we rarely get comments 3:25pm Susan Burns Tracy - was that in response to David's question? 3:25pm Tracy Tran yes 3:25pm Slouch most readers do not comment david 3:25pm Stephanie what are badges? 3:25pm John Palcisko I have been asked by my new firm to figure out what to have in a blog so I hear this is the room of experts :) 3:25pm Ben Yoskovitz David - Not all blogs are comment-friendly. And generally I've seen comments drop as people share content or comment in other ways - via Twitter, FriendFeed, etc. 3:25pm Ben Yoskovitz There are ways to encourage comments though... 3:26pm Ben Yoskovitz Ask questions at the end of posts, for example. 3:26pm Susan Burns Stephanie - a graphic element you can add to a page and are hyperlinked 3:26pm John Palcisko why not just have "ghost" commenters to get the ball rolling? 3:26pm Ben Yoskovitz Beg a friend to comment first to get things started (I'm not entirely kidding) 3:26pm Maren Hogan tweetsuite! 3:26pm Tracy Tran @Stephanie - Profile badges that know you have a profile in LinkedIN, Facebook, or Alltop or RecruitingBlogs. 3:26pm Chris stephanie a badge is a widget(?) I think 3:26pm Maren Hogan for comments from twitter, I get a lot of those as opposed to on blog comments 3:26pm Ben Yoskovitz Be controversial -that always helps. 3:26pm Stephanie thanks all 3:26pm Tracy Tran Or What Susan said 3:27pm David Benjamin I get comments in person, on twitter. Will encourage them to write them. 3:27pm Slouch "ghost" comments reminds me of this http://www.recruitingblogs.com/profiles/blogs/candidate-splits 3:27pm Tracy Tran Or What Susan said 3:27pm Ben Gotkin Be real, write with an authentic 'voice', no marketing-speak 3:27pm Susan Burns Jason Buss did giveaways on his blog to create traffic and get people engaged 3:27pm David Benjamin It seems that when they can reference their latest blog, more comments are written 3:27pm Slouch when it is hard to see the real reason behind it 3:27pm Stephanie lol @ slouch..classy. 3:27pm Ben Yoskovitz Also, I think you want to leave things "hanging" - you don't need to answer every question in a blog post so that it has "finality" to it. Leave things open ended to encourage people to say, "And? Tell us more!" 3:27pm Praveen Jain Hello 3:27pm Praveen Jain Guys 3:28pm Susan Burns New Question - How do you measure the success of your blog? What are your expectations 3:28pm Tracy Tran People understand who I am and where I'm coming from and ask questions. 3:29pm Susan Burns Tracy - do in your active conversations people are more aware and informed? 3:29pm Susan Burns oops that was so not do 3:29pm Slouch Susan, if it delivers the results you want taking into account the time put into it 3:29pm Ben Gotkin There's a lot of ways you can track traffic - Ultimately we want to create a buzz and drive traffic from the blog to other related sites, such as our career website 3:29pm John Palcisko great link Slouch- called her out and she was quite honest 3:29pm Susan Burns So if what you want is credibility - as was mentioned - how would you measure that? Increase in readers? 3:30pm Kari Quaas If it gives one of our readers an insight they didn't have before, we're happy. Sometimes we hear via the comments or emails later. 3:30pm Tracy Tran Yes they are. 3:30pm Slouch it happens all the time here and I call it out everytime I see it 3:30pm John Palcisko I think you and I will get along fine Slouch- we need more straight shooters in this world 3:31pm Slouch lol 3:31pm Susan Burns Ben - very important point for corp bloggers - moving traffic to main site and vice versa. Are you tracking hires from the blog too? 3:31pm Susan Burns Kari - do you track hires from your blog as well 3:31pm Slouch ask Ben Yoskovits or read his blog. he is the ceo of a funded startup but when you read his posts about his company or opther posts, you don;t feel he is selling something and that is the key 3:31pm Dava Stewart Slouch, is that an example of an "advertorial?" 3:31pm Ben Gotkin Susan - Yes, we use Site Meter to measure traffic, it can tell us where they are coming from and where they are going, among other things 3:31pm Slouch it's misleading 3:32pm Kari Quaas Hard to track since we're not doing the hiring. We just figure more traffic on Cool works, means more traffic to our employers. 3:32pm Slouch sometimes people will say I joined this great network or splits group or whatever and you should join and please use this tracking code when you do 3:32pm Ben Yoskovitz Thanks Slouch :) 3:32pm Susan Burns I have a question specific to the corporate bloggers and then we'll come back to all - 3:32pm Slouch so I ask are you going to make money if I join using that code and if yes, you should say something about it 3:32pm Slouch no problem ben 3:33pm Susan Burns When your company started a blog how easy or difficult was the process? What steps did you have to go through to make it happen? 3:33pm Slouch now ben, if you advertised here, I would have never said anything nice about you 3:33pm Chris Tracy Tran is a micro format the same as a badge or widget? 3:33pm Susan Burns Chris - do you mean micro blogging like twitter? 3:34pm Chris No 3:34pm Stephanie Susan, I am at that stage myself, and having a hard time convincing people that its real work I think. LOL 3:34pm Chris hResume and hCalendar 3:34pm Ben Gotkin Susan - I consider myself lucky, it was rather easy. But I had a boss and a marketing department who supported it, and a legal department who was OK with the guidelines we set 3:34pm Susan Burns Stephanie - are they open to the idea bus suspect of the amount of time allocated? 3:34pm Ben Gotkin It wasn't so easy at my last employer, even though we had a very active internal blogging culture there 3:35pm Tracy Tran I really don't know, I have no idea what micro format is 3:35pm Susan Burns Ben - what were the obstacles last time? 3:35pm Stephanie I think they just resist from a "legal hoops" perspective. No one is sure what is the right messaging maybe? Not too sure. 3:35pm Ben Gotkin Misperceptions and lack of trust. Externally the corp comm model was very conservative 3:35pm Stephanie what legal hoops we would have to jump thru to make our lawyers feel its not a risk. 3:35pm Ben Yoskovitz Wasn't there a post on RecruitingBlogs recently about the legal issues and how they were really overblown? 3:35pm Susan Burns Stephanie - there are some great examples of success and also the cost of resistance 3:36pm Slouch lots of them 3:36pm Ben Gotkin McGladrey has been very supportive of social media 3:36pm Stephanie I know other parts of the company have blogs, so I just need to be more vocal and come at it with more research and data. which is why i'm here! 3:36pm Susan Burns Stephanie - are the legal concerns specific to HR? 3:37pm Stephanie likely, yes. what its ok to say and not ok 3:37pm Ben Gotkin Stephanie - Use it to tell stories. Most of us have great stories that happen in our organization all the time, blogging is a great platform for telling those stories 3:37pm Stephanie ben g - that's exactly how I'm picturing this as a recruiting tool. 3:37pm Susan Burns Stephanie - the funny thing is most of what they are afraid of people don't really want to hear - or its certainly easy to respond to without crossing the line 3:38pm Ben Gotkin Stephanie - Create a clear, common-sense based set of guidelines 3:38pm Susan Burns Ok - lets get back to the big picture - thanks for the insight on whats happening in the corp world 3:38pm Stephanie ben g - do you have guidelines already created that you could share w me offline? 3:38pm Chris not not happening (pulled hair out) 3:38pm Susan Burns What is the "ideal" frequency of posts to keep content current and quality? And, is there an ideal length to a post? 3:39pm Ben Gotkin Sure, send me a message with your email and I'll send you what we use 3:39pm Slouch sorry, related to what I was saying beofre. you can check this out http://www.recruitingblogs.com/forum/topics/502551:Topic:303885 3:39pm Susan Burns Ok - thinking you didn't like that last question...... 3:40pm Susan Burns Here's another: How do you balance transparency, authenticity and any sort of company policy you have to manage around? 3:40pm Slouch Susan. it depends on what you want with respect to your frequency question 3:40pm Slouch three posts a week. one original and then be creative for the rest 3:41pm Susan Burns To engage readers and build traffic 3:41pm Tracy Tran For length, there should be no ideal length. If it's short and to the point, you made your point. Idea frequency. That's a tough one but once a week should be the min. 3:41pm Chris or not look like an affiliated marketing company. 3:41pm Slouch I cant read long posts - even my own 3:41pm Ben Gotkin That's where those guidelines come in. Don't write anything that will put your employer at risk 3:41pm Susan Burns Ben - do you find that gets in the way at all? Seems almost like common sense 3:42pm Ben Gotkin It doesn't actually. We are using this as a marketing tool. Writing anything that could be damaging to the organization would be counter-productive. Common sense it is 3:43pm Susan Burns Any other feedback on what people have found to work in terms of frequency and length to build engagement? 3:43pm Ben Yoskovitz When I started blogging, it was 3 times / week, although I don't think you have to blog that often. 3:44pm Ben Yoskovitz Length is an open debate, but I prefer to vary things. Sometimes longer, sometimes shorter. 3:44pm Susan Burns Ben Y - how long were you able to sustain that? 3:44pm Susan Burns The 3 X a week 3:44pm Ben Yoskovitz A long time - but I was blogging primarily for myself vs. my company. For a corporate blog I think it's tougher and requires more preparation. 3:45pm David Benjamin 2-3 times a week is ideal, I think. I agree that length is all based on how long to express your thoughts concisely 3:45pm Ben Yoskovitz Blogging your own personal experiences / advice when there's no corporation to think or "worry" about is easier. 3:45pm Susan Burns New question - do you use Polls in your blog and do you think they add value 3:45pm Ben Yoskovitz But there are ways of blogging 3x per week without it taking a TON of time. Just depends on the types of posts, length, how well organized you are. 3:46pm Ben Gotkin Ben Y - You need to be motivated to write. I'll admit I get writer's block from time-to-time, drives me crazy 3:46pm Susan Burns Ben Y - that definitely something to consider as JD said too - have a strategy to make one post pure, original content and the others can be shorter, refer to other content.... 3:47pm Susan Burns Anyone using polls? No?? 3:47pm Kari Quaas @Susan - we have used polls before. 3:47pm Ben Yoskovitz I've used polls occasionally, but you need a certain amount of traffic before you can pull it off successfully. 3:47pm Susan Burns Kari - were they effective or is that why it was "before" 3:47pm Ben Yoskovitz In terms of frequency and maintaining that - think about using an editorial calendar. 3:47pm Ben Gotkin I'd like to try it at some point 3:47pm Kari Quaas They are usually requests for content on the blog or on our social network. 3:47pm Kari Quaas We got a small number of returns, but it's better than nothing. 3:48pm Kari Quaas www.surveymonkey.com is an easy one to use 3:48pm Susan Burns Do you think they can be a good way to drive traffic initially - maybe by incoporating a giveaway or something? 3:49pm Susan Burns Ben - you could give away a free tax return service! 3:49pm Kari Quaas We gave away an iPod on our social network to get people to post photos. It worked well. 3:49pm Susan Burns Just make sure the winner had nothing to do with Madoff! 3:49pm John Mota hi all 3:49pm Slouch it's a gimmick initially. if yoiu want to start a blog and you want people to come regularly, you need to rely on the content 3:49pm Tracy Tran Susan - In the short-term, yes.But content will always win out for the long-term. 3:49pm John Mota has anyone done career coaching? 3:49pm Ben Yoskovitz Slouch: Content wins, but gimmicks help. 3:50pm Ben Yoskovitz I've run a few writing projects off my site that used to generate hundreds of links back. Bit harder to do these days and less applicable perhaps in the HR corporate blogging world - but memes, gimmicks can help. 3:50pm Slouch sure but the gimmicks work when the readers know they are gimmicks 3:50pm Susan Burns So polls and giveaways could be good on occassion to drive content. I think esp for a corp blog with a product connection its of value 3:50pm Ben Gotkin Susan - lol. That would be our parent company, HR Block, which actually does some of that I think on their Facebook page 3:51pm David Benjamin John, I do currently 3:51pm Susan Burns We have 10 minutes left and I thought I would open it up to anything thats on your mind about blogging and engaging talent - what are your thoughts, questions and ideas? 3:51pm John Mota career coach? 3:51pm David Benjamin Part of my consultant biz is career coaching 3:51pm Susan Burns (jonh and david - could you use the private chat until we're done - thanks) 3:51pm John Mota i am part of an organization that is starting up an internal career development practice 3:52pm Stephanie what % of bloggers time is being taken writing and researching? 3:52pm Slouch that is a whole other conversation 3:52pm Slouch lol 3:52pm Stephanie oh..lol 3:52pm Slouch some people can;t stop thinking or working on it 3:52pm Slouch I know a few people like that 3:52pm Kari Quaas Very true. 3:52pm Stephanie I'm sure..especially if other work isn't as busy as normal in this climate. 3:53pm Ben Gotkin Stephanie - really depends on the post, some require more research, some are pretty quick and easy to write 3:53pm Susan Burns Stephanie - I did an allocation schedule for my time each week and have currently allowed 20% for writing and research - we'll see how that works out ;-) 3:54pm Ben Yoskovitz I often write posts in my head for days before I actually write them. 3:54pm Kari Quaas @Susan - so official ;) 3:54pm Slouch good luck with that susan 3:54pm Stephanie That's what I'm looking to do. Put a number to it I guess. 3:54pm John Mota Benjamin - how do we private chat? 3:54pm Kari Quaas @Ben - Me too. 3:54pm Slouch clcik his name on the left and an option will come up 3:54pm Slouch on the right I mean 3:54pm Slouch search his name and then click it 3:54pm John Mota i did - is he notified? 3:54pm Susan Burns It was one of my NY resolutions! I allocated out all I have to do each week so I can quit working on weekends - so, yes -there is a motivator! 3:54pm Slouch if he is watching. no bell yet 3:55pm John Mota oh 3:55pm John Mota thanks 3:55pm Slouch np 3:55pm Kari Quaas @Susan - good motivator, indeed 3:55pm Jenny DeVaughn @Susan If I don't plan, it means that I will just work right into the weekend too! 3:56pm Kari Quaas @Stephanie - I just write when a topic hits me. The key is to keep writing. 3:56pm Susan Burns Jenny - I also found that working from home things were becoming too blended. I now have a difinitive start and end time to my day just as if I was going into an office - I don't touch my computer in the morning until I'm ready to sit down at my desk 3:56pm Ben Gotkin I'm more spur-of-the-moment, as the inspiration hits me, or as I run across something that looks like worth writing about 3:56pm Susan Burns I've gotten in the habit of starting an "idea" list - as soon as something hits my I write it down and make a few notes about it 3:56pm Tracy Tran Same here Ben 3:56pm Susan Burns I also believe you have to trust in what you know - even if you don't initially think you know it, and go with something your passionate about 3:57pm Ben Gotkin I do have 'guest bloggers' lined up for one post each over the next several weeks too 3:57pm Susan Burns Any finaly questions...thoughts...ideas? 3:57pm Stephanie susan, I have the same list going..lol 3:58pm Susan Burns Stephanie - if I don't write it down I forget it - or what I was initially thinking about. There are so many things that inspire ideas and capturing the inspiration is sometimes as important as the topic itself 3:58pm Jenny DeVaughn @Ben, great idea! 3:58pm Slouch Thanks Susan for this 3:58pm Ratnesh anybody has idea about granite analyst 3:58pm Susan Burns Great suggestion Ben! 3:58pm Slouch like how to cut rock efficiently? 3:58pm Susan Burns I've been building my interview list 3:58pm Stephanie LOL @ slouch 3:58pm Susan Burns Well that all for Talent Talk Cafe today! Thanks so much for joining the conversation and sharing your experiences and ideas 3:59pm Jenny DeVaughn Thanks, Susan! 3:59pm Susan Burns Cheers to great blogging success for all of you! 3:59pm Slouch great session 3:59pm Ben Gotkin Thanks Susan, another great TTC 3:59pm Stephanie this was wonderful! thanks all. very helpful!!! happy blogging 3:59pm Slouch I am available if anyone wants to ask me questions about blogging or stuff like that later. I have been doing it a long time…; Added by Susan Burns at 10:21pm on January 14, 2009

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Topic: Subsidizing Failure: How The "Big 3 Paid Billions to Keep Downsized UAW Members on Payroll": affing Industry exists. SUBSIDIZING FAILURE & CRONYISM Thank This Man for Destroying the American Auto Industry: Meet Ron Gettlefinger - UAW President. Yesterday the UAW refused to compromise on Bail-out negotiations to agree by the end of next year to wage cuts to bring their pay into line with Japanese car makers. The UAW refused to do so before its current contract with the automakers expires in 2011. As Senator Mitch McConnell stated yesterday: "This bailout doesn’t fix Detroit’s problem," he wrote, “It subsidizes it.” First it was Government forcing a quota system which influenced lending institutions to lend easy money to high risk groups to avoid being accused of red-lining communities. Then the Federal government removed the separation between commercial and private loans and created a securities market off of home mortgages that inevitably got bundled into junk debt. Then we had Senate/House Finance and Banking committee chairmen who avoided their regulatory oversight and defended Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and through their "Everything is Fine" press releases influenced stock holders to maintain their investments that would catapult them into portfolio ruin. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, then the banking system gets bailed out on the logic that they are a public utility system upon which the economy depends ... the handouts start, one after another, ... with little easing of the credit markets to show for the first 700 billion dollars. Now each and every industry argues before a Congressional committee why it deserves a bail out. All the while Capital firms freeze up, start ups wane, and Silicon Valley lays off thousands or freezes reqs to force attrition. At the end of the day, it means thousands of recruiters being laid off. Recruiters become the perceived luxury item in a world gone mad when all the while government intervention throws good money after bad policy. But there are reasons and they should be understood. At no time have so many special interests collaborated to create the perfect storm and under government fiat to proceed with such ill advised policy. Today, we focus on how the powerful United Auto Workers (UAW) collaborated with its political allies to undermine one of the last great industries of American manufacturing. This is a story about what happens when government and its policies attempt to guarantee outcomes. Unfortunately, it isn't a fairy tale. My public vote for the Big 3 to go into Chapter 11 to release themselves of UAW contracts otherwise we throw good money after bad if one of the primary causes doesn't get resolved. FACT LINKS: ** UAW Job Bank: Organized Slackers ** UAW Feels The Heat And Suspends Job Bank And Delays Trust Payments ** Job Banks - Protecting the people, not the jobs ** Congress targets UAW Job Bank as U.S. Car Makers fight for Loans ** Detroit Automakers, UAW To Spar Over Jobs Bank During Talks ** Will you shed a tear for UAW Job Bank employees when the loose their no show Jobs? Ford's Most Advanced Assembly Pant Operates in Rural Brazil TRIVIA TIDBIT: Did you know Toyota and GM sold roughly equal number of cars last year and GM went billions into debt while Toyota had a record year? ("GM versus Toyota: Someone is Doing Something Wrong") STRUCTURAL & IRRATIONAL RED INK: UAW & The Job Bank "We cannot continue to pay $65 an hour for someone to cut the grass and remain competitive. Miller meant, literally, "cutting the grass." Original Link WAYNE -- Ken Pool is making good money. On weekdays, he shows up at 7 a.m. at Ford Motor Co.'s Michigan Truck Plant in Wayne, signs in, and then starts working -- on a crossword puzzle. Pool hates the monotony, but the pay is good: more than $31 an hour, plus benefits. "We just go in and play crossword puzzles, watch videos that someone brings in or read the newspaper," he says. "Otherwise, I've just sat." Pool is one of more than 12,000 American autoworkers who, instead of installing windshields or bending sheet metal, spend their days counting the hours in a jobs bank set up by Detroit automakers and Delphi Corp. as part of an extraordinary job security agreement with the United Auto Workers union. The jobs bank programs were the price the industry paid in the 1980s to win UAW support for controversial efforts to boost productivity through increased automation and more flexible manufacturing. As part of its restructuring under bankruptcy, Delphi is actively pressing the union to give up the program. With Wall Street wondering how automakers can afford to pay thousands of workers to do nothing as their market share withers, the union is likely to hear a similar message from the Big Three when their contracts with the UAW expire in 2007 -- if not sooner. "It's an albatross around their necks," said Steven Szakaly, an economist with the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor. "It's a huge number of workers doing nothing. That has a very large effect on their future earnings outlook." General Motors Corp. has roughly 5,000 workers in its jobs bank. Delphi has about 4,000 in its version of the same program. Some 2,100 workers are in DaimlerChrysler AG's Chrysler Group's job security program. Ford had 1,275 in its jobs bank as of Sept. 25. The pending closure of Ford's assembly plant in Loraine, Ohio, could add significantly to that total. Those numbers could swell in coming years as GM and Ford prepare to close more plants. Detroit automakers declined to discuss the programs in detail or say exactly how much they are spending, but the four-year labor contracts they signed with the UAW in 2003 established contribution caps that give a good idea of the size of the expense. According to those documents, GM agreed to contribute up to $2.1 billion over four years. DaimlerChrysler set aside $451 million for its program, along with another $50 million for salaried employees covered under the contract. Ford, which also maintained responsibility for Visteon Corp.'s UAW employees, agreed to contribute $944 million. Delphi pledged to contribute $630 million. In August, however, Delphi Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Robert S. "Steve" Miller said the company spent more than $100 million on its jobs bank program in the second quarter alone. "Can we keep losing $400 million a year paying for workers in the jobs bank and $400 million a year on operations? No, we cannot deal with that indefinitely," Miller said in a recent interview with The Detroit News. "We can't wait until 2007." Guaranteed Employment The jobs bank was established during 1984 labor contract talks between the UAW and the Big Three. The union, still reeling from the loss of 500,000 jobs during the recession of the late 1970s and early 1980s, was determined to protect those who were left. Detroit automakers were eager to win union support to boost productivity through increased automation and more production flexibility. The result was a plan to guarantee pay and benefits for union members whose jobs fell victim to technological progress or plant restructurings. In most cases, workers end up in the jobs bank only after they have exhausted their government unemployment benefits, which are also supplemented by the companies through a related program. Workers go directly into the program and the benefits can last until they are eligible to retire or return to the factory floor. By making it so expensive to keep paying idled workers, the UAW thought Detroit automakers would avoid layoffs. By discouraging layoffs, the union thought it could prevent outsourcing. That strategy has worked but at the expense of the domestic auto industry's long-term viability. American automakers have produced cars and trucks even when there is little market demand for them, forcing manufacturers to offer big rebates and discounts. "Sometimes they just push product on us," said Bill Holden Jr., general manager of Holden Dodge Inc. in Dover, Del., who said this does not go over well with the dealers. "But they've got these contracts with the union." In Detroit's battle against Asian and European competitors that are unencumbered by such labor costs, the job banks have become a major competitive disadvantage. Breaking the banks Analysts say the jobs bank could be a bigger issue than health care in the 2007 contract negotiations, particularly at Ford. It has a younger work force than GM, meaning any workers Ford sends to the bench are likely to stay there for a while. "Ford is under pressure from investors to cut costs," said Roland Zullo, a research scientist at the University of Michigan's Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations. "At the same time, the unions are going to be under pressure to protect jobs." But does the jobs bank make any sense in a climate of shrinking profits and declining market share? While some might envy their life of leisure, workers like Cisco, 56, feel humiliated by the program. "I felt like I was useless -- like I was put out to pasture," he said. Most say they have no interest in retiring -- or spending the rest of their careers doing crossword puzzles. Classes are available, the workers said. They have been invited to take courses on bicycle repair, home wiring and poker. Silk-flower arranging is also available. READ MORE ABOUT HOW THE UAW & AUTO INDUSTRY ARE MAKING TAX PAYERS PAY THE BILL …; Added by Dave Mendoza at 1:05pm on December 12, 2008

Blog Post: Put Your Phone Away: How Screen Time Affects the Quality of Your Sleep: Some may argue that sleeping is one of the best parts of the day. You get into bed, snuggle under the covers, rest your head on a comfortable cushion, and switch off your thoughts for the night.…; Added by Jake Holyoak at 9:22am on April 28, 2022