Matt Charney's Posts - RecruitingBlogs2024-03-28T13:18:23ZMatt Charneyhttps://recruitingblogs.com/profile/MattCharneyhttps://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1526934835?profile=RESIZE_48X48&width=48&height=48&crop=1%3A1https://recruitingblogs.com/profiles/blog/feed?user=0h99b916p1ew2&xn_auth=noTattoos in the Workplace: An Inkfographic.tag:recruitingblogs.com,2016-01-20:502551:BlogPost:19434882016-01-20T13:12:59.000ZMatt Charneyhttps://recruitingblogs.com/profile/MattCharney
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557584542?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557584542?profile=original" width="700" class="align-full"/></a></p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557584542?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557584542?profile=original" width="700" class="align-full"/></a></p>HR Technology Conference: Talking Social Recruiting With SHRMtag:recruitingblogs.com,2014-10-02:502551:BlogPost:18302612014-10-02T20:12:26.000ZMatt Charneyhttps://recruitingblogs.com/profile/MattCharney
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557537639?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-right" height="195" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557537639?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="267"></img></a> I was kind of surprised when my friends over at SHRM reached out to me with a few questions about social recruiting; after all, SHRM is decidedly not a recruiting-focused organization, and that same membership that seems to actively work to block their employees social media access also is, in my experience, anti-social (at least when there's not an open bar involved).…</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557537639?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="200" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557537639?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="267" height="195" class="align-right"/></a>I was kind of surprised when my friends over at SHRM reached out to me with a few questions about social recruiting; after all, SHRM is decidedly not a recruiting-focused organization, and that same membership that seems to actively work to block their employees social media access also is, in my experience, anti-social (at least when there's not an open bar involved). </p>
<p>I was even more surprised when they printed my answers, considering I was honest. But then again, I'm not selling consulting services, so I can safely assert that social recruiting sucks. </p>
<p>Here's the post that <a href="http://www.weknownext.com/blog/hr-technology-q-a-with-matt-charney?utm_content=buffer8ce0b&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer" target="_blank">originally appeared at We Know Next</a> (which they said I could republish, and I'm guessing we have a completely different readership):</p>
<p><em>With the <strong><a href="http://www.hrtechconference.com/">HR Technology Conference</a> (#HRTechConf)</strong> just around the corner, we're inviting our Next Official Bloggers to offer their perspective on how technology is impacting the profession today -- and their predictions for the future.</em></p>
<p><em>The following is a Q & A with <a href="http://www.weknownext.com/author/118">Matt Charney</a>: </em></p>
<p></p>
<hr/><p><strong>Q: Everyone is talking about social recruiting. How important is it for employers to include a social media component in their recruiting strategies and why?</strong></p>
<p>MC: I’m not sure everyone’s talking about social recruiting; I think the people who are actually being successful on social have long ago stopped talking about it and started doing it. I think the whole topic of social recruiting is pretty passé - we’ve pretty much proven after all these years of obsessing about it as an industry that, in fact, it doesn’t deliver as promised.</p>
<p>Social media used to be perceived, I think, as a potential source of hire – and let’s take LinkedIn out of this conversation, since it’s an unfair comparison given their professional focus – we’re seeing between 2-3% of candidates coming from social in every source of hire study out there, a number that has stayed stagnant for the past couple of years. Even though our technologies and systems have developed social functionalities, the evidence is clear: it’s not a great way to source candidates or drive applicants.</p>
<p>I think that not every employer needs to spend time worrying about social – in fact, in most cases, I’d encourage HR to just allow employees to use these networks at work, enabling instead of policing social, which is a low risk, high reward way to actually make social recruiting effective – and that’s by targeting social strategies on existing employees.</p>
<p>In short, over 50% of all external sources of hire come from referrals, and according to Career XRoads data, the average referral is about 400% more likely to get hired than an online applicant with no company connection. But for some reason, we focus our social medis efforts on that giant pool of candidates we’re probably not going to hire. Instead, it’s actually essential to make social media a strategy component not for recruiting, but for retention – and it’s up to HR to target those initiatives at the employees they have, not the ones they want. It’s a way easier population to reach, a captive audience, and a chance for a call to action to actually get answered.<br/> </p>
<p><strong>Q: What about social recruiting makes you most excited for the future of the industry? </strong></p>
<p>MC: When we stop talking about social recruiting and start taking it for granted as one of the new realities of this industry. I’m also excited by the fact that social media is finally making HR pay attention to marketing – and realize that essentially, what they’re doing is recruiting – only they’re going after customers, not candidates. I’ve seen that realization really matter at a lot of companies who have made social work across the enterprise.<br/> </p>
<p><strong>Q: What's your social recruiting prediction/trend for 2015?</strong></p>
<p>MC: The focus is going to shift from tools and platforms and become much more basic, with an emphasis not just on having a presence, but on having a presence that actually generates engagement and creates the kind of content that can start a conversation. We’re seeing social media become more and more a content distribution channel instead of a recruiting channel, and as that focus on storytelling and content continue to move from the margins to the mainstream, I think the focus is going to shift from the medium to the message. And it’s about time, too. <br/> </p>
<p><strong>Q: As technology evolves, what do you think the future of recruiting will look like? Will software programs and computers replace recruiters?</strong></p>
<p>MC: Software and computers won’t replace recruiters, because it’s unlikely you’ll develop an algorithim that can effectively overcome objections, represent a culture, and actually build a relationship with candidates. Even if we get really close, Asimov’s laws (which have worked so far) tell us that we’ll never trust our emotions to robots, and those emotions are what recruiting is all about. Now, payroll and compensation? I’d be worried, because the technology to kill those specialty functions is already here.</p>
<p>The future of recruiting is going to put an emphasis on hiring people for culture fit, not skills, and look at development potential instead of direct experience. We’re consistently seeing screening and matching tools around those formerly subjective soft skills make it much more effective to target candidates who will fit the company, not just the job. I think the future of recruiting is just like its past: it’s all about building relationships, it’s just now, maybe, the tools help us do this at scale and with greater efficiency & efficacy than ever before.<br/> </p>
<p><strong>Q. What do you think is the biggest misunderstanding about social recruiting?</strong></p>
<p>MC: That it works, or that it has to be there. There’s no silver bullet, and in this case, it’s not actually necessary for every business. You don’t have to be there, but if you are, you’ve got to go all in and commit to cranking content and creating engagement, or else you’re just wasting everyone’s time. A close number two: social media isn’t free, if you want to do it right. But if you want it for nothing, you’ll get what you pay for. I promise.</p>
<p> </p>Dude, Where's My Post? A Letter From The Editor.tag:recruitingblogs.com,2014-08-08:502551:BlogPost:18199892014-08-08T17:00:00.000ZMatt Charneyhttps://recruitingblogs.com/profile/MattCharney
<p><img class="align-right" height="153" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557536899?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="281"></img></p>
<p>I’m pretty relaxed about rules in general, and my biggest role as Managing Editor within the Recruiting Blogs community is mostly to referee when the trolls come out from under the bridge (or away from their contingency firm bullpens). The coolest thing about this site is it’s actually pretty self-sustaining and organic. But sometimes, the deus ex machina factor kicks in and I've got to intervene.</p>
<p>Since I'm kind of sick of answering questions about why certain…</p>
<p><img width="300" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557536899?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="281" height="153" class="align-right"/></p>
<p>I’m pretty relaxed about rules in general, and my biggest role as Managing Editor within the Recruiting Blogs community is mostly to referee when the trolls come out from under the bridge (or away from their contingency firm bullpens). The coolest thing about this site is it’s actually pretty self-sustaining and organic. But sometimes, the deus ex machina factor kicks in and I've got to intervene.</p>
<p>Since I'm kind of sick of answering questions about why certain stuff was edited out of a post, or why a particular post was deleted entirely, or anything pertaining to my job as arbiter in chief of the world's last remaining Ning network, I thought a quick post might be the easiest way to remind everyone that we're not LinkedIn Publisher, a<span style="font-size: 13px;">nd we actually have some editorial standards involved in posting on this site.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;">T</span><span style="font-size: 13px;">hey're not hard, but here's the highlight: if you pitch product or open positions, your post is toast. Period. </span></p>
<p><object width="420" height="315" classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="false"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="never"></param><param name="src" value="//www.youtube.com/v/f_SwD7RveNE?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0"></param><param name="allowfullscreen" value="false"></param><param name="wmode" value="opaque"></param><embed wmode="opaque" width="420" height="315" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="//www.youtube.com/v/f_SwD7RveNE?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0" allowscriptaccess="never" allowfullscreen="false"></embed> </object>
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<p><em><strong>The above video is actually better content marketing than most of your biz dev.</strong></em></p>
<p>Here are the three basic ways to be an awesome Recruiting Blogs contributor (and keep my ulcer under control):</p>
<p><b>3. Don’t Suck:</b> It’s pretty simple. If your content is interesting, readable, and written with good enough grammar and syntax to satisfy your average agency recruiter, then it doesn’t matter if you work for a vendor, a search firm or a Fortune 100 employer. If you have something to say about recruiting, particularly if it’s a unique perspective or personal story, then we’ll not only feature the content, we’ll promote the hell out of it.</p>
<p><b>2. Be A Real Person:</b> It’s easy to hide behind an avatar, but even if your copy is the most groundbreaking prose this side of Chaucer, no one wants to read anything after a byline whose profile pic is a company logo or some cutsey name like “IT Staffing Guru.” If it’s not blatantly promotional (see #1) or libelous, I’ll let it stay up, but if you actually want to read “Direct Sponsored Content” then try LinkedIn Pulse. We’re not about that game.</p>
<p>1. <b>Don’t Sell:</b> I’ve spent most of my career cranking content for vendors, but the reason it was somewhat successful was simple. If there’s one way to render content marketing completely ineffective, it’s pitching product or doing anything that’s blatantly promotional. </p>
<p>No one wants to buy from the douchebag who clogs the stream with advertorials featuring more product placement than a primetime sitcom on Fox. Except, of course, for our amazing marketing partners without whose support I'd be living in a van down by the river. You guys rock. </p>
<p>But seriously - cut the crap. There's enough of that in this business as is.</p>
<p></p>Critical Condition: Pulling The Plug On HRtag:recruitingblogs.com,2014-07-30:502551:BlogPost:18183252014-07-30T16:25:03.000ZMatt Charneyhttps://recruitingblogs.com/profile/MattCharney
<p align="center" style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557539242?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-left" height="211" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557539242?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="275"></img></a> People have been foretelling the end of time since pretty much the beginning of it, and most of them are crazy – the ring a bell, stand on the corner in Times Square with a sandwich board and sackcloth kind of crazy.</p>
<p align="center" style="text-align: left;">But then again, some of those people are the foundation for major world…</p>
<p align="center" style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557539242?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="300" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557539242?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="275" class="align-left" height="211"/></a>People have been foretelling the end of time since pretty much the beginning of it, and most of them are crazy – the ring a bell, stand on the corner in Times Square with a sandwich board and sackcloth kind of crazy.</p>
<p align="center" style="text-align: left;">But then again, some of those people are the foundation for major world religions, so this is a pretty high risk, high reward statement:</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><b>Within a decade, HR as an independent, dedicated function will disappear.</b>.</p>
<p>That’s it. HR is basically in Stage 4, and taking a turn for the worse. Guess that’s more prognosis than prophecy, but the point is, the end is drawing near for anyone who thinks that HR is a viable, long-term career choice within an organization. </p>
<p>At least without totally being able to evolve a skill set that can sit outside the narrow, self-defined, self-policed silo stalag that’s so entrenched in most companies today.</p>
<p>If you read HR blogs like this one, two things: 1) you’re a big dork, and God bless you for it. 2) You’re already at the escape hatch for the moment when the countdown to self-destruct hits zero. And if you thought of the Death Star right then, you just proved point one, again. That’s right. Because inaccurate sci-fi allusions are comment gold, and Star Wars makes for great SEO. Dorks.</p>
<p>It means that you’re hungry for information to make yourself a better HR professional and, in turn, hopefully better serve your people. Although I guess a few of you are also likely the root of the problem and are doing this because you’ve finished Sudoku for the day and have the time because, as an “HR Leader,” your actual interaction with people is mostly minimal.</p>
<p>But for the former, read up – although you’ve probably already skipped to the bulleted list, because no one reads anymore. That’s why infographics exist or why USA Today is considered a newspaper (and the #1 newspaper, at that).</p>
<p><object width="420" height="315" classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="false"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="never"></param><param name="src" value="//www.youtube.com/v/meci6_OVyxw?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0"></param><param name="allowfullscreen" value="false"></param><embed wmode="opaque" width="420" height="315" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="//www.youtube.com/v/meci6_OVyxw?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0" allowscriptaccess="never" allowfullscreen="false"></embed> <param name="wmode" value="opaque"></param></object>
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<p>Here are three reasons why HR is doomed for extinction:</p>
<p>1. <b>Pension Planned Obsolescence:</b> Think about an HR Professional. Go ahead, do it. Your image is probably the exact same as is actually statistically verifiable, at least using <a href="http://shrm.org/" target="_blank">SHRM.org</a>’s traffic demographics as a representative sample (which I think it actually is) — overwhelmingly female, skewing heavily towards the 35-55 year old demographic, with disproportionately more on the 55+ end than the 18-34 demo.</p>
<p>If you’ve ever bought advertising or recruited for an exempt position, you already know that market bias exists against the, uh, “Early Bird Special” set. And, as any benefits specialist already knows (and you’re likely among the first to go, so sorry ‘bout that), statistically these trends represent one that’s already headed to extinction, actuarially speaking.</p>
<p>Couple that dying breed with the fact that, well, HR is unsustainable, suffering a STEM sized hemorrhage of new blood due to the fact that there’s just not a lot of mobility when you’re sitting in a highly specialized, non-cross trained cost center, and these gigs have traditionally been pretty cushy. Mostly because HR used to be the ones who decided who got fired.</p>
<p>It’s created, like so much of the workforce, a giant gap between experienced HR professionals and those entering the profession, a situation somewhat exacerbated by the single fact that most schools don’t really offer or promote an HR major, and most of us kind of fall into it by mistake. At least there are whole universities dedicated to math and science (although one could argue a liberal arts college is kind of the HR equivalent).</p>
<p>But if you’ve found yourself here by accident, here’s the good news: you can probably do it again. The first step is to start actually learning the business. That means a relentless focus on analytics, a more transparent, integrated function within the organization, and a relentless pursuit on delivering internal customers the best possible service, if only because those clients might be, if you play your cards right, your next boss.</p>
<p>Which brings us to:</p>
<p>2. <b>Self-Preservation Doesn’t Keep Pace with Evolution</b>: Every dodo can back me up on that one (auk-ward). And you better bet when the first damn Portuguese gun landed, the dodos didn’t stand a chance at controlling Mauritius than HR professionals do at controlling their own fates on an isolated island upon which the rest of the world is rapidly approaching.</p>
<p>There’s a lot of enmity towards HR for its tight grip on the tendrils of an organization, and the fact that by being as generally opaque as possible, HR has built a Big Brother (or Steve Jobs) like mixture of awe bred from fear and lack of comprehension at what it is actually goes on behind those walls.</p>
<p>And it’s done so by relying on total control: HR, after all, not only sets policies and enforces them, acting, in effect, as Judge Dredd but way less bad ass, but also by maintaining a professional distance from the peons, because, let’s face it, no one hates people quite like people-people.</p>
<p>That’s why concepts like employee self-service or back office automation (“But I love my data entry job in payroll!”) scaring the s#%t out of HR folks.</p>
<p>And rightfully so, because it takes power out of their hands and effectively democratizes the employee experience. This fear of the breakdown of bureaucracy is the same reason why HR is so resistant to social media and HR technologies. It’s the fear of extinction, and the need for self-preservation is strong, which is why the dodo clung as hard as it did to every endemic square inch of the island.</p>
<p>But in the end, the result for HR professionals and dodos, assuming they are indeed mutually exclusive concepts (boom), will be the same: if you don’t have the skills to survive in the first place, then your demise is inevitable.</p>
<p>If you’re smart about it, though, you can prove Darwin right (just like science, with an apology to all my evangelical friends out there) and evolve. This means embracing social media and getting to really know the technologies that, like an on-premise ERP, were previously only perfunctory.</p>
<p>Reading a blog is a pretty good start, but even better is trying to bring that knowledge you’re learning back into the organization and turning theory into practice by, you know, actually like talking to employees without having an ulterior motive or going to lunch with one of those workers who secretly hates you.</p>
<p>Unlike Tinkerbell, there will be no fairies dying if you don’t believe – and believe you can not only make an immediate short-term impact, but reverse the lemming like march off the cliff for your professional colleagues at large, simply by getting the hell out of the Ivory Tower and back into the workplace. Be an enabler, not an enforcer.</p>
<p>3. <b>You’re Thinking That None of This Pertains To You And This Article is BS: </b>Called you. Remember: the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem.</p>
<p>And because, inevitably, you will (since, after all, you are in HR), then let me know by leaving a comment in the box below. You know the drill.</p>What I Learned From #SHRM14tag:recruitingblogs.com,2014-07-08:502551:BlogPost:18140222014-07-08T21:09:58.000ZMatt Charneyhttps://recruitingblogs.com/profile/MattCharney
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557532448?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-left" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557532448?profile=original" width="300"></img></a> Sure, the Society of Human Resources Management's annual conference in Orlando was over a couple weeks ago, but in the spirit of late adoption that infused the conference, figured that a stale post was, for the target audience, right on time. It was my fifth straight SHRM conference, and what really struck me this year wasn't what had changed with HR, but rather, the fact…</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557532448?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557532448?profile=original" width="300" class="align-left"/></a>Sure, the Society of Human Resources Management's annual conference in Orlando was over a couple weeks ago, but in the spirit of late adoption that infused the conference, figured that a stale post was, for the target audience, right on time. It was my fifth straight SHRM conference, and what really struck me this year wasn't what had changed with HR, but rather, the fact that nothing has really changed over the last 5 years. Not at SHRM, at least.</p>
<p>Well, that's not entirely true. See, right before the conference, SHRM announced that it was breaking up with HRCI and more or less invalidating the PHR, SPHR and GPHR certifications in favor of their own "competency" based curriculum. When you're a typical HR practitioner, you get freaked out about things like payroll systems and OSHA compliance, so when your entire professional credentialing system gets changed, this tends to qualify as apocalyptic, the meteor headed straight for the dinosaurs who proudly append their signatures with now worthless acronyms like SPHR.</p>
<p>The fact that this was even possible - comments on the merits of SHRM's move notwithstanding - serves as further proof of HR's own admission that it's become something of an archaic relic fighting against the natural forces of time and evolution in a losing struggle for survival. I went to a briefing for volunteer leaders where the head of member relations for SHRM openly apologized for their "handling of the situation," but the anger in the room was like something out of a gothic horror story - a lynch mob boiling over.</p>
<p>SHRM went onto explain that they were "surprised" by the reaction to the news, you know, because anyone outside the practitioner chain objectively thinks that this is all fairly passe and prosaic in the first place. This proves how out of touch this organization has become with a membership that's not all that hard to keep up with, given the absolute stasis of most of their membership. </p>
<p>HR leaders, the target of the conference and this powerful professional trade association's lobbying activity, do everything in their power to resist change and embrace the status quo they more or less created - that telling them their continuing professional education, associated costs and time as well as a notoriously difficult testing process that they'd already invested in were worthless was considered a communications 'ho-hum' shows SHRM has become irrelevant not only to those outside HR, but also to the membership it purports to represent.</p>
<p>SHRM continually cited the need to follow the best practices established by other professional credentialing bodies like the ISE or the AICPA as precedent for this change, but the thing is, in doing so, they more or less admitted that what they've been doing, testing and valuing has been worthless, or at least ineffective enough to burn loads of cash and good will to make a change that, for most members, was superfluous. HRCI, for all its faults, met their needs - despite its commoditization of credits (my BS presentations have actually been certified for CPEs before) as well as dubious practices like selling "lifetime" certifications for cash.</p>
<p>Just like the Big 4 would never decide to replace the CPA with a credential set up by their cabal, or the ISE would never invalidate its professional certifications in favor of a completely new standard of measurement, such a sweeping move would be an inherent possibility, as it would in any established profession. But the fact SHRM can't even figure out what, exactly, HR needs to know these days - much less do - points to the planned obsolescence of an entire function.</p>
<p></p>
<p>And all I have to say is, good riddance.</p>Hitting the Deck: The Problem With Powerpointtag:recruitingblogs.com,2014-07-01:502551:BlogPost:18129222014-07-01T13:08:53.000ZMatt Charneyhttps://recruitingblogs.com/profile/MattCharney
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<p>It’s a widely cited fact, and to me, an unbelievable one: most Americans cite their biggest fear, by a wide margin, as speaking in public. Beyond the incredible insularity and egocentrism of this perspective (because Raiders fans, Anne Coulter and clowns do not, apparently, crack the top 10, and I…</p>
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<p>It’s a widely cited fact, and to me, an unbelievable one: most Americans cite their biggest fear, by a wide margin, as speaking in public. Beyond the incredible insularity and egocentrism of this perspective (because Raiders fans, Anne Coulter and clowns do not, apparently, crack the top 10, and I find these infinitely more terrifying). But apparently, this is what gets our collective psyches in a tizzy – the thought of having to stand before a crowd and give a presentation.</p>
<p>In <a href="http://www.gallup.com/strategicconsulting/163007/state-american-workplace.aspx">a 2012 Gallup poll,</a> the fear of public speaking is apparently at its greatest in a business-related setting, particularly when a superior is present (maybe because people don’t realize that HR is, in fact, spying on their Facebook accounts).</p>
<p>A quick Google search reveals a cottage industry sprung up around overcoming this seemingly insurmountable obstacle of verbal communication, from self-help books to hypnotherapy to ready-to-purchase templates for speeches on every subject imaginable – not to mention SlideShare, the ultimate low-impact source for hitting the decks. </p>
<p>Apparently, Valium just doesn’t cut it these days.</p>
<div>Of course, those petrified by presenting at a meeting or business function neglect some self-evident facts. No one really listens to what you have to say (most are thinking about how much better they could put this lost time to use) and no one wants to be there (unless, of course, it’s a lunch meeting, but after the turkey sandwich is gone, they want to be there even less). Minds wander (particularly if the speaker is more attractive than their spouse or if they abandoned an online sudoku game just prior to the meeting), and those who actually have a pen out are most likely doodling, making a shopping list, or writing an elaborate suicide note, depending on the meeting’s topic and length.</div>
<div>Of course, in my corporate experience, most meetings are actually just to schedule other meetings or clarify previous meetings. This is, on the fun scale, slightly above bubonic plague yet slightly below CSPAN. At least those meetings have real-world repercussions. The average corporate meeting is about as mundane and forgettable as a Merchant-Ivory flick.</div>
<div>But not for the poor guy who actually has to speak. This is life or death. Everyone’s watching, hanging on his or her every word, and come performance review time, this will be the primary indicator of whether that raise is going to happen this year or not. But fortunately, he has a little trick up his sleeve. A kick-butt PowerPoint deck, ready and rearin’ to go.</div>
<div>This is how people compensate for their fear of public speaking; they completely negate having to do it. Why draw attention to yourself when you can easily divert all eyes towards the screen? Why would write a speech when you can neatly present it in bullet points set nicely against an earth-toned backdrop with fun fonts? And why unnecessarily risk losing your place or misspeaking when you can simply read from the screen verbatim?</div>
<div>When PowerPoint was first introduced, it was billed as a way to neatly underscore your main points while making a presentation stand apart (or so the little friendly paper clip told me as he jumped across my screen). And what fun it was; by far the best product Windows ’95 had to offer, except perhaps the original <em>Flight Simulator </em>or <em>Encarta</em>.</div>
<div>Best of all, it was, in those halcyon days, kind of a well kept secret. You could formulate a great looking presentation in under twenty minutes and not everyone was hip to the fact that it was basically the business equivalent of a coloring book – kind of like Prezi is today (it’s got animation! Which was impressive in 1929!)</div>
<div>Now allow me to clarify. I hate PowerPoint. Passionately. I grit my teeth whenever I see that omnipotent slide projector sitting in the middle of a room, warming up. Because at that point in time, the entire purpose of my attendance, of physically being in that meeting, has just been extinguished. The next thirty minutes or two hours will involve systematically jumping from bullet point to bullet point (a device meant, originally, as a talking point to be expounded upon), while the speaker reads exactly what’s written on the screen. PowerPoint no longer supports presentations. It’s too often the presentation itself, a populist’s teleprompter.</div>
<h3>The 3 Kinds of Powerpoint Users</h3>
<div><a href="http://mattcharneydotcom.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/ppt-infographic.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://mattcharneydotcom.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/ppt-infographic.jpg?w=400&h=300&width=400" width="400" class="align-left"/></a>There are three basic types of PowerPoint users that I have identified from hundreds of hours of observation:</div>
<div><strong>1. The Drone:</strong></div>
<div>Every slide is set up in the exact same Spartan fashion, with a corporate logo at the bottom and Times New Roman set against a white backdrop. They generally use the smallest bullet points and have the most content to go over. Coupling a monotone reminiscent of Steven Hawking with the speed of a Sotheby’s auctioneer, they read each slide verbatim, trying to get to the end of the slide show as quickly as possible, skimming over elaborate tables, charts and graphs that likely contain useful, pertinent information.</div>
<div>They only pause to catch their breath when the inevitable “Questions?” slide pops up, the universal signal for ‘thank God this thing is done with.’ </div>
<div>And we know never to ask any. It’s like surviving the Bataan death march and asking to build another bridge, since you’re already there and all.</div>
<div><strong>2. The Thespian:</strong> A variation on the drone, only this person enjoys being in front of a crowd, so they will take as much time as possible going through the talking points. This person is likely to include jokes, alternating transitions between every slide (because there’s nothing to underscore the importance of your presentation like a good star wipe) and as many colors as a Crayola sampler pack. They change fonts whenever possible (believing that Comic Sans is, indeed, subliminally comic), and the overall effect is like reading a ransom note, only slightly more unsettling.</div>
<div>This person will also read the slides word-for-word, but believe that they are fooling their audience by changing their vocal inflections in a completely unnatural and often strained manner, which almost always sounds like they’re reading “Goodnight Moon” to a roomful of kindergartners. The Thespian will also pause for laughter, even when none is readily apparent, and will not surrender the stage until the room applauds, at which point they often offer a broad bow/curtsey, believing this to be original.</div>
<div><strong>3. The Fascist:</strong> The slide isn’t the Fascist’s primary concern. It is the fact that they are controlling the pace of the meeting, and that the huge drop-down projection screen is subordinate to their commands. They often pace across the stage, pausing dramatically in front of the projector so that their shadow is cast in silhouette, which they then admire before resuming. The Fascist almost never has the clicker to move between slides, yet has a subordinate hidden somewhere in the room so that they can yell “Next!” and lo, it will come to pass.</div>
<div>While their tone remains fairly consistent, they will alter the volume of their voice as necessitated by any bold or italicized text. For some reason, bold is always yelled in a booming vibrato, while italics are often enunciated softly, like a conspiratorial secret. This protocol was likely institutionalized in the <em>… for Dummies</em> oeuvre. When the Fascist is finished, they often stand onstage, smugly surveying the room, basking in the superiority that was their presentation.</div>
<div>PowerPoint is the perfect solution for a society weaned on thirty second commercials promising twenty-minute abs. A single slide offers maybe 30 words, three bullet points, and 10 seconds of reading material. Here’s what you should know, in sequence. There is no point to thinking about the content of the slide or challenge its veracity, because someone has already taken care of that. And there is no need to actively listen, because we are presented with a list of pertinent topics in the very first slide, and any deviation from this list would throw the entire enterprise completely out of whack. The last point always holds the promise of a “Q&A,” but there never seems to be any questions, only easy answers, spread out in bullet points.</div>
<div>PowerPoint is a disease, transmitted through b-schools and companies of all sizes, with an almost absolute rate of infection. Because on some dreadful, preordained moment, you will be the person in front of the room, and giving a presentation without PowerPoint is unthinkable. Because if you don’t have slides, do you really have anything important to say?</div>
<div>The answer is yes. And there is a cure. You want to make your presentation stand out? Really be remembered? Have the entire room hanging on your every word?</div>
<div>Do the entire thing without PowerPoint. Say what you’ve got to say. And I guarantee, for once, people might listen. It’s a revolutionary idea, but that’s what it takes to alter the status quo. Just think, if some courageous cubicle drone hadn’t worn jeans to work on a Friday, we’d still all be wearing suits and ties. And that would be almost as uncomfortable as sitting through a two hour long PowerPoint presentation. Almost.</div>The 5 Biggest Lies Recruiters Tell Candidatestag:recruitingblogs.com,2014-06-13:502551:BlogPost:18104482014-06-13T15:16:34.000ZMatt Charneyhttps://recruitingblogs.com/profile/MattCharney
<div class="postContents"><p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557529773?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-left" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557529773?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="200"></img></a> One of the mainstays of the weirdly niched, highly specious world of recruiting-focused content seems to revolve around how candidates can often mislead, misrepresent or downright lie during the hiring process. These cautionary tales act more as aphorisms rather than actionable advice, and while the anecdotes change, the fact is, candidates fall far…</p>
</div>
<div class="postContents"><p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557529773?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="200" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557529773?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="200" class="align-left"/></a>One of the mainstays of the weirdly niched, highly specious world of recruiting-focused content seems to revolve around how candidates can often mislead, misrepresent or downright lie during the hiring process. These cautionary tales act more as aphorisms rather than actionable advice, and while the anecdotes change, the fact is, candidates fall far behind their recruitment counterparts when it comes to misrepresenting themselves and the facts during the hiring process.</p>
<p>With the job market heating up and the balance of power tipping in the candidates’ favor (for the time being, anyways) due to the economic and employment realities inherent to the immutable labor laws of supply and demand, it’s probably time to turn the tables for an honest look at the top lies recruiters tell candidates.</p>
<p>Obviously, these statements are often true and crucially important when communicating with candidates. Most recruiters are honest and upfront with job seekers. </p>
<p>Largely caring and committed, recruiters really care about every candidate. The bad news is that many of the most common put-offs, while usually well-intentioned and largely innocuous, are as integrated with the recruiting process as applicant tracking systems.</p>
<p>The good news? Avoiding these “worst practices” instantly translates into observing best practices, an improved candidate experience, and an easy win for your employment brand.</p>
<h2>5 Biggest Lies Recruiters Tell Candidates</h2>
<p><strong>1. </strong>When a recruiter says: <strong>“I’ll keep you in mind for future opportunities.”</strong> It might really means: “Your resume will sit in our database untouched until you apply for something else. If you’re not right for any of my open reqs, any memory of you ends the moment I hang up this phone.”</p>
<p><em>Best Practice:</em> Tell candidates up front whether you feel there will be other possibilities for them down the line. Offer them an explanation into your rationale. Provide suggestions for relevant training or experience to increase their chance of landing a future role.</p>
<p><strong>2.</strong> When a recruiter says: <strong>“Salary depends on experience; there’s no real set amount.”</strong> It might really mean: “I already have a figure with almost no margin for negotiation. So your expectations are really the sole determinant as to whether this conversation continues.”</p>
<p><em>Best Practice:</em> An important element of every basic phone screen involves learning about a candidate’s motivations in seeking a new opportunity; often, salary issues top this list. While it’s not appropriate to require a candidate to disclose their current compensation or targeted salary during an exploratory screen, it’s crucial to address this directly if the candidate discloses an increase in pay as a primary driver or as non-negotiable. If you’re screening for a specific position and know the range, tell the candidate if the numbers match. Disclose even a slight variance; the candidate, not the recruiter, should determine whether or not there’s a willingness to negotiate for this job. Having this conversation up front can avoid complications later.</p>
<p><strong>3.</strong> When a recruiter says: <strong>“You’ll hear from us either way.” </strong>It might really mean: “We’ll send you a template rejection letter from a blind e-mail address, if you’re lucky,” leaving the candidate to wonder if they’re still in contention.</p>
<p><em>Best Practice:</em> Most applicant tracking systems send an automatic confirmation via e-mail to applicants. Many of these same systems will also send an email to let candidates know when a requisition closes and they are no longer in contention. As an HR manager, adding your name or a personalized message can help make a little effort go a long way. It’s as easy as pressing send. For candidates contacted for a phone screen, it’s a best practice to let them know directly if they’re not selected. If they took the time to follow up and answer questions, common courtesy suggests you should do the same. It’s OK to turn a job seeker down professionally; not informing a candidate about it is not.</p>
<p><strong>4.</strong> When a recruiter says: <strong>“We’re interested, but we’re still looking at other candidates.” </strong>It might really mean: “An offer’s been extended to someone else, and we’re really hoping they’ll accept so we don’t have to go to Plan B: you.”</p>
<p><em>Best Practice:</em> Be upfront about where the search stands. If there are some outstanding questions or concerns surrounding a candidate, let them know; there’s a good chance they’ll be able to provide information to inform a pending decision. If the hiring manager is delaying making an offer for reasons that have nothing to do with the candidate, make sure they know exactly what those are and the timeframe. If you don’t know this information, let the candidate know the next time you’ll speak with the hiring manager and follow up with both. Status quo is almost always better than no status at all.</p>
<p><strong>5.</strong> When a recruiter says: <strong>“I was passed your name by a mutual contact who asked to remain confidential.” </strong>It might really mean: “I found your information online.”</p>
<p><em>Best Practice:</em> This line remains incredibly common when engaging candidates for the first time. While candidates show increasing willingness to speak with someone based off a referral, it’s important to let a candidate know how you developed the information to contact them. This ensures active job seekers know what’s effective while passive candidates stay informed about the visibility of information. This information helps recruiters and employers know which resources are most effective to make more informed decisions when establishing and executing search strategies.</p>
<p><em>What are some lies you tell prospects? Are there ways to be more upfront with them?</em></p>
<p><em><a href="http://humancapitalist.com/5-common-lies-recruiters-tell-candidates/" target="_blank">Read more</a> at the Human Capitalist</em></p>
<p></p>
</div>Social Recruiting & Employer Branding at #SBrandCamptag:recruitingblogs.com,2014-06-10:502551:BlogPost:18097752014-06-10T21:00:00.000ZMatt Charneyhttps://recruitingblogs.com/profile/MattCharney
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557534404?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-left" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557534404?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="200"></img></a> I think a lot of my work was inspired by <a href="http://thecynicalgirl.com/punk-rock-hr-now-part-of-recruitingblogs-com/">Punk Rock HR</a>, which was the only recruiting related blog I actually read when I was actually recruiting; I didn't want some pedantic professional "thought leadership" in the few minutes I had between meetings, interviews and phone screens. The reason…</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557534404?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="200" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557534404?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="200" class="align-left"/></a>I think a lot of my work was inspired by <a href="http://thecynicalgirl.com/punk-rock-hr-now-part-of-recruitingblogs-com/">Punk Rock HR</a>, which was the only recruiting related blog I actually read when I was actually recruiting; I didn't want some pedantic professional "thought leadership" in the few minutes I had between meetings, interviews and phone screens. The reason I loved that blog - and the various iterations that have followed - was because there was a clear and distinct voice that wasn't afraid to state the obvious, call out the asinine and undermine the conventional - and it came from a real person.</p>
<p><a href="http://laurieruettimann.com/">Laurie Ruettimann</a>, for me, was the voice of that part of HR that still cared about humans beyond their utility as a resource, the part that wasn't afraid to be snarky or subversive when they stopped being HR and started being, well, human beings instead. The kind I got along with the best at work, and the kind I learned work best from. </p>
<p>The accidental recruiters, the coincidental generalists, the existential specialists, those smart enough to have gotten world class educations and world class experiences, but not smart enough to major in something actually applicable in the world of work. Which, in this gig, is most of us.</p>
<p>That's the part of HR and recruiting I love - the part that's working behind the booths at SHRM, not the part that hangs out in the certification lounge and feigns indignation when speakers say the word "shit" (to cite personal experience). It's a part I didn't really know existed beyond the pocket of weirdos on my team, and one I wouldn't have found if it wasn't for the fact that Laurie decided to start blogging.</p>
<p>This led me to others: <a href="https://twitter.com/joelcheesman">Joel Cheesman</a>, <a href="http://www.talentanarchy.com">Talent Anarchy</a> (Jason Lauritsen & Joe Gerstandt), <a href="http://www.fistfuloftalent.com">Kris Dunn</a> and <a href="http://www.timsackett.com">Tim Sackett</a>, to name a few of the OGs of this now over saturated, over commoditized content marketing market that places a higher value on volume than voice - although the best in the business still seem to demand a premium, probably because their bylines have become brands better than most of the HR and recruiting vendors they write about or work with.</p>
<p>In short, Laurie was a "brand ambassador" for the badasses in HR, and one of the key reasons I started turning my writing from screenplays into snapshots from this weird world of corporate talent acquisition I randomly found myself thrust into until the whole writing thing worked out. And thanks largely to Laurie's precedent, it's that weird world that ultimately helped me find a career as a writer.</p>
<p>That's why I was so thrilled to be a part of the panel Laurie moderated last week, "<a href="http://www.summerbrandcamp.com/agenda">Social Recruiting and Branding for Employers</a>" at the <a href="http://www.summerbrandcamp.com">2014 Summer Brand Camp</a> (#SBrandCamp) in Dallas. I was way out of my league next to the head of recruiting for the Cheesecake Factory and the head of product strategy for one of the premier HR tech brands in the foodservice industry, but in a room full of recruiting and marketing leaders who actually represent some of the biggest brands on the planet (think: Denny's, Taco Bell, Sodexho), the normal "brand ambassador" talking points were rendered moot. After all, when you've got a talking Chihuahua or a brand that's got an illuminated sign on almost every corner of the country, you're doing OK on the brand ambassadorship to begin with.</p>
<p>So in rethinking my schtick when the topic of how to "empower" brand ambassadors (read: deputize employees to do our work for us or at least let us leverage their networks) during this session, I had something of an epiphany, because in the past, my pat answer about brand ambassadors was, simply, that every employee was effectively a brand ambassador in every external interaction, and social was merely a medium to amplify those interactions.</p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;">But here's the thing: telling recruiters how to train brand ambassadors is like telling accounting how to balance a checkbook. Being a brand ambassador is the entire point of recruiting, and done well, its entire competitive advantage.</span></p>
<p>One of the questions Laurie asked the panel was which channels worked best for sourcing candidates, and the answer, for me, at least, mimics the same ones that, in aggregate, are our top sources of hire. These start with referrals, followed by job boards and agencies; social media, in fact, lags far behind "traditional" recruiting sources significantly, at between 2-3% of all external hires.</p>
<p>Tracing the source of every top source of how organizations make hires all leads back to a single core function: recruitment. Recruiters have relied on referrals well before social, and have always been the arbiters of the referral process.</p>
<p>I asked the Brand Camp crowd how many of them searched their ATS or HCM before posting job description when they open a req, something only 2 out of 50 attendees actually do as part of their recruiting process, meaning that in almost every scenario, no matter how strong a talent brand or social recruiting presence an employer has, the people who get end up getting hired come through just-in-time recruiting.</p>
<p>In all cases, have their hiring process overseen, facilitated and often decided by in-house recruiters and talent acquisition professionals - even if that's just getting a pre-determined hire through the compliant opening and closing of a requisition.<span style="font-size: 13px;">No matter how they get there, the first interaction candidates almost unilaterally have with an organization, either by submitting a resume (active) or being proactively engaged by an employer (passive), is with someone in recruiting. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;">Even if they've spent hours engaging with your careers-related social accounts, chances are that you're the first real person at that company they'll actually interact with around careers in a meaningful way, and the first person who they'll really get to know there outside of the employee who might have referred them.</span></p>
<p>The relationship you have with the candidate, the way you communicate and interact with them during the hiring process, the trust you build before ever making an offer, all represent the most meaningful forms of employment related brand ambassadorship - and will often be the difference in whether or not a candidate will consider a company or even if they'll accept an offer to become your newest coworker. </p>
<p>That's because recruiting, at the end of the day, comes down to being a brand ambassador - and recruiters are still the most important brand ambassadors out there, because being the face of the company isn't just a core competency - it's the whole point of the job.</p>If I Were 22: In Which LinkedIn Provides A Prompttag:recruitingblogs.com,2014-05-30:502551:BlogPost:18080362014-05-30T20:00:57.000ZMatt Charneyhttps://recruitingblogs.com/profile/MattCharney
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557531149?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-left" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557531149?profile=original" width="259"></img></a> <span style="font-size: 13px;">LinkedIn seems to be pimping this #IfIWere22 thing kind of hard, which is cute, considering that basically puts this retrospective series already out of the most desired online demographic. But for those Golden Girls aficionados, 60 Minutes enthusiasts and Murder She Wrote fans who think that this is a social network, 22 sounds like the…</span></p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557531149?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557531149?profile=original" width="259" class="align-left"/></a><span style="font-size: 13px;">LinkedIn seems to be pimping this #IfIWere22 thing kind of hard, which is cute, considering that basically puts this retrospective series already out of the most desired online demographic. But for those Golden Girls aficionados, 60 Minutes enthusiasts and Murder She Wrote fans who think that this is a social network, 22 sounds like the beginning of time.</span></p>
<p>And for most, it is the traditional age where you start your career, although that's increasingly becoming more difficult, the result of too much competition, too few jobs and a definite trend towards freelance and contract over employment in the workforce.</p>
<p>I was lucky at 22, graduating just before the real estate bubble burst and allowing me to get just enough experience before the recession to land on my feet in the turbulent market after Merrill, but back then, people still sent resumes by fax and filled out paper applications. It was a different world, where Kim Kardashian's biggest claim to fame was a taped tryst with Brandy's brother and you could have your choice of gigs simply by graduating with a good degree.</p>
<p>While, according to consultants selling services or bloggers selling BS, both 22 year olds and myself constitute "Gen Y," and it wasn't all too long ago I actually was 22, I recognize the fact that there's a pretty big divide in digital adoption, macroeconomic conditions and the overall jobs market between today's college grads and the good old class of ott five.</p>
<p>But I guess if I had a Delorean that could crank up to 88 MPH, and I could go back to the middle of the last decade and give myself some career advice in hindsight, this is probably what I'd say:</p>
<p><strong>1. Don't Play The Game: </strong>There are a ton of recent college grads from good schools out there who are smart, hard working, articulate and eager to learn and grow their careers. On paper, you look the same as everyone else; in interviews, you answer questions the same as everyone else, sitting there uncomfortably in your recently purchased suits and silk power ties.</p>
<p>To stand out, you've got to break the rules. At 22, I already had landed a pretty cool gig at Comedy Central by writing a cover letter in the form of a Mad Lib, but for some reason, once those internships turned into a job as a recruiter, I was measured by the same metrics as everyone else, and stuck to the same script. I did this for years - conforming to what I thought I should look like, sound like, act like at some of the biggest brands in America.</p>
<p>And yeah, it would have been dumb to roll up with a gangsta lean at the Walt Disney Company, the fact that I tried to play company politics without knowing the rules or gladhand my way based on an org chart instead of people I'd actually connect with probably cost me in the long run. I got the brand reputation, but not the lasting relationships, that come with being yourself at work and looking inside and around instead of constantly up and out.</p>
<p><strong>2. </strong><strong>There Are No Experts: </strong>Knowledge has become a commodity in the age of social media, and everyone out there claims to know what you need to do to get the job of your dreams, the right career at the right company, paid what you deserve, or whatever other career related insecurities you might be able to sell services or display ads to.</p>
<p>But in a world where there are ninjas lurking in the shadows, gurus trying to peddle personal branding and experts at nothing more than gaming Klout and making lists designed explicitly for linkbaiting and influencer promotion on B2B websites, beware.</p>
<p>Trust yourself, and always question anyone who claims to have a clue about careers - no one knows what they actually want to be when they're grown up, even when they are grown up, so just go with your gut and ignore those whose livelihoods depend on creating the kind of conformity we've already covered as being destructive to a career.</p>
<p><strong>3. Happiness Is A Warm Gun: </strong>At 24, I had a corner office in a studio with a ball return and an admin outside - nameplate and everything. I thought, at the time, that would be the case forever. It was a fleeting illusion - and again, even at the next studio, my career might have been my life, but the only thing that's going to be consistent throughout your career is you. Don't be too dogmatic about your company's vision, values or any of that BS - they want to make profits and return shareholder value, and at the end of the day, that might come into a direct collision course with your job.</p>
<p>The days of getting a gold watch are long gone, even though we're apparently the ones who want a trophy for everything, but there's no such thing as job security, a pension, or even the guarantees that at-will employment and mandatory arbitration negate - like the promise of a paycheck next week. They don't even need cause.</p>
<p>So don't get too swept up in anything except doing your best, and doing it by being yourself. You do that, you'll be golden.</p>The Galactic Confederacy: Why LinkedIn Is Stealing The Legal Playbook from Lord Xenutag:recruitingblogs.com,2014-05-15:502551:BlogPost:18049982014-05-15T13:01:31.000ZMatt Charneyhttps://recruitingblogs.com/profile/MattCharney
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557531555?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-left" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557531555?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="300"></img></a> In January, LinkedIn filed a <a href="http://www2.bloomberglaw.com/public/desktop/document/LinkedIn_Corporation_v_Does_1_through_10_inclusive_Docket_No_513c/1">17 page complaint</a> targeting unknown defendants in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. This move was designed explicitly to force Amazon Web Services to discover, under subpoena,…</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557531555?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="300" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557531555?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="300" class="align-left"/></a>In January, LinkedIn filed a <a href="http://www2.bloomberglaw.com/public/desktop/document/LinkedIn_Corporation_v_Does_1_through_10_inclusive_Docket_No_513c/1">17 page complaint</a> targeting unknown defendants in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. This move was designed explicitly to force Amazon Web Services to discover, under subpoena, exactly which IP address was associated with the payment records and/or the ISPs connected to those addresses. </p>
<p>This allowed LinkedIn to track down, in the only legal way possible, exactly which defendant, as the suit claimed, created thousands of fake profiles on LinkedIn for the purported purpose of running automated scraping programs. In an amended complaint <a href="http://gigaom.com/2014/04/01/linkedin-names-company-that-used-bots-to-steal-profiles-for-competing-recruiter-service/">filed in late March</a>, LinkedIn submitted an amended complaint identifying the discovered Defendants, a common practice in data breach litigation.</p>
<p>That trail of IP addresses, and subsequent amended complaint, identified <a href="http://www.hiringsolved.com">HiringSolved</a> and its founder, Shon Burton, as being associated with the billing records discovered under subpoena, listed under Burton's home mailing address in San Francisco. The damages claimed by LinkedIn, to quote Nicole Greenberg Strecker, Esq. in <a title="LinkedIn Lawsuit: You Can Run, But You Can’t Hide" href="http://recruitingdaily.com/linkedin-lawsuit-truth-nothing-truth/">her post on the original filing</a>, include, in layman's terms, "various allegations to the disruption of the accuracy and integrity of the site because of the fake profiles, strain[ed] access to servers caused by the scraping programs and the time and resources wasted responding to the Defendant's activity."</p>
<p>Accordingly, LinkedIn is seeking an injunction against this barely two year old startup which received its first million dollars in funding only in November, according to its <a href="http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/hiringsolved">CrunchBase</a> profile, claiming the use of these scraping technologies not only violates copyright and user privacy laws, but that its violation of LinkedIn's nebulous and ever changing (yet always arbitrary) Terms of Service and sweeping <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/legal/user-agreement">User Agreement</a>.</p>
<p>LinkedIn has long been the technology equivalent, legally speaking, of the Church of Scientology, using scare tactics, deep pockets and comparatively endless resources to bully, harass and intimidate previous start-ups, such as Sell Hack (<a title="Data Security Risks Look More Like Your Employee than a Basement Hacker" href="http://www.recruitingtools.com/evil-empire-linkedin-lawsuit-set-dangerous-double-standard/">click here</a> for our coverage on that legal action's dangerous double standard), hoping that Goliath could crush David with legal fees, intimidation and what amounts to restraint of trade. In that case, Sell Hack was built explicitly to automate a data privacy loophole in Rapportive, the same tool that is responsible for scraping your Google account and suggesting, for example, you connect with relatives and friends who appear in your address book but not in LinkedIn's user records.</p>
<p>But Hiring Solved is doing something pretty amazing - and pretty important. They're calling the evil empire on their bluff, and are refusing to settle for LinkedIn's original "settlement" offer, disclosed by a company insider as being, more or less, either shut up shop or face the endless litigation and exorbitant costs associated with fighting such actions. I spoke on the record with <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/mattekstrom">Matt Ekstrom</a>, a co-founder and key executive team member at HiringSolved, about the lawsuit, and the precedent setting stand HiringSolved is taking to combat the money in Mountain View.</p>
<p>"We are fighting, no ifs ands or buts about it, we are full steam ahead fighting it. It's very clear, to me anyway, and my personal belief that this isn't about public data or any of the things they mention in the suit. It's that we're a competitor in all areas, and that's already been a threat to their long term growth."</p>
<h3>Tort Reform: 3 Delicious Reasons To Keep Reading Our Coverage</h3>
<p><br/>We'll publish the full interview with Ekstrom and analysis of this news, but for now, here are the headlines - and implications - for this suit, which extend way past the niched and nuanced disciplines of sourcing and recruiting.</p>
<p><strong>1. Hiring Solved Is Not Alone In The Way They Utilize LinkedIn. What is unique is they have successfully monetized their solution. </strong>Which, by the way, is pretty cool. <a href="http://recruitingdaily.com/hiringsolved/">Check out</a> this review from Dean DaCosta for a peek at the actual product and you'll see why LinkedIn is rightfully scared of Hiring Solved's capabilities that extend the kind of aggregated profile search outside of tech and into all industries, verticals and markets. LinkedIn has been able to build to an almost absolute market saturation within the corporate talent acquisition vertical on the strength of their database, but now must compete on price point.</p>
<p><strong>2. LinkedIn Records Are Public, Not Proprietary, Data:</strong> Most vendors talking about their "integration" with LinkedIn will point to some specially configured API which allows LinkedIn to turn off the access to that data - and consequently the core functionality of most products reliant on LinkedIn - at any time, with or without notice. And, given those who have spoken off the record about receiving these notices, usually comes well after the fact and via the US Postal Service. What makes Hiring Solved unique is that they are simply indexing publically available information already available to anyone who knows how to do a peel back or X Ray search - this is stuff that would maybe have seemed cool at SourceCon 2008 - but are doing so without LinkedIn's API. Therefore, they have created a competitive marketplace for LinkedIn data, but by extension, also represent the first test case in which ownership of factual information - like a job title or current employer - will be held against existing case law precedent. If LinkedIn is successful, then they will have created a vertical monopoly on your information - and likely would challenge the existing business models of Google, Indeed, or really any CRM tool on the market.</p>
<p><strong>3. It's Not HiringSolved's Fault. </strong>LinkedIn recently trumpeted reaching 300 million members, a number which, when questioned, subjected me to the same sort of bullying techniques and arguing over situational minutiae that, let me say, if wasting someone's time and resources with spurious and specious activity (as HiringSolved is accused of doing in the complaint as a cause for injunction), then I've got a fairly well documented test case in my inbox. This company has consistently dodged direct questions about its use of member data, deferred blame to third parties and failed to be a good corporate citizen in their quest for turning your property and their data into shareholder profits - one that this site has long documented, and one that, hopefully, this suit will expose.</p>
<p>The truth is, because Hiring Solved isn't using LinkedIn's core platform or API to aggregate their records - they're using data that's publically available. And any trained sourcer could easily obtain any information that they are claiming is proprietary (only, that is, if it doesn't help their traffic and usage statistics, as SEO is wont to do). That means that, should LinkedIn triumph - which, they well may, considering the favorable venue and billions in potential resources to achieve nothing more than a pyrrhic victory - they're also claiming responsibility for the misallocation, misuse and data breach (not to mention international privacy and Safe Harbor laws) of 300 million individual people, because they are on record as stating that registrants and active users are, essentially, the same, at least to your HR tech buyer and the SEC (unless they're on mobile, but that's not the point).</p>
<p>What LinkedIn is saying is that they are single handedly responsible for the largest documented user security breach this side of Snowden, and that's OK, because that's just business, and they can use member data - like APIs - however they damn well please. After all, that's why they have a user agreement to protect them - but certainly not the integrity of a company who claims to put users first, but continually does nothing except violate the trust of those same users. Which might be why they have to rely on sanctioned solutions like their recent Bullhorn integration to at least feign propriety, but turns out, they've got some mutual friends - and channel sales opportunities.</p>
<p>Stay tuned, because this is more than a post - it's a precedent that will, if nothing else, force LinkedIn to finally disclose, on the record, how they store, use, allocate, sell, appropriate and repackage your personal information so that it can be 'scraped' into another system like HiringSolved in the first place.</p>
<p><strong><a href="http://recruitingdaily.com/linkedin-hiringsolved-care-even-youre-recruiting/" target="_blank">Read more</a> awesome stuff about LinkedIn over at Recruiting Daily.</strong></p>
<p> </p>Staffing Meets Social: Why LinkedIn Is Suddenly Bullish on Third Party Recruitingtag:recruitingblogs.com,2014-05-13:502551:BlogPost:18043922014-05-13T21:20:50.000ZMatt Charneyhttps://recruitingblogs.com/profile/MattCharney
<p style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://recruitingdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Social-Icon.png" target="_blank"><img class="align-left" src="http://recruitingdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Social-Icon.png?width=165" width="165"></img></a> When Bullhorn <a href="http://recruitingdaily.com/bullhorn-s-release-hits-bullseye/">radically revamped</a> their product suite with a sleek new user experience designed explicitly to create end user efficiencies recently, it was a clear signal that the technology gap between third party and corporate recruiting systems was radically narrowing. The cost of…</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://recruitingdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Social-Icon.png" target="_blank"><img src="http://recruitingdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Social-Icon.png?width=165" width="165" class="align-left"/></a>When Bullhorn <a href="http://recruitingdaily.com/bullhorn-s-release-hits-bullseye/">radically revamped</a> their product suite with a sleek new user experience designed explicitly to create end user efficiencies recently, it was a clear signal that the technology gap between third party and corporate recruiting systems was radically narrowing. The cost of entry, including on-site implementation, configuration and testing, of most enterprise grade systems made legacy platforms a luxury limited strictly to big brands with big budgets. </p>
<p style="text-align: left;">That left the staffing market largely untouched, and Bullhorn has long been <a title="Social Recruiting Platform Bullhorn Reach Hits Milestone by Signing on More Than 35,000 Recruiters" href="http://recruitingdaily.com/social-recruiting-platform-bullhorn-reach-hits-milestone-by-signing-on-more-than-35000-recruiters/">one of the only technology vendors</a> explicitly innovating for the third party recruiter - a fact that has allowed them to acquire an impressive market share, particularly after acquiring Maxhire and Sendouts, their two biggest competitors for agency systems spend.</p>
<p>Last week, Bullhorn <a href="http://www.bullhorn.com/news-and-press/press-releases/bullhorn-and-linkedin-team-streamline-recruiter-workflow">announced that it had teamed up</a> with LinkedIn on an official integration between LinkedIn Recruiter and the Bullhorn applicant tracking and candidate relationship management suites, news that the gap between agency and internal had, technologically speaking, had finally been closed. According to a Bullhorn spokesperson,</p>
<blockquote>"Users of the Corporate and Enterprise editions of the Bullhorn ATS/CRM who use LinkedIn Recruiter Corporate or Professional Services edition will be able to view a candidate or client's LinkedIn records within Bullhorn. And while in LinkedIn Recruiter, Bullhorn ATS/CRM users will be able to see whether or not the LinkedIn contact has a record in Bullhorn, via an "In Bullhorn badge. Eventually the integration will include bulk linking and InMail viewing capabilities, which will make this whole process very seamless."</blockquote>
<p><br/>In other words, LinkedIn is finally entering the agency ATS and CRM market, and also acknowledged the key that the often snubbed third party recruiter represents to their continued growth and viability. The fact that they chose to make this inevitable, and surprisingly late, market move as a partnership with another system rather than as a pure, proprietary play speaks not only to the strength of Bullhorn's system and share of market, but also to the fact that LinkedIn has finally recognized they're serious about serving the staffing market.</p>
<p><a href="http://recruitingdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Screen-Shot-2014-05-06-at-2.40.53-PM.png" target="_blank"><img src="http://recruitingdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Screen-Shot-2014-05-06-at-2.40.53-PM-1024x602.png?width=750" width="750" class="align-center"/></a></p>
<p><b>Staffing, Social & Systems: A 3rd Party Invitation</b></p>
<p><a href="http://recruitingdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/apapas_0.png" target="_blank"><img src="http://recruitingdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/apapas_0.png?width=245" width="245" class="align-left"/></a>Recruiting Daily had the chance to speak with Bullhorn CEO <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/artpapas">Art Papas</a> ahead of last week's announcement, news which represents, for Papas at least, the realization of a long-term vision. "The integration is something I've wanted to do for a long time; it's something the product team over at LinkedIn has wanted to do for a long time," Papas said. "We've got a great relationship with their partnership and business development teams and this is something we've wanted to do for a very long time."</p>
<p>Papas pointed out the fact that, for many recruiters, the LinkedIn profile has become an equally ubiquitous tool for dispositioning or qualifying candidates as a resume, and rightfully so. The first iteration of the integration aligns with Papas' stated strategy of building the LinkedIn integration intuitively and inobtrusively, defining places in Bullhorn's application where users would otherwise have to leave the system and turn to LinkedIn.</p>
<p>"If you're searching and you find a resume, then you want to see LinkedIn," Papas said. Conversely, if you're searching LinkedIn and find a candidate, you want to know if they're in Bullhorn and have access to their record quickly." In other words, rather than relying on a point solution for LinkedIn integration, the integration here is built directly into the system of record itself - adding utility to the thousands of staffing firms and third party recruiting agencies already paying for both a Bullhorn and LinkedIn Recruiter license, saving time and streamlining searches.</p>
<p>Future releases of the integration already on the roadmap include synching InMail with Bullhorn's e-mailing capabilities to track, monitor and measure outreach or engagement efforts. This also solves a longstanding need for the InMail product, which happens outside the system of record and can't be tracked or tied to a candidate's activity record. Although, having analytics might just expose the less than impressive InMail open rate, long lambasted by recruitment marketers and direct employers alike.</p>
<p>This same capability to track searches and LinkedIn activity directly in an ATS also means that this integration has a strong selling point in that, finally, LinkedIn meets OFCCP documentation and reporting requirements for Bullhorn users - albeit a small sliver of the staffing segment, that's still a big deal. With Bullhorn's CRM capabilities, the ability to align campaigns, track responses and integrate candidate records with those on LinkedIn fill a huge hole in reporting capabilities for recruitment advertising - and will likely result in smarter strategies for segmentation, spend and source of hire.</p>
<p>The release, according to Papas, will only be available to those users who've already migrated to Bullhorn S, and will not integrated for Maxhire or Sendouts users, which might be an additional carrot for those users still on those systems which Bullhorn seems bullish to sunset, but one that inevitably would complicate the deployment's speed and flexibility. "It makes sense to put this integration on S Release," Papas said, noting that a third of Bullhorn's customers have already switched to the new system, and the company is continuing to roll out development and ramp up deployment in the coming months. The LinkedIn integration, he says, is symbolic of an increased commitment to innovation, coming only 3 months on the heels of the company's most ambitious product launch to date.</p>
<p>"When you think about recruiters, we know from listening to our customers that they really rely on LinkedIn and Bullhorn," Papas said, "And we know that we can really wow them simply by saving them massive amounts of time. When we show this to customers, their reaction is almost always, 'that's awesome,' and when that's the reaction, good things will happen. Customers hire us to make our lives easier - and now that we've done this, we've got to keep trumping it. LinkedIn is a start, but we know that we have to continue to innovate and do cool things which continue to delight our customers."</p>
<p><strong><a href="http://recruitingdaily.com/bullhorn/" target="_blank">Read more</a> at RecruitingDaily.com.</strong></p>Racial Profiling Aggregation: Meet Entelo Diversitytag:recruitingblogs.com,2014-04-30:502551:BlogPost:18022952014-04-30T21:00:00.000ZMatt Charneyhttps://recruitingblogs.com/profile/MattCharney
<p align="center" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://recruitingdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/etsy.jpg" target="_blank"><img class="align-left" src="http://recruitingdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/etsy-233x300.jpg?width=233" width="233"></img></a></span> <span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.5em;">Sure, only 47% of the American workforce over the age of 16 are women (a gender disparity that’s been gradually closing over the past decade), but you wouldn’t know that from the looks of your average HR department. </span>There’s a reason we…</p>
<p style="text-align: left;" align="center"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://recruitingdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/etsy.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://recruitingdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/etsy-233x300.jpg?width=233" width="233" class="align-left"/></a></span><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.5em;">Sure, only 47% of the American workforce over the age of 16 are women (a gender disparity that’s been gradually closing over the past decade), but you wouldn’t know that from the looks of your average HR department. </span>There’s a reason we often refer to the profession, collectively, as HR ladies (see left, coming soon in the <a href="https://shrmstore.shrm.org/%E2%80%8E">SHRM Store</a>): <a href="http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat11.htm">according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics</a>, 72.4% of all human resources workers in 2012, a number that jumps to a whopping 80% for compensation and benefits specialists. HR is second only to primary school teachers in terms of gender representation within a job function.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">And, while they might not often lay claim to the title of early adopters, HR workers have beaten the rest of their corporate counterparts in shattering the glass ceiling, with a whopping 71.9% female representation in HR management and leadership roles.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">In the perverse logic of HR compliance, however, that means that this is, in fact, one of the most diverse professions. HR, while largely tasked with ensuring compliance with AA/EEOC and other employment regulations, has historically been one of diversity’s biggest internal champions, turning it into a ubiquitous focus of many company’s talent strategies and workforce management plans.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Which means that it’s also a stated core value of almost every company, since the overwhelming majority of C-Suite executives are men, and denying diversity is never a good idea when you’re the (overwhelmingly white) guy in charge.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"> Just ask Donald Sterling.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"> HR, obviously, is an anomaly; by contrast, only 26.1% of professionals in computer science were women, according to BLS data. Within this subset, only 19.1% are the most prized technical recruiting quarry: programmers and developers. Not that women are the only underrepresented population in the technology sector; only 12% of programmers are African American or Latino, <a href="http://www.govtech.com/education/National-Movement-Targets-Lack-of-Women-Minorities-in-Computing.html">according to</a> the National Center for Women In Technology.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">But what looks like a diversity problem in programming and tech is, by the same rules that make women count as diversity candidates in benefits-related jobs, anything but. In fact, <a href="http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_22094415/asian-workers-now-dominate-silicon-valley-tech-jobs">50.1% of all Silicon Valley professionals</a> in 2010 were Asian, up from only 38.7% in 2000 – meaning that, in fact, the occupation is making dramatic progress towards being HR’s definition of “diverse."</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">But for the vendors selling into those HR ladies, that apparently isn’t quite enough to satisfy the insatiable desire to make their workforce into an ad for the United Colors of Benetton. Enter <a href="http://www.entelo.com">Entelo</a>.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: left;"><b><a href="http://recruitingdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/unnamed.png"><img class="alignright wp-image-9374" alt="unnamed" src="http://recruitingdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/unnamed.png" width="666" height="372"/></a>Entelo Diversity: A Big Data Approach to Reverse Racism</b></h3>
<p style="text-align: left;">That long introduction should serve to provide context for a product announcement that, rare among any of the snooze news that dominates the recruiting technology space, its founders acknowledge is controversial, and rightfully so. Also, because you have to be really careful talking about issues involving race, unless it's done under the guise of diversity, which somehow creates sweeping categories without the context of culture - historical heritages reduced to a check box on a job application.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Meet <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/atwork/2014/04/30/can-this-algorithm-find-hires-of-a-certain-race/">Entelo Recruiter</a>, the world’s first racist and sexist algorithm – and by the way, racist and sexist don’t necessarily imply a pejorative, but rather, a bias towards one protected class over the other. Which, by their own admission, seems pretty much the entire case use for this product, which the profile aggregation company announced in a press release this morning.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">“Entelo Diversity uses a proprietary algorithm to find candidates whose social profiles indicate a high probability of meeting a specific gender or ethnicity as well as candidates who may have previous military experience,” according to the release.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">I spoke with Entelo CEO <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/jonbischke">Jon Bischke</a> prior to product launch, who indicated that while many of the factors in determining the algorithm are proprietary, the product more or less uses stereotypes under the guise of predictive analytics to filter, with around a 95% success rate, candidates’ gender, veteran status or race depending on their aggregated social information.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Some of the examples cited by Bischke include the assumption that being an alum of a historically black college or university are likely to make the candidate African American, or that if a candidate is a female, she’s likely to be in a sorority, or if they have a social profile with the word “Marine,” or a title like “Sergeant,” they’re likelier to be a veteran.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">This, apparently, required a lot of programmers and “big data” to figure out – but the good news is, Entelo is meeting a market need by more or less automating good faith efforts by saving recruiters the trouble of, you know, taking the time to look at the picture on one of those said social profiles or even looking at their name to determine whether it’s likely that the candidate is male or female.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">“We don’t want the tool to be used in a discriminatory fashion,” Bischke said, “We built this tool to help find more diverse candidates in situations where an under-representation exists.”</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Bischke notes that Entelo, as a sourcing point solution, is not an applicant tracking system, meaning that while this tool will ostensibly help employers meet compliance requirements, it is not a system of record for the documentation and dispositioning required by statutes like the OFCCP.</p>
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</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Entelo Diversity has been vetted by a number of employment attorneys and compliance experts prior to its release, Bischke noted, ensuring the legality of the solution. In researching this article, three independent licensed employment attorneys, as well as a labor law expert, confirm that, in fact, Entelo Diversity is compliant as an independent solution.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">This obviously overcomes the obvious red flags (and eyebrows) this controversial product will raise with HR and recruiting practitioners and leaders. That said, both the company as well as the attorneys consulted for this piece do caution that while the tool itself is compliant, the possibility for abuse or misappropriation by end users could result in compliance violations.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">While Entelo does have a global client mix, Bischke admits that while the product has undergone scrutiny under US law, the company has not gone to the level of verifying compliance with the employment law standards of every country in which its clients operate.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Additionally, Entelo advises all customers to perform due diligence and consult outside counsel prior to adopting Entelo Recruiter, since variables like Affirmative Action plans and OFCCP status vary from company to company. Entelo Diversity has been used by several clients in closed beta prior to today’s public release. It has so far received praise for its precision (an accuracy rate of around 95%) as well as its efficiency, since it automates the fully entrenched, fully manual process of finding and slating diversity candidates.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">It is, in effect, no different than going to a career fair at a women’s college or paying money to sponsor a National Black MBA Association event - it’s just a different means to the same end, which means that the case use should be fairly obvious to anyone who’s ever had to create a diverse slate or align search strategies with a company’s good faith efforts and Affirmative Action plans.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"> “We believe in hiring the best person for the job from the candidates available,” regardless of diversity status, Bischke said. “We believe that means making sure that no particular group is unequally represented within that candidate pool – and Entelo Diversity is a way to correct that under representation.”</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Unfortunately, this apparently doesn’t apply to white men, who, as noted above, are actually underrepresented within the technology sector – the tool does not have a way filter Caucasian or male candidates. For this marginal group, companies will still have to continue manually sourcing candidates through networks like yacht or country clubs and events like Macklemore concerts or the Republican National Convention.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">It’s not impossible, though – in fact, Bischke is clearly working to correct this grievous underrepresentation within the technology sector. According to their website, 67% of Entelo’s <a href="https://www.entelo.com/team">current management team</a> are, in fact, white males, a number which is in fact 9% higher than the nationwide average, <a href="http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat11.htm">per BLS data</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">This is proof that even for tech companies who don’t have the resources for dedicated diversity functions at companies like Google or Facebook, there’s still hope for correcting the problem of under representation within the tech industry. Now, if only it worked for HR – because if you think finding a female software developer is hard, finding a male payroll specialist is damn near impossible.</p>What Talent Shortage? It's Not Them, It's You.tag:recruitingblogs.com,2014-04-24:502551:BlogPost:18014532014-04-24T20:43:26.000ZMatt Charneyhttps://recruitingblogs.com/profile/MattCharney
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557525563?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-left" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557525563?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="200"></img></a> There's a lot of people out there talking about the skills gap out in my chosen line of work. Apparently, somewhere along the way, women decided that the necessities of stuff like going through a horrific physical transformation in order to ensure the survival of our species, around the same time that high schoolers figured out that majoring in liberal arts involved way less…</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557525563?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="200" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557525563?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="200" class="align-left"/></a>There's a lot of people out there talking about the skills gap out in my chosen line of work. Apparently, somewhere along the way, women decided that the necessities of stuff like going through a horrific physical transformation in order to ensure the survival of our species, around the same time that high schoolers figured out that majoring in liberal arts involved way less homework than something in science.</p>
<p>Dude, c'mon. As someone with a BFA, let me tell you that I probably could have done something real, but I got to watch movies for class and write screenplays instead of term papers, so there went any possibility of helping close said gap.</p>
<p>The fact that there aren't enough women in biology or professional mathematics, which must be a thing because all this stuff stems from STEM.</p>
<p>Yes, science, technology, engineering, and math. That sounds sexy, right? I'm guessing they start a campaign with the tagline: "Who needs to get laid when you're getting paid," they'd increase the number of engineering graduates by like at least 25%. </p>
<p>But the fact is, those huddled masses of liberal and fine arts majors like me will always outnumber those kids we used to give wedgies to. And a lot of us end up here, in recruiting, because they let you in the door with no qualifications - because there aren't any at all, really.</p>
<p>So it's not really all that surprising that the people hitting the Boone's Farm harder than their books and chose altered over organic chemistry have a hard time hiring the very same nerds they once treated with such scorn. Indeed, the geek will inherit - or at least, cash in a few IPOs if he plays his cards or patents right.</p>
<p>But that doesn't mean that the guy sending that InMail about a biotechnology R&D quality control specialist position in a clean room knows what the actual hell that means, or where it is, exactly, all these diverse by OFCCP standard software engineers are. No matter how many career microsites or display ads they buy, or job board posting slots, recruiters just can't seem to figure out why they simply can't find all those biologists with boobs out there. It can't be them, because, well, they're the experts in finding "top talent."</p>
<p>So, they do the only logical thing: they turn to Google, and type in a wonderfully built Boolean string like, "places to find engineers in san jose," and lo and behold, these technical wizards see a bunch of content from recruiting and staffing vendors - which, thoughtfully, is written by people like me, who are about as qualified as anyone else with even fewer career options than even the most junior recruiting coordinator.</p>
<p>Why? Because I can make shit sound comparatively better than shit about the same thing. That's really the only qualification I really have.</p>
<p>The one thing people always say to me, whether I'm looking for a job or deciding who gets one, is that I have an "interesting" background. Generally, that's accompanied by a sneer - like, dude, what the hell is it you do, exactly? And I can't even begin to tell you the answer. The general answer I give, by the way, is 'I'm a writer,' and at the end of the day, I think that's about accurate.</p>
<p>Now, when I write stuff like taglines and one-sheets, it's called marketing; when I write stuff for websites or e-mail campaigns, it's called copywriting, and when I wrote job descriptions and candidate submissions as my professional genre, it was called recruiting. Or talent acquisition. Or candidate development. But you get my point.</p>
<p>I get paid mostly by perpetuating myths like the fact that it's the market or the technology, not the dumb asses you hired to hire really smart ones by vendors whose business is predicated on scaring the shit out of people. It's a good business. Billions, actually But it's one that can only stay afloat by convincing companies that there's an endemic problem out there, for which they coincidentally have a solution (provided, of course, you've got the budget).</p>
<p>You're not going to push a ton of product by saying "just put that up on Craigslist with an anonymous e-mail address and you'll be fine for that temp job," or "your people are probably going to stick around because you hired a bunch of C-Players." So you've got to say that stuff like "contingency recruitment marketing strategy" or "employee engagement and retention" and paint the picture as dire - did you know that the way we do shit is changing? That social media is a thing? That people do more than talk on their cell phones?</p>
<p>Those broad and obviously rhetorical questions are my bread and butter, because, well, it's easy to prove that the sky is blue or that video interviewing saves companies on travel and relo costs (ding; white paper idea). Similarly, it's pretty obvious to the most casual observer (like those "active candidates" who are "experiencing" how lazy they actually are) that recruiters are, as a profession, a bunch of idiots.</p>
<p>After all - and I've got enough public proof to not sound overly douchy asserting this - enough of them think I know what I'm doing to convince me of this fact, because I have no more clue than any of you guys - I just know that the real skills shortage has to be people with the ability to write about this stuff, because if your road to better recruiting led here, you're screwed no matter what I tell ya.</p>5 Crafty Ways To Repurpose Contenttag:recruitingblogs.com,2014-04-24:502551:BlogPost:18016192014-04-24T15:44:36.000ZMatt Charneyhttps://recruitingblogs.com/profile/MattCharney
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557525391?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-left" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557525391?profile=original" width="245"></img></a> Writing great content doesn’t always come easy.</p>
<p>In fact, the content creation process takes a great deal of time and effort, so it’s important to make sure you get full usage from everything you generate.</p>
<p>While people will stop clicking on your social posts if they always contains the same content, there are a number of stealthy ways to repurpose it across…</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557525391?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557525391?profile=original" width="245" class="align-left"/></a>Writing great content doesn’t always come easy.</p>
<p>In fact, the content creation process takes a great deal of time and effort, so it’s important to make sure you get full usage from everything you generate.</p>
<p>While people will stop clicking on your social posts if they always contains the same content, there are a number of stealthy ways to repurpose it across platforms to look brand new.</p>
<p>Use these five tips to revamp your old content into exciting new posts:</p>
<h3><span>1) </span><span>Create an Image from a Quote</span></h3>
<p>Who says images can’t be text-based? Pull a great quote from a blog post, interview, or video and turn it into visual content like TED did. Promptly pin it, post it, tweet it, Instagram it ─ whatever works best for your company.</p>
<p><a href="http://socialmediastrategiessummit.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/Repurposing_TED.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-17703" alt="Repurposing_TED" src="http://socialmediastrategiessummit.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/Repurposing_TED.jpg" width="408" height="540"/></a></p>
<h3><span>2) </span><span>Relate it to Current Events</span></h3>
<p>Bring back your old blog posts, case studies, and other marketing material by finding a way to relate it to current events. Post it on Facebook and Twitter, complete with trending hashtags to increase searchablility.</p>
<h3><span>3) </span><span>Pin Your Blog Posts</span></h3>
<p>Pin a picture from each blog posts to your Pinterest page ─ be sure to include a link back to the actual post itself. You already know each of your blog posts should have at least one image, so if you’re not already following this rule, make sure to start doing it so you can repurpose it.</p>
<h3><span>4) </span><span>Turn Old Images into a Video</span></h3>
<p>Go through the images you have posed on Facebook or Twitter and look for a common theme. Compile your chosen photos into a video to post on YouTube. This gives you entirely new piece of content with very little time and effort.</p>
<h3><span>5) </span><span>Highlight a Different Angle</span></h3>
<p>Continuously sending the same old with the same stale lead-in won’t get you very far. However, you can send the same post out a few different times by introducing it a different way. For example, the two US Weekly posts below lead to the same story.</p>
<p><a href="http://socialmediastrategiessummit.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/Repurposing_US-Weekly.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-17704" alt="Repurposing_US Weekly" src="http://socialmediastrategiessummit.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/Repurposing_US-Weekly.jpg" width="640" height="87"/></a></p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="http://socialmediastrategiessummit.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/Repurposing_US-Weekly-1.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-17705" alt="Repurposing_US Weekly (1)" src="http://socialmediastrategiessummit.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/Repurposing_US-Weekly-1.jpg" width="633" height="95"/></a></p>
<p>Not only will repurposing your content save you time, it also feels good to know the pieces you spent so much time creating are being used to their full potential.</p>
<p><em>Tip #6: Just steal people's content. <a href="http://socialmediastrategiessummit.com/blog/5-crafty-ways-repurpose-social-media-content-across-platforms/" target="_blank">This article</a> from Laura Woods appeared on the Social Media Strategies Summit Blog and was just kind of asking to be ripped off - although you probably shouldn't actually do any of these things unless you really want to annoy & irritate your entire network.</em></p>300 Million Ain't Nothing But A Numbertag:recruitingblogs.com,2014-04-22:502551:BlogPost:18010182014-04-22T12:30:00.000ZMatt Charneyhttps://recruitingblogs.com/profile/MattCharney
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557525943?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-left" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557525943?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="250"></img></a> LinkedIn announced last week that they’d reached a milestone of 300 million users, which is pretty impressive, considering that means that their online population pretty much parallels that of the United States.</p>
<p>This comes about 5 quarters after reaching <a href="http://blog.linkedin.com/2013/01/09/linkedin-200-million/">200 million users</a> in January 2013,…</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557525943?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="250" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557525943?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="250" class="align-left"/></a>LinkedIn announced last week that they’d reached a milestone of 300 million users, which is pretty impressive, considering that means that their online population pretty much parallels that of the United States.</p>
<p>This comes about 5 quarters after reaching <a href="http://blog.linkedin.com/2013/01/09/linkedin-200-million/">200 million users</a> in January 2013, impressive growth considering that LinkedIn, founded in 2003, only <a href="http://blog.linkedin.com/2011/03/22/linkedin-100-million/">celebrated its 100 millionth user</a> in March 2011. </p>
<p>That means that in 14 months, the site managed to drive as many sign-ups as the previous 8 years combined.</p>
<p>Those numbers are objectively impressive, but LinkedIn’s growth is in fact underwhelming when compared against other public companies in the social network space - although granted, 100 miilion new registered users in 14 months is beyond the realm of comprehension for most websites, particularly those targeted primarily around a specialized vertical like recruiting.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook/our-first-100-million/28111272130">Facebook registered 100 million</a> in August 2008, despite being launched after LinkedIn and at that point, having only been open to the general public for about 8 months after years restricting users to verified .edu e-mails.</p>
<p>In April 2009, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook/200-million-strong/72353897130">they hit 200 million</a>, or about twice as quickly as LinkedIn registered their second 100 million. Only 5 months later, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook/300-million-and-on/136782277130">Facebook reached 300 million</a> users in September 2009. Consider that this benchmark was hit well before the “mobile explosion” <a href="http://mashable.com/2014/04/18/linkedin-300-million-users/">credited by LinkedIn</a> for accelerating its recent growth in members.</p>
<p>Similarly, Twitter, founded in March 2006 as an exclusively mobile platform (hence the 140 character conforming to SMS standards. The utility of such conventions as # and @ stem largely from the fact that these were available as on the default keyboard of almost all mobile phones at the time of its launch, which preceded the release of the first iPhone by a full year and the mobile revolution by several more.</p>
<p>With that genesis and the LinkedIn thesis that mobile is a significant driver of future growth within the social space – which is why they seem so openly optimistic about their future , than Twitter should swoop (pun unintended) into the lead and run away with the title. </p>
<p>Consider that while up to <a href="http://mashable.com/2014/04/18/linkedin-300-million-users/">50% of LinkedIn’s traffic</a> is mobile in markets as developed as the UK, according to its recent release, that pales in comparison to Twitter’s <a href="https://blog.twitter.com/2013/new-compete-study-primary-mobile-users-on-twitter">80% mobile driven traffic</a> as of February 2014. Twitter, however, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-crosses-300-million-accounts-2011-5">logged their 300 millionth registered user</a> way back in May 2011 and now has 883 million active users. LinkedIn also credits China with much of its growth potential, touting their growth in this market in which, famously, Twitter and Google are banned.</p>
<p>This is likely because LinkedIn, who’s been opaque at best, malicious at worst with issues on user and data privacy, has a similar mindset as the totalitarian state, and same approach to monitoring and limiting dissidents (think LinkedIn jail, random API restrictions, branding experience that’s fully employer controlled). There was plenty of fuss when, in their 2013 IPO filing, <a href="http://www.zdnet.com/twitter-wins-dismissal-of-case-alleging-pre-ipo-fraud-7000028615/">Twitter disclosed</a> that as few as 46.2% of those accounts were actually active users who had registered but never actually tweeted.</p>
<p>LinkedIn, according to a company spokesman, “will not disclose their active user numbers,” making this comparison impossible, but instead pointing out that between the site and Slideshare, LinkedIn properties averaged 187 million unique visitors in Q4 2013 (corrected statistic; earlier versions reported this number as 147 million in error). </p>
<p>That means that, assuming every LinkedIn visitor accounted for only one of these hits, than just over half of all users would have been active on these sites. Facebook, on the other hand, averages around 84 page views/user a month, and Twitter around 19, <a href="http://www.comscore.com/">according to Comscore</a>.</p>
<p><em><strong>CORRECTION: Joseph Roualdes, </strong>Senior Manager of Communications for LinkedIn Talent Solutions, reached out after this story was filed to point out (correctly), that overall, LinkedIn generates 41% of its traffic from mobile, that this number is not included in the Comscore figure of 187 million average unique visitors in Q4 2013, meaning that the previous claim of active user to unique visitor ratio is inaccurate or misleading. Recruiting Daily regrets the error.</em></p>
<p>LinkedIn, when mobile users are removed from the equation (and are, since app activity is not tracked nor aggregated in Alexa or Comscore numbers) still ranks less than one page view per registered user, whereas their competition enjoys a significant multiple when looking at registered users vs. traffic (which is a crappy benchmark, but the only one available). </p>
<p>And while Twitter is abysmal at conversion at 1.17% of all traffic referred online, compared to Facebook’s 14% share. Both sites, however, absolutely wallop LinkedIn, who accounted for a measly .07% of traffic in Q4 2013. While LinkedIn users did have a slightly lower bounce rate at 29.9% to Twitter's 33%, and the average Twitter user generated only 5.6 daily page views per visitor, well less than the 7.8 pageviews logged daily by LinkedIn members. It should be noted that Facebook wins this category, too, boasting a bounce rate of 21% and 15.63 daily page views per visitor, respectively.</p>
<p>Those statistics, of course, neglect mobile or app-based traffic, which, as mentioned earlier, LinkedIn lags far behind either of its competitors in terms of percentage of mobile visitors overall, and LinkedIn lags far behind these competitors in terms of mobile traffic. This means that as LinkedIn, which will likely close the mobile gap in the coming months, will be increasingly reliant on mobile for continued growth, but might not be able to move into mobile quickly enough to satisfy shareholders.</p>
<p>These shareholders have already punished LinkedIn's share price, which has been adversely affected by estimates that, quantity metrics aside, the quality of their member - that is, their value to potential advertisers and clients - is pegged at substantially less than that of Facebook or Twitter. With the average LinkedIn user valued at just $84, compared to $128 per Facebook user and $118 per Twitter user, these statistics should be of significant concern to LinkedIn's continued viability against competition increasingly moving into the talent solutions space (for example, Facebook recently rolled out the ability to target advertising by member's current company, job title & industry, among other professional filters).</p>
<p>As George Anders <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/georgeanders/2014/02/07/youre-worth-128-on-facebook-sorry-about-that-linkedin-drop/" target="_blank">noted in Forbes</a>, "<span>Those valuations aren’t just a way of seeing how investors are playing favorites right now. They also provide a way of thinking about where social media stocks </span><em>should</em><span> trade, at a time when money keeps moving back and forth without any attention to traditional metrics such as price-earnings ratios."</span></p>
<p><span>In other words, LinkedIn might not be worth its nearly $22 billion in market value, after all - at the time of publication, LinkedIn's P/E is around 920 times profits to earnings at the time of this post's publication, a rate that more than doubles the normal valuation of most blue chip public companies - although this valuation may be coming back to reality, as evidenced by their stock price slide in Q1 2014.</span></p>
<p>Of course, this entire post might be specious because of the fact that LinkedIn, as we know, is a job board, and it’s unfair to compare it to a social network, or their growth rates to peers like Facebook or Twitter, even if they are identified as the competition in their SEC filings. <a href="http://www.monster.com/">Monster.com</a>, of course, generated around 40 million unique views,<a href="http://www.alexa.com/">according to Alexa</a>, in Q4 2013, so that’s significantly lower than LinkedIn’s 148, and Monster is the #162 ranked site in the US, whereas LinkedIn is #8. <a href="http://www.indeed.com/">Indeed</a>, the top job site, is #63.</p>
<p><a href="http://recruitingdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/2014-04-22_07-26-47.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-9354" alt="2014-04-22_07-26-47" src="http://recruitingdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/2014-04-22_07-26-47.png" width="765" height="191"/></a>But LinkedIn, built to drive engagement, has a bounce rate of 29.9%, which is only about 5% lower than Indeed’s 33% (identical to Twitter's, and the entire model of indeed is to create bounced traffic, from scraped description to online application. That’s troubling, but not as much as the average visitor who actually went to these sites looked at only around 7.8 pages on LinkedIn, compared to 6.7 on Indeed – again, a site built entirely around SEO, referral traffic and acting as an intermediary in the online recruiting process instead of a destination. The average Indeed user spent only about half the time on site as the average LinkedIn user, but that’s still a margin that Mountain View can’t feel too great about.</p>
<p>Long story short, <a title="Top 5 Secrets for LinkedIn Success" href="http://recruitingdaily.com/top-5-secrets-linkedin-success/">LinkedIn’s recent hoopla </a>can’t hide the fact that their combined unique monthly visitors, which is the only available public benchmark (app and mobile activity, conversely, is proprietary) doesn't stack up to the lofty benchmark 300 million sign ups may seem. 400 million might be quick in coming, but chances are, they won’t come back after completing their registration, and if they do, they won’t stay long. </p>
<p>Which makes sense, since the average LinkedIn user is too probably too busy looking for places which actually have open jobs posted to spend much time building a “professional network.” At least, that's what I'm guessing - but without the disclosure of active user figures, that's the best anyone can really do.</p>
<p><strong><a href="http://recruitingdaily.com/lies-damn-lies-linkedin-300-million-aint-nothing-number/" target="_blank">Read more</a> at Recruiting Daily</strong></p>Visualize It: Get A People-Centric View of Your E-Mail Life With Immersiontag:recruitingblogs.com,2014-04-14:502551:BlogPost:17999162014-04-14T16:31:50.000ZMatt Charneyhttps://recruitingblogs.com/profile/MattCharney
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557528005?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-left" height="95" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557528005?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="93"></img></a></p>
<p><a href="https://immersion.media.mit.edu/viz">Immersion</a>, out from MIT Labs (so you know it’s gotta be legit), claims to provide a “people centric view of your e-mail life,” which, according to their website, provide “a detailed description of our personal and professional history” that’s “older than the web.” </p>
<p>By logging in through a secure server through…</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557528005?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="200" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557528005?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="93" class="align-left" height="95"/></a></p>
<p><a href="https://immersion.media.mit.edu/viz">Immersion</a>, out from MIT Labs (so you know it’s gotta be legit), claims to provide a “people centric view of your e-mail life,” which, according to their website, provide “a detailed description of our personal and professional history” that’s “older than the web.” </p>
<p>By logging in through a secure server through a GMail, MS Exchange or Yahoo! account, Immersion will sift through your e-mail history – it will take several minutes to sort through years and gigabytes of “metadata,” but the results are really cool.</p>
<p><span>I authenticated through GMail, which, </span>unbelievably<span>, I’ve been a member of for 8.9 years, which proves, like Immersion, you can get pretty good results while still beta testing. After the numbers finished crunching (aka, “big data), here’s what my e-mail inbox looks like as a network:</span></p>
<p><a href="http://www.recruitingtools.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/immersion.png"><img class="size-full wp-image-5917 aligncenter" alt="immersion" src="http://www.recruitingtools.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/immersion.png" width="415" height="408"/></a></p>
<p>This is the cluster that’s related to matt@recruitingblogs.com, which I map into my personal GMail, and obviously, that displays as a completely different network altogether.</p>
<p>It shows the way I’m connected and the people who matter most in my daily communications – and how they’re connected with each other.</p>
<p>It makes sense that Noel, Anna and Ryan (with apologies to my boy Tim, but we mostly use IM) are the biggest and most tightly clustered connections, since they are my coworkers and therefore, are responsible for a lot of closed loop, high volume communications.</p>
<p>But I can also see how my other connections know each other – which could come in handy for asking for introductions or establishing a connection for a candidate you’re already engaging with.</p>
<p>It also digs deeper, in this case, creating a visualization of my communication with Noel, my boss:</p>
<p><img class="size-large wp-image-5918 aligncenter" alt="noel shot" src="http://www.recruitingtools.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/noel-shot-500x233.png" width="500" height="233"/></p>
<p> </p>
<p>I can see the frequency of communications over time, the direction of that communications and the connections shared on every conversation, which, in aggregate, are a whole lot of e-mails.</p>
<p><span>Immersion is a pretty easy, pretty cool way to make those old e-mails meaningful and take a big data approach to an often overlooked, but most frequently utilized, of all social networks.</span></p>
<p>To try Immersion, <a href="https://immersion.media.mit.edu/viz">click here</a>.<span> </span></p>
<p>Tip of the hat to Kevin Wheeler for showing me this tool while in Helsinki for #HRTechTank.</p>
<div class="sociable"></div>99 Problems, But A Pitch Ain't One: How To Get Press For Your Recruiting Producttag:recruitingblogs.com,2014-04-08:502551:BlogPost:17991142014-04-08T10:13:06.000ZMatt Charneyhttps://recruitingblogs.com/profile/MattCharney
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557525309?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-left" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557525309?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="225"></img></a> This week at the HR Tech Tank, a startup incubator & networking event for startups and emerging technologies in the human capital management and recruiting space, one of the major topics that emerged as front of mind for attendees echoes that of entrepreneurs everywhere. Once you’ve got a great product, how do you get people to notice?</p>
<p>Getting the word out means…</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557525309?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="225" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557525309?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="225" class="align-left"/></a>This week at the HR Tech Tank, a startup incubator & networking event for startups and emerging technologies in the human capital management and recruiting space, one of the major topics that emerged as front of mind for attendees echoes that of entrepreneurs everywhere. Once you’ve got a great product, how do you get people to notice?</p>
<p>Getting the word out means mastering the art of public relations, even if you don’t have a full time PR department or dedicated agency. The most effective way to get coverage, particularly for the purposes of getting credibility while building buzz around your brand, is getting media coverage.</p>
<p>While that seems obvious, even those companies that are the most active at press relations don’t always do it right.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/sarle">Dmitri Sarle</a>, CEO of <a href="http://www.arcticstartup.com/">ArticStartup</a>, a leading independent technology blog covering digital startups and entrepreneurship in the Nordic and Baltic countries, gave HR Tech Tank attendees advice on how to break through the noise and make sure your pitch gets heard – and your product gets covered.</p>
<h3>Inbound PR: Being the Source</h3>
<p>“80% of startups don’t do inbound PR,” Sarle said. “But it’s the easiest way to not only get other people to cover your company, and also to get found without press.”</p>
<p>Sarle pointed to <a title="Recruitment Blogging: #TruLondon Takeaways" href="http://recruitingdaily.com/recruitment-blogging-trulondon-takeaways/">blogging as being a necessity</a> for startups trying to build their brand, particularly in PR efforts, where many journalists turn for context and content to augment their own news stories or features.</p>
<p>According to Sarle, product updates, industry trends and changes as well as your own experiences as an entrepreneur are fundamental topics for blog coverage, but just as important as quality is quantity, Sarle said. “We see so many companies with blogs that are inactive, or have a post every few months – an inactive blog sends a message to journalists. If you don’t cover your company, why should they?”</p>
<p>Sarle advised the end goal of blogging is to establish your expertise and, consequently, your validity with journalists (not to mention potential customers, investors and employees).</p>
<p>“Don’t write about yourself. Write about how you fit into the larger ecosystem or your industry,” Sarle said. “For us, as media, we become interested in your expertise, and that leads to coverage – for you and your company.”</p>
<p><span>Another necessary, but often overlooked, inbound methodology for building inbound PR is a dedicated press or media section on your company website, Sarle advised. “Most companies don’t have one at all, or else their press page is weak – but it takes minimal time and creates maximum impact.”</span></p>
<p>Sarle advised that at a minimum, corporate press pages should include contact details, company background, past press releases and news coverage, employee profiles, rich media assets like photos and videos, and quick, effective data and statistics to help your company stand out while reinforcing your messaging.</p>
<p><b>Pitch, Please: Meet the Press</b></p>
<p>Getting media coverage involves more than just a pitch or sending a press release through a wire service, according to Sarle. Like recruiting, HR or marketing, the goal isn’t<a title="Branding Is Not Recruiting" href="http://recruitingdaily.com/branding-is-not-recruiting-hiring-veterans/">volume, but personalization</a>. “Be human,” Sarle said. “Not everyone gets excited or engaged by the same stuff.”</p>
<p>Sarle advised startups to do research on journalists through social media channels, previous content on competitors or the industry they’ve published and what their primary beat or coverage focus is instead of sending out messages en masse.</p>
<p>When sending an e-mail, Sarle advised, it’s best to keep it short and sweet. “Leave the journalist wanting more,” Sarle said. “Don’t give them everything – give them a reason to get in touch with you.”</p>
<p>Pitching by e-mail should include the following information – ideally on a single screen that doesn’t require the journalists to scroll or look at a block of text.</p>
<ul>
<li><b>One liner:</b> Start off by summing up what you do in a single sentence. Journalists call this the “lead,” but it’s equally important for companies, too.</li>
<li><b>The Angle: </b>Journalists need stories, not fluff, so it’s important to not only share news, but a very clear angle that definitively answers why your news is a big deal.</li>
<li><b>Bullet Points and Highlighted Text: </b>Call out the important parts by bolding text and breaking up text blocks, Sarle said, as most journalists look at literally dozens of press releases and correspondence daily</li>
<li><b>Stats and Data: </b>The qualitative is the story, but the quantitative gives the story context. Make sure you’ve got proof of concept and make this clear by using numbers to prove your point and make your pitch more compelling.</li>
</ul>
<p>Ultimately, recruiting startups may have an inherent advantage, as success at pitching products involves the same basic currency as talent acquisition: building relationships and adding value.</p>
<p>It’s not always the best companies or most compelling news that get covered, Sarle said, but those who the reporter actually knows and trusts. That’s why he advised startups and entrepreneurs to share tips on the industry, engage on social media, and start building relationships – and trust – well before you actually have news. That means laying the ground work early and presenting yourself as an industry expert, not necessarily an entrepreneur.</p>
<p>“We’re journalists, which means we know nothing – we need people to tell us what’s going on,” Sarle said. “And it’s not professional – it’s personal. All stories, even those about technology, are human interest stories. If humans aren’t interested, then no content will get read, period.”</p>Evil Empire: LinkedIn Legal Actions Set Dangerous Double Standardtag:recruitingblogs.com,2014-04-04:502551:BlogPost:17982652014-04-04T14:06:56.000ZMatt Charneyhttps://recruitingblogs.com/profile/MattCharney
<p><a href="http://www.recruitingtools.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/out.jpeg" target="_blank"><img class="align-left" src="http://www.recruitingtools.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/out.jpeg?width=191" width="191"></img></a> Sell Hack has one employee who spends most of his time working at a completely unrelated startup, has no budget and doesn’t even warrant a company profile on Crunchbase, since it’s got no budget, no capital backing and no plans for monetizing its services.</p>
<p>By contrast, LinkedIn is a blue chip, NASDAQ listed global corporation, with a valuation in the tens of billions of dollars,…</p>
<p><a href="http://www.recruitingtools.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/out.jpeg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.recruitingtools.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/out.jpeg?width=191" width="191" class="align-left"/></a>Sell Hack has one employee who spends most of his time working at a completely unrelated startup, has no budget and doesn’t even warrant a company profile on Crunchbase, since it’s got no budget, no capital backing and no plans for monetizing its services.</p>
<p>By contrast, LinkedIn is a blue chip, NASDAQ listed global corporation, with a valuation in the tens of billions of dollars, over 250 million active monthly users and around 5,000 employees. But for some reason, Goliath wants to take David down.</p>
<p>This week, <a href="http://thenextweb.com/insider/2014/03/31/linkedin-sends-cease-desist-sell-hack-lets-see-anyones-email-address-service/">LinkedIn slapped Sell Hack</a> with a cease and desist order as the “result of several violations,” but the most egregious, apparently, was the fact that Sell Hack threatened LinkedIn’s biggest asset – their user’s contact data. It’s hard to sell InMails and premium membership when there’s an intermediary eliminating the middleman that is the LinkedIn platform.</p>
<p>While Sell Hack, ostensibly scared by an army of attorneys whose hourly rate is more than they’ve ever spent on building their product, has shut down (for now), but the fact of the matter is, the shaky legal precedents upon which the LinkedIn lawsuit accuses Sell Hack of violating were set by none other than LinkedIn themselves.</p>
<p>In fact, LinkedIn, which alerted users to the fact that Sell Hack was putting their personal data in jeopardy (despite the fact that it only utilized public information), actually inspired founder Ryan O’Donnell to develop his tool in the first place.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.recruitingblogs.com/profiles/blogs/linkedin-files-lawsuit-against-sellhack-why-800-pound-gorilla-is-">In a recent interview</a>, O’Donnell told me that Sell Hack was designed simply to automate the e-mail validation process that he was formerly doing using a Gmail plug-in called <a href="https://rapportive.com/">Rapportive</a>.</p>
<p>If you’re a hard core sourcer, you already know that within Rapportive, you can validate which e-mail permutation of a user is accurate simply by adding your guesses into the Gmail “To:” field. The valid e-mails automatically populate with an associated Rapportive profile without any additional permissions or connections.</p>
<p>How do they get this data? Pretty much the exact same way that Sell Hack does – through scraping and testing. The only reason Sell Hack exists is exploiting that feature in Rapportive at scale simply takes too long. Here’s where it gets interesting, though.</p>
<p>Guess who owns Rapportive? The answer, of course, is LinkedIn, <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/22/rapportive-linkedin-acquisition/">who acquired the company for an estimated $15 million in cash</a> back in early 2012. And since that time, they’ve done nothing to fix the exact same feature that they’re accusing Sell Hack of misappropriating and misallocating.</p>
<p>Despite marketing and PR messaging making this into a data and user privacy issue, the real issue that LinkedIn appears to have with Sell Hack is that it’s beating them at their own game. </p>
<p>An interesting note: while LinkedIn publically announced changes in the Terms of Service and Privacy policy for Pulse and Slideshare recently, two of their products acquired through similarly sized acquisitions, no such change was made to Rapportive, meaning whether or not Sell Hack sticks around, the issue that they’re purportedly fighting isn’t going to be solved any time in the near future.</p>LinkedIn Files Lawsuit Against SellHack; Why 800 Pound Gorilla Is Scared of A Startuptag:recruitingblogs.com,2014-04-01:502551:BlogPost:17975732014-04-01T15:54:53.000ZMatt Charneyhttps://recruitingblogs.com/profile/MattCharney
<p><a href="http://www.recruitingtools.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/sellhack-200x200.jpeg" target="_blank"><img class="align-left" src="http://www.recruitingtools.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/sellhack-200x200.jpeg?width=200" width="200"></img></a> SellHack is one of those rare tools that actually delivers as promised, meets a real recruiting need and actually lives up to the hype - which isn't easy to do, considering the amount of buzz and word of mouth that this emerging startup has built up in a relatively short amount of time. What makes SellHack really unique, however, is the fact that unlike so many other point…</p>
<p><a href="http://www.recruitingtools.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/sellhack-200x200.jpeg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.recruitingtools.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/sellhack-200x200.jpeg?width=200" width="200" class="align-left"/></a>SellHack is one of those rare tools that actually delivers as promised, meets a real recruiting need and actually lives up to the hype - which isn't easy to do, considering the amount of buzz and word of mouth that this emerging startup has built up in a relatively short amount of time. What makes SellHack really unique, however, is the fact that unlike so many other point solutions, it wasn't developed as a saleable product, but instead, to solve a real challenge at a real company.</p>
<p>"We just kind of stumbled upon SellHack," said founder Ryan O'Donnell. "I run a startup full time, and spend a lot of my day prospecting and selling on LinkedIn. It started as an internal tool, but we soon shared it with some of our friends and some recruiters, and once they started using it and we started getting their feedback, we realized that we were onto something."</p>
<p>SellHack's internal case use performed so well, in fact, that it quickly became a powerful enough tool to take to market, even if it's not yet being actually marketed - or monetized. But if you're in recruiting or sourcing, you'll quickly discover that SellHack is one of the most invaluable tools today's talent professional can have in their hiring arsenal.</p>
<p>O'Donnell, who also oversees video communication platform Sociagram, admits that Sellhack is "still in its infancy," and he and his team are concentrating on "really trying to understand the shortcomings of LinkedIn and how our product could potentially address them."</p>
<p>One of those shortcomings that led to the creation of SellHack, according to O'Donnell, was when prospecting on LinkedIn. When searching and filtering for a specific title, industry and target companies, he realized that while he had no trouble finding these targeted prospects, engaging them was another matter. "We'd try to figure out their e-mail address without being connected, which was really just maintaining a spreadsheet with all possible permutations of a corporate e-mail address and then manually testing those."</p>
<p>At first, this involved opening a new message in GMail and using a workaround in Rapportive, a GMail plug in, to hover over each e-mail permutation to see if there was a valid profile attached. SellHack, however, automates this process, running all possible permutations against publically available e-mail sources to see which e-mail address is actually valid. Most importantly, SellHack integrates seamlessly with LinkedIn's UI/UX, but is not reliant on their API.</p>
<h3>LinkedIn & The End Of InMail</h3>
<p>While LinkedIn recently sent SellHack a "<a href="http://thenextweb.com/insider/2014/03/31/linkedin-sends-cease-desist-sell-hack-lets-see-anyones-email-address-service/">cease and desist order,</a>" the strongly worded language from LinkedIn seems to reflect that they have little recourse, instead encouraging users to disable it immediately and warning (ironically) about potential data violations, proving that LinkedIn is powerless when it comes to actually stopping usage of a tool that uses only public information and educated guessing without their proprietary developer code or API. Given the abhorrent data privacy violations LinkedIn commits as a core component of its business model, this strategy strongly indicates that they likely have no recourse to SellHack - and see it as a significant competitive threat.</p>
<p>That's because SellHack uses the profile's name, company and corporate URL or associated domain to "make some assumptions" about potential e-mail addresses to run against their data sources and validate which, if any, e-mail is associated with that profile. SellHack does not require any degree of connection with potential candidates to obtain their data, since it uses their public profiles instead of performing its permutation testing on the platform itself.</p>
<p>There are a few issues which, O'Donnell admits, still must be resolved to take SellHack to the next (monetizable) level, mainly the time it takes to generate and verify the accuracy of results, which is often still hit or miss when it comes to matching a profile to an active e-mail address. SellHack is still in R&D to fix these and other issues, and given the platform is new, O'Donnell wants to focus on improving end user experience and product efficacy before looking at turning this into a paid product.</p>
<p>In its current state, however new it might be, SellHack is more effective than at least one entrenched product making big bucks in the recruitment market: LinkedIn InMail. "SellHack is really no different than InMail, but by removing the LinkedIn platform entirely, you're establishing 1:1 communication from inbox to inbox, not some mass marketing message or canned spam, which not only improves the open rate significantly, but also makes engaging prospects and candidates much easier than simply sending them an InMail," O'Donnell said.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The company is currently exploring potential integrations and learning the HR technology landscape to figure out how to make a product that can both stand alone and integrate with any document or database that's being used; they're also working to add advanced search functionality and exploring features to offer "what end users really want," with the goal of "building a complimentary technology around any recruiter's workflow to make their process more efficient across all recruiting touch points," O'Donnell said.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">A significant part of this process involves soliciting and receiving feedback from recruiters and end users who have already adopted the product; SellHack reports listening actively to social channels like Twitter or unsolicited e-mails to measure recruiter sentiment and collect feedback that's often built directly into the product. "I hold no punches saying that it's still in beta, but hopefully we're building a product that helps enable smarter and more effective recruiting and hiring."</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> </span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> </span></p>
<p>In other words, enjoy it now while the product is still free, and share your feedback directly with SellHack by e-mailing ryan@sellhack.com or tweeting @SellHack, both of which are constantly monitored. "We're new to recruiting, and we're voracious to learn as much as possible so we can make our product better," O'Donnell said. "We know what we don't know, but we're trying to quickly close the gap between a mature industry and our own expertise to build a more relevant solution for recruiting and sourcing."</p>
<h3><strong>How SellHack Works</strong></h3>
<p><br/>1. Visit SellHack.com and click the "Download Extension Button." The download will immediately start with the version designed for the browser you're using to access the website:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.recruitingtools.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/sellhack-home.png"><img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-5901" alt="sellhack home" src="http://www.recruitingtools.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/sellhack-home-500x292.png" width="500" height="292"/></a></p>
<p><strong>2. Once installation is complete, visit LinkedIn. You'll see a new button on all profiles, allowing you to "Hack In." Simply click the button:</strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.recruitingtools.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/hackin.png"><img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-5902" alt="hackin" src="http://www.recruitingtools.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/hackin-500x210.png" width="500" height="210"/></a><strong>3. SellHack will automatically search for the e-mail addresses associated with this profile as well as linked social profiles like CrunchBase, Google, Twitter & Facebook.</strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.recruitingtools.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/charney.png"><img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-5903" alt="charney" src="http://www.recruitingtools.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/charney-500x108.png" width="500" height="108"/></a></p>
<p>It's easy, it's free, and best of all, it works. See for yourself why SellHack's only downside is that due to the unexpected demand and growth the product is already experiencing, it may be occasionally down due to maintenance to support its exponential growth and explosion in active users - all of whom have already discovered that while there are no silver bullets in sourcing, SellHack comes pretty close. And LinkedIn likely has no legal ground to stand on.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.recruitingtools.com/sellhack-free-sourcing-tool-thats-got-linkedin-defense/" target="_blank">Originally posted at RecruitingTools.com</a></p>15 Recruiting Related Blog Topicstag:recruitingblogs.com,2014-03-31:502551:BlogPost:17975442014-03-31T20:14:30.000ZMatt Charneyhttps://recruitingblogs.com/profile/MattCharney
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;">If you're actually on the front lines and have something to say, don't let not having an idea keep you from getting your voice out there. We're all sick and tired of hearing about "authenticity" and "transparency" from marketers, but if you actually make placements or hires for a living, you can actually achieve what marketers can only talk about. </span></p>
<p>Here are 15 blog post prompts to put in your pocket if you ever decide to get started. And the…</p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;">If you're actually on the front lines and have something to say, don't let not having an idea keep you from getting your voice out there. We're all sick and tired of hearing about "authenticity" and "transparency" from marketers, but if you actually make placements or hires for a living, you can actually achieve what marketers can only talk about. </span></p>
<p>Here are 15 blog post prompts to put in your pocket if you ever decide to get started. And the type I'd love to see shared at RecruitingBlogs, which as you likely know, depends on the editorial contributions of readers (and recruiters) like you. And the good news is, because nothing ever actually changes, it's unlikely that any of these suggestions will get stale.</p>
<p>Whether or not you actually consider using any of these ideas, remember it's not what you write about, it's who writes it. And if you actually do this stuff for a living, any approach you take to content will be infinitely more relevant than the schtick put out by marketers like me.</p>
<p><strong>1.</strong> <strong>Where The Recruiting Industry Will Be 5 Years From Now</strong></p>
<p><strong>2. Hidden Facts About Recruiters Most Candidates Don't Know</strong></p>
<p><strong>3. Things You Wish Your CEO Knew About Recruiting</strong></p>
<p><strong>4. The Biggest Problems in Recruiting and HR Technology Can't Fix</strong></p>
<p><strong>5. Top Recruiters You Should Follow On Twitter </strong></p>
<p><strong>6. Smart Ways To Spend Your Limited Recruiting Budget</strong></p>
<p><strong>7. Why You Should (or Shouldn't) Invest in Social Media</strong></p>
<p><strong>8. How To Convince Your Hiring Manager To Consider A Candidate</strong></p>
<p><strong>9. </strong><strong>Little Changes That Will Make A Big Difference With Recruiting And Hiring</strong></p>
<p><strong>10. The New Face and New Challenges of the Changing Workforce </strong></p>
<p><strong>11. Most Common Misconceptions About Recruiters Every Candidate (or Client) Should Know</strong></p>
<p><strong>12. Things Recruiters Hate Most About Recruiting (or HR) Technology</strong></p>
<p><strong>13. The Best Mobile and Social Apps for Filling Positions Faster</strong></p>
<p><strong>14. Ask The Recruiter: Answering The Questions Candidates and Hiring Managers Ask the Most</strong></p>
<p><strong>15. What Every New Recruiter Needs To Know To Survive and Thrive </strong></p>
<p>If these are helpful, let us know - there are more where that came from since these are pretty easy to come up with - it's the writing that's the hard part.</p>Battle of the Buzzwords: Fighting the War ON 'Talent'tag:recruitingblogs.com,2014-03-28:502551:BlogPost:17972772014-03-28T17:00:00.000ZMatt Charneyhttps://recruitingblogs.com/profile/MattCharney
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557528893?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-left" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557528893?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="300"></img></a> I got into recruiting by accident, replying to a job posting for a talent scout while looking for a steadier job than my part time gig working the talent desk at Comedy Central, which entailed mostly phones and photocopies. </p>
<p>I sometimes got to go get Starbucks for the Reno 911! producers or find a sassy black supporting type for a two liner out of a room full of…</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557528893?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="300" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557528893?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="300" class="align-left"/></a>I got into recruiting by accident, replying to a job posting for a talent scout while looking for a steadier job than my part time gig working the talent desk at Comedy Central, which entailed mostly phones and photocopies. </p>
<p>I sometimes got to go get Starbucks for the Reno 911! producers or find a sassy black supporting type for a two liner out of a room full of headshot files (my first sourcing gig)</p>
<p>But as the story executives’ ignorance of my very existence and catering to the demands of the “creatives” made clear, the one thing I was not was Talent. Nope, I was just the dude who stocked up the office supplies and looked up stuff on IMDB.</p>
<p>I’ll admit that accidental misunderstanding that got me into this business in the first place could have ended up with a way worse outcome (like having to be on the writing staff of a reality show). But the fact is, that even though I’m doing alright for myself in the world of work, I still think of talent as something that’s covered in Variety, not BLS data.</p>
<p>I can’t think of a single company – and am pretty darn sure not a single vendor – call the clock watchers, manual laborers or 1099 insurance salesmen, who refer to their resident working stiffs as anything other than “talent.” It’s like the restaurant industry refers to customers as ‘guests’ – it’s good marketing, sure, but come on, we’re really just interchangeable SKUs on the road to riches and endemic obesity. Much like recruiters don't see actually see people past their resumes, and give applicants numbers instead of feedback and coaching.</p>
<p>That's largely because, in talent acquisition, what we’re referring to as “talent” mostly isn’t talented at all. They’re just people who need a paycheck. Then again, that makes most of us.</p>
<p>But we can all agree that talent is, in fact, a relative term – for example, the fact you can bang out Chopsticks on a Yamaha keyboard might be a talent (or sorts), but talent is hearing Glenn Gould polish off a Beethoven sonata on a Steinway. The greeter at Wal-Mart are probably not “talent” unless you lack opposable thumbs for shaking hands or the ability to sit down for extended periods. Now, I’m not knocking that noble greeting profession, since the new OFCCP rules force employers to hire the disabled, probably not a bad HR strategy. But you know that until they become “team members,” they’re considered to be talent. It says so on their website.</p>
<p>Most jobs don’t require talent at all, frankly. Recruiting is actually an exception, but only because human nature tends to be capricious, as do compensation professionals, hiring managers and candidates’ spouses. But processing invoices in A/R, taking toll booth tickets and bussing tables doesn’t require talent, just tolerance. A whole lot of tolerance, in fact, because unlike talent, stupidity is endemic in every workplace in America.</p>
<p>I’m not saying these jobs don’t have a heavy burden physically or mentally, but the ability to cope with stress and forced civility are pretty much what work is all about, really (outside actual work at work, which is incredibly rarer than talent). Nor am I saying they don’t require skills, but even in professional roles requiring extremely specific experience, expertise and training require a tremendous amount of skills, which, unlike talent, can be learned.</p>
<p>Skills are bred; talent is born. That’s why we say we’re looking for talent, but in fact are really just looking for skills – and that the person who has those skills also can speak in complete sentences and doesn’t have a dark, criminal past before making them an offer. Other than that, the real talent in talent acquisition is actually getting that offer approved and accepted.</p>
<p>So let’s stop talking about “the war for talent.” Instead, we should be talking about what skills we need and how best to utilize those skills our current and future workers have today and how to acquire the ones they – and your business – will need to succeed tomorrow, too.</p>
<p>*The only caveat I’ll give to the premise of this post is that the word talent is so amorphous and flexible – kind of like the business version of the “F word” – that it’s really convenient and easy to use in content marketing. So don’t hate me when I go back to using it in the next post on recruiting or HR I happen to write. Hey, it’s not talent, but it’s a living.</p>Put This In Your Black Hole: Candidate Boycott Gains Momentumtag:recruitingblogs.com,2014-03-27:502551:BlogPost:17970212014-03-27T15:52:01.000ZMatt Charneyhttps://recruitingblogs.com/profile/MattCharney
<p><em><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557529254?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-left" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557529254?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="200"></img></a> Organizers are calling for the immediate cessation of all activities related to recruiting and hiring with hopes candidate shortage will fix candidate experience</em></p>
<p><strong>Washington, DC - </strong>Do you think the job search is broken? If so, you’re not alone. According to a recent survey by the National Institute of Subjective Statistics, 79% of job seekers…</p>
<p><em><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557529254?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="200" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557529254?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="200" class="align-left"/></a>Organizers are calling for the immediate cessation of all activities related to recruiting and hiring with hopes candidate shortage will fix candidate experience</em></p>
<p><strong>Washington, DC - </strong>Do you think the job search is broken? If so, you’re not alone. According to a recent survey by the National Institute of Subjective Statistics, 79% of job seekers report feeling “somewhat” or “extremely” dissatisfied with their own candidate experience or search.</p>
<p>That’s why a growing number of concerned candidates are taking matters into their own hands and calling for a national boycott on searching for jobs. </p>
<p>Candidates Anonymous, the name most commonly used for the grassroots movement spearheading the boycott initiative, has issued a public call for inaction, urging all workers to immediately discontinue any activity related to recruiting or hiring.</p>
<p>Ronald McGee, a former Sarbanes-Oxley consultant who also serves as an official spokesman for the organization, shared his own experiences at a press conference announcing the boycott earlier this week.</p>
<p>“Since I got laid off back in 2009, I’ve applied for literally thousands of jobs,” McGee said, “But I only got maybe a half dozen responses, and that’s including the e-mails giving me the heads up that I was out.”</p>
<p>McGee estimates that he spent an average of 15-30 minutes on each of these applications, which by even the most conservative estimates equates to approximately the equivalent of two years of full time work on the job search process alone. New research shows that Mr. McGee is not, in fact alone.</p>
<p>A recent study by researchers at the University of California-Compton suggests that global workers spent an estimated 1.7 trillion man hours searching, applying and interviewing for jobs in 2012 alone.</p>
<p>The study, out in this month’s Journal of Specious Sociology, shows that were job search paid at the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, it would generate more income than any other sector of the global economy, far more than manufacturing, agriculture and business services combined.</p>
<p>In addition to the boycott, Candidates Anonymous has also retained legal representation to explore a potential class action lawsuit to recover at least some of these funds. “Loss of income or ability to generate income has a long legal precedent as being a compelling reason for the awarding of compensatory damages during civil suits,” said Howard Silverman, lead counsel for the group, who adds that he too has been unable to find a full time role as a corporate attorney since 2009.</p>
<p>While that could add up to billions in recoverable damages for employers, the immediate effect of the boycott is likely to have a much greater short term effect – and impact – on companies around the world.</p>
<p>At a downtown protest earlier this week, Candidates Anonymous member Jeff Trellis, seen carrying a hand-painted sign reading: “Put This In Your Black Hole,” said he and other members were committed to boycotting job search and recruiting related activities for “as long as it takes to get the message across” that candidates deserve what the organization is calling “total time and effort parity.”</p>
<p>“Without people applying for jobs, refusing to take recruiter’s phone calls or updating their resumes or LinkedIn profiles, employers are going to understand that they need us worse than we need them,” Trellis said. “It’s true that people really are an organization’s greatest asset; take away job seekers and suddenly, you take away their ability to run their business.”</p>
<p>Allan Richardson, SPHR and head of global talent for global technology provider CloudSoft, said that he and many other talent and human capital leaders were unsure of how to react to the news of the boycott.</p>
<p>“On the one hand, if they succeed, we’re going to be in big trouble putting butts in seats – I mean, uh, executing on strategic talent acquisition and workforce planning initiatives. On the other hand, if no one is looking for a job, then we don’t really have to worry about retention, so I guess I’m just kinda interested to see what happens.”</p>
<p>########</p>3 Things Keeping HR & Recruiting Leaders Up At Nighttag:recruitingblogs.com,2014-03-25:502551:BlogPost:17966222014-03-25T20:32:39.000ZMatt Charneyhttps://recruitingblogs.com/profile/MattCharney
<p style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://recruitingdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/hci.png" target="_blank"><img class="align-left" height="183" src="http://recruitingdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/hci.png?width=256" width="184"></img></a> The Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act, HR data analytics and workplace agility top the list of concerns for HR leaders, according to a new report released today by <a href="http://www.hci.org">the Human Capital Institute</a>.</p>
<p>While the high level findings from their most recent…</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://recruitingdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/hci.png" target="_blank"><img src="http://recruitingdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/hci.png?width=256" width="184" class="align-left" height="183"/></a>The Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act, HR data analytics and workplace agility top the list of concerns for HR leaders, according to a new report released today by <a href="http://www.hci.org">the Human Capital Institute</a>.</p>
<p>While the high level findings from their most recent <a href="http://www.hci.org/hr-research/2014-talent-pulse-hr-strategy-and-analytics">Talent Pulse</a> research should come as little surprise to HR & recruiting practitioners, the report reveals some interesting insights and actionable insight for solving some of today’s most persistent talent management challenges.</p>
<p>If compliance, big data or creating a scalable, sustainable workforce are keeping you up at night like so many HR leaders, here’s a closer look what the latest HCI data reveals about these top three human capital challenges and how to overcome these obstacles.</p>
<h3><b>1. </b> <b>Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA):</b></h3>
<p>The fact that health care tops the list should come as little surprise, but what is surprising is the fact that, as it turns out, most HR leaders aren’t actually all that worried about PPACA Implementation. Fully 50% of study participants report being prepared to “navigate the changing healthcare environment,” and only 15% of respondents report being concerned with compliance, cost or the ability to handle associated expenses.</p>
<p>Instead, the biggest concern for HR leaders seemed to be the fear of the unknown, with respondents either feeling it was too early to tell the overall impact that the PPACA will have on their organization or that they were unsure of its business and bottom line repercussions. Many were also unsure whether the legislation was sustainable, with many questioning its long term impact in a changing legislative environment.</p>
<p>Since most organizations report already addressing PPACA issues in advance of the federally mandated deadlines, the study showed that focus has largely shifted from compliance to employee communication and education. Additionally, the report showed many organizations seem to be dealing with healthcare legislation not by increasing internal capabilities, but instead shifting expertise from the HR department to external consultants.</p>
<h3><b>2. </b> <b>HR Analytics</b></h3>
<p>While “Big Data” analytics are expected to generate $3.7 trillion (that’s trillion, with a T) for organizations and generate 4.4 million new jobs by 2015, the HCI Talent Pulse research showed that talent organizations are still unprepared or unequipped to deal with the upcoming data deluge.</p>
<p>While 54% of participants believe their HR metrics “measure key issues relevant to business,” only 23% report that they have the capability to connect those analytics across the entire employee lifecycle. This disparity suggests a growing divide between HR and executive leadership, with only 34% reporting leaders are satisfied with their HR metrics, and fully 2/3 admitting that they share HR analytics with executives less than once a month.</p>
<p><iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/d8sO1MexWrg?list=UUokJTuSVaYbb-2s8t42tgKA&wmode=opaque" frameborder="0"></iframe>
</p>
<p>Over half of HR leaders, however, are proactively working to bridge this gap, with “working with business leaders to determine which analytics are important to them,” “implementing a plan for snaring and reporting HR data with business leaders” and “investigating in more sophisticated HRIS technologies” revealed as the three most common strategies for dealing with big data through actionable analytics and reporting.</p>
<h3><b>3. </b> <b>Workplace Agility:</b></h3>
<p>Complex reporting structures, unnecessary hierarchies and hierarchical processes and procedures are the most common barriers to workplace agility, and the HCI Talent Pulse report shows that the flatter an organization’s org chart, the more flexible and adaptable that business’ human capital will be to deal with the one constant in business: change.</p>
<p>The concern about lack of agility is underscored by the fact that 72% of participants feel that agility is valued at their organizations, and 65% report their senior leaders want a more agile HR function. According to the report, enhancing agility often requires HR to reexamine entrenched processes and procedures, removing red tape while improving collaboration and communication.</p>
<p>Some of the most common strategies revealed in the HCI study include making performance feedback a continuous, rather than episodic, process; scaling recruiting to extend beyond the point of hire to include onboarding and beyond; and creating on-demand or dynamic learning & development options for employees to enhance or augment their existing skills.</p>
<p>For more information, download a copy of Talent Pulse by <a href="http://www.hci.org/hr-research/2014-talent-pulse-hr-strategy-and-analytics">clicking here</a> or checking out related podcasts featuring some of the key research contributors <a href="http://www.hci.org/node/type/hci_podcast">here</a>.</p>
<p><em><a href="http://recruitingdaily.com/talent-pulse-top-hr-leader-concerns/" target="_blank">Originally published</a> on Recruiting Daily.</em></p>Luddites & Laggards: Why We Suck At Tech Recruitingtag:recruitingblogs.com,2014-03-24:502551:BlogPost:17965352014-03-24T17:50:35.000ZMatt Charneyhttps://recruitingblogs.com/profile/MattCharney
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;"><a href="http://mattcharneydotcom.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/b864c6f5e077521dc7046eb1866ac4c245ad4c41a78a73253f27c8ed49dcd3711.jpg" target="_blank"><img class="align-left" src="http://mattcharneydotcom.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/b864c6f5e077521dc7046eb1866ac4c245ad4c41a78a73253f27c8ed49dcd3711.jpg?width=250" width="250"></img></a> All you have to do is open an issue of Wired or ask your 13 year old how Google works to realize that, in fact, HR and recruiting aren't just behind the curve when it comes to technology adoption; they pretty much destroy the curve. In fact, for whatever reason, this industry and function are largely…</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;"><a href="http://mattcharneydotcom.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/b864c6f5e077521dc7046eb1866ac4c245ad4c41a78a73253f27c8ed49dcd3711.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://mattcharneydotcom.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/b864c6f5e077521dc7046eb1866ac4c245ad4c41a78a73253f27c8ed49dcd3711.jpg?width=250" width="250" class="align-left"/></a>All you have to do is open an issue of Wired or ask your 13 year old how Google works to realize that, in fact, HR and recruiting aren't just behind the curve when it comes to technology adoption; they pretty much destroy the curve. In fact, for whatever reason, this industry and function are largely laggards of even the most casual consumer tech users.</span></p>
<p>it's not that HR and recruiting professionals don't know how to use technology, and in most cases, they don't inherently fear or avoid it. In fact, many have their professional processes and daily workflow inexorably intertwined with inordinately complex, incredibly powerful enterprise grade systems. </p>
<p>Almost every HCM System, not to mention advanced functionality on mainstays like Excel, require an incredible amount of training, hands-on experience and countless calls to product support when performing anything but the most basic of functions.</p>
<p>Running a search in an on-premise version of SAP or Oracle makes coding on Ruby seem fairly simple by comparison, but, of course, getting that perspective requires a willingness to actually look at the bigger tech picture, something that, for some reason, too many HR & recruiting professionals seem loathe to do. </p>
<p>Instead of looking to stay on the cutting edge by actively identifying, experimentation or testing tools which might make their jobs easier, however, too many practitioners would rather rely on the same cumbersome system which, while familiar, actually hinder efficiency and efficacy and overall productivity.</p>
<p>On the one hand, the very high threshold for outdated, obsolete or onerous technology in HR is understandable; it not only gives the illusion of job security ("who else could figure this system out?") but also of job complexity. The specialized technical expertise and system experience required for simple tasks like sending benefits information or tracking vacation days seem to hide the secret every HR pro knows, but almost none will openly admit: their jobs are not only ridiculously easy (with some exceptions), but also largely superfluous.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, when you're also one of the primary arbiters of workforce planning and strategy, there are few incentives for retraining, redeveloping or redeploying obsolete, overpriced workers. Which is why recruiters are always the first ones to get fired, frankly, and also why third party recruiters and sourcers, whose professional livelihoods depend on actually putting up results instead of policing policy, seem further ahead of the tech adoption curve than almost any other HR function.</p>
<p>It's funny so much of the conversation around talent supply and demand centers around this erroneous idea of qualified tech candidates being some sort of critically endangered species that might not be around for much longer, and that employers should horde programmers the way Doomsday Preppers stock up on canned meat.</p>
<p>But there's no tech apocalypse on the horizon. </p>
<p>It's just that if you don't know anything about technology, then you have no way to know that your vendor, "influencers" or agency is more or less using this invented phenomenon of disappearing tech talent to create fear, which makes selling shitty software and specious services infinitely easier.</p>
<p>It's not that tech talent isn't out there, it's just that they don't want to be found by recruiters. If you're working with interesting tech, offer the chance to participate on innovative projects and have a good reputation on those parts of the internet recruiters don't even know exists (Silkroad ain't an HCM system to everyone), then good news is, tech talent will find you.</p>Hate Scheduling Screens & Interviews? Meet Betty.tag:recruitingblogs.com,2014-03-20:502551:BlogPost:17958022014-03-20T16:30:00.000ZMatt Charneyhttps://recruitingblogs.com/profile/MattCharney
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557528836?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-left" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557528836?profile=original" width="128"></img></a> For all the advances we've made when it comes to recruitment technology and systems integration, for some reason, one of the most critical business needs for talent acquisition has largely gone ignored by emerging startups and established players: scheduling.</p>
<p>The HR technology conversation has moved on from core workflow processes to somewhat specious, often…</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557528836?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557528836?profile=original" width="128" class="align-left"/></a>For all the advances we've made when it comes to recruitment technology and systems integration, for some reason, one of the most critical business needs for talent acquisition has largely gone ignored by emerging startups and established players: scheduling.</p>
<p>The HR technology conversation has moved on from core workflow processes to somewhat specious, often speculative topics like social media, mobile enablement and the amorphous concept of "big data."</p>
<p>These topics, which while decidedly more sexy than scheduling, also strike most practitioners as a bit specious. Probably because they're too busy trying to juggle Outlook invites.</p>
<p>But as anyone who's ever tried to lock down a time with a candidate or coordinate complex onsite interviews knows, too much of our daily recruiting lives are spent devoted to the seemingly simple, completely transactional task of scheduling. Coordinating calendars is a professional pain point, but it's a necessary evil for anyone in talent acquisition; in fact, many large corporate talent organizations have dedicated headcount for coordinators whose entire job consists of scheduling screens and on-site interviews. The bad news for them, but the good news for recruiters, is that those roles might soon be rendered obsolete.</p>
<p>Enter Betty. Betty is the rare technology where the recruitment related business case is implicit and obvious as soon as you use the tool, and one that once you try, you're likely to adopt as a core component of your recruiting technology toolbox. The user experience is intuitive, streamlined and simple, and best of all, it's free, which is a pretty easy price point for ensuring ROI.</p>
<p>Here's how it works:</p>
<p><strong>1. Go to TryBetty.com in Chrome & download/enable the extension:</strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.recruitingtools.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/betty-screen.png"><img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-5889 align-center" alt="betty screen" src="http://www.recruitingtools.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/betty-screen-500x240.png" width="500" height="240"/></a></p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>2. Open GMail; the Betty plug-in will appear as an additional field when sending e-mails:</strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.recruitingtools.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/step1.png"><img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-5890 align-center" alt="step1" src="http://www.recruitingtools.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/step1-500x322.png" width="500" height="322"/></a></p>
<p><strong>3. Enter the recipient's name in the subject field and click the Betty icon to view your availability:</strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.recruitingtools.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/step2.png"><img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-5891 align-center" alt="step2" src="http://www.recruitingtools.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/step2-500x322.png" width="500" height="322"/></a></p>
<p><strong>4. Select proposed meeting times; these will automatically populate in the e-mail:</strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.recruitingtools.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/step3.png"><img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-5892 align-center" alt="step3" src="http://www.recruitingtools.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/step3-500x322.png" width="500" height="322"/></a></p>
<p><strong>5. Hit "Send."</strong></p>
<p>It's really that easy. Recipients will be able to view their own availability and accept a time without opening their calendar, whether or not they have Betty installed themselves. Once the recipient selects a proposed time directly in the body of the e-mail and replies, Betty will automatically create the calendar appointment and instantly put it on each user's calendar without the need to then also accept the invitation, since it's already confirmed by both participants. A link to the meeting information on Betty is automatically appended to the e-mail, allowing either party to reschedule directly from their mailboxes if needed.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In the movie "Clueless," Cher (played by Alicia Silverstone) refers to beautiful people as being a "total Betty," but she might as well have been describing this promising new recruiting tool. Because it's pretty sexy - at least when it comes to something as ugly as scheduling.<br/></span></p>
<p><b style="line-height: 1.5em;">Betty: Executive Summary</b></p>
<p><strong>The Company: </strong>Betty was developed by <a href="www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanwoolf">Jonathan Woolf</a>, who has experience in the recruiting & staffing industries as an early employee at Jigsaw, a contact sharing platform since acquired by Salesforce that was, when launched, infinitely more effective (and populated) than LinkedIn, and was one of the first online destinations for lead and candidate sharing. Woolf realized in speaking with recruiters, as well as in his own experience having to set up pitches, demos and marketing meetings, that scheduling was a significant pain point - and significant market opportunity for any technology that could simplify this completely manual, time intensive process. Hence, the idea for Betty was born.</p>
<p>Betty is still very early in development and right now seems focused on getting the word out about the product to drive signups and expand active users while exploring opportunities like ATS integration & open APIs to become an integral component of the recruiting & HR workflow.</p>
<p><strong>The Good: </strong>It's free, it solves a real recruiting problem and offers a unique solution that has little to no competition on the market. Since Research in Motion, the makers of the Blackberry, inexplicably purchased and discontinued Tungle.me, which was a similar application for social calendaring, there have been no entries into this space, which is a shame for anyone who quickly became dependent on Tungle, then despondent about returning to having to use .ics and other traditional tools. Unlike Tungle, however, Betty works directly from your inbox without having to go to a third party platform or external site, which is a definitive improvement and huge time saver.</p>
<p><strong>The Bad: </strong>As yet, Betty only works with Chrome and for GMail users, somewhat limiting its potential adoption for recruiters, who remain largely reliant on applications like Office and browsers like Internet Explorer as their core calendaring and browser technologies. But the good news is that Betty is actively working to build integrations with Office and Apple Mail, which remain the significant factors preempting Betty from being a blockbuster. It's also relatively new, and Woolf seems to still be figuring out the market and monetization for this promising platform.</p>
<p><strong>Rating: </strong><strong>4.5/5: </strong>Download this now; it's a no brainer that once you install, you'll wonder how you ever lived without.</p>
<p> </p>Digital Herpes: Content, Cowardice & Owning Your Voicetag:recruitingblogs.com,2014-03-04:502551:BlogPost:17929462014-03-04T22:56:27.000ZMatt Charneyhttps://recruitingblogs.com/profile/MattCharney
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557529025?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-left" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557529025?profile=original" width="259"></img></a> I’ll confess: I’m a troll. And not because I’m so damn short. It’s because, to cite my favored definition, a troll – in online parlance, at least – is someone who enjoys experimenting with the emotions and passions about things that seem, to any reasonable person, silly, superficial and specious. <span style="font-size: 13px;">Take sourcing, for example.</span></p>
<p>Now,…</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557529025?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557529025?profile=original" width="259" class="align-left"/></a>I’ll confess: I’m a troll. And not because I’m so damn short. It’s because, to cite my favored definition, a troll – in online parlance, at least – is someone who enjoys experimenting with the emotions and passions about things that seem, to any reasonable person, silly, superficial and specious. <span style="font-size: 13px;">Take sourcing, for example.</span></p>
<p>Now, your average person would not have an opinion on, say, the irrelevance of Boolean logic as applied to a search engine algorithm for the purposes of researching an individual’s digital footprint.</p>
<p>But here in this weird little outpost of the blogosphere, well, them’s fighting words. Or corporate culture. </p>
<p>We write reams about how essential it is to retaining top talent, while the rest of the world just goes to their crappy jobs in crappy offices.</p>
<p>My contrarianism stems from nothing more than the idea that this recruiting industry has become unnecessarily complex (there are harder things to sell than jobs, all things being equal) and that it’s just one part of the sum of the system of interpersonal interaction meets technological innovation. And stuff like cool hacks and killer apps is kind of cool to even the most garden variety of geeks – only we’ve got Twitter instead of Tolkein to nerd out on.</p>
<p>I’m often told, and I’m actually not entirely sure what this means, that I “keep it real.” While I think that phrase was fresh about the same time as the Prince of Bel Air, I also participated in a panel called “Keeping It Real in HR” at an annual SHRM Young Professionals national conference a few years back, so I’ll pour one out for Uncle Phil and own it. I hate taking a compliment, particularly since most of what I do is predicated on pissing people off, which makes me feel way more comfortable (and, frankly, fulfilled) than when people say nice stuff. Which might be why I rarely do, myself.</p>
<p>I was contacted by a friend and fellow recruiting industry observer the other day, who was offended by an anonymous Twitter account which, by all accounts, existed primarily for the purposes of flooding the back channel of an event with vitriolic attacks that, back before social media, used to be called libel. I won’t do the dignity of acknowledging that account, or the specific circumstances behind it, but it directly addressed perhaps the fundamental problem, and my biggest pet peeve, with this whole social thing, particularly in an industry as insular as online recruiting and HR. It’s the antithesis of keeping it real; it’s more or less content cowardice.</p>
<p>Own your voice.</p>
<p>Don’t hide behind some silly avatar or snarky handle that only pops up once in a while, like digital herpes, to wreck havoc and disappear until the next hashtag rolls around. If you won’t put your name on it, then don’t put it out there on social. Period.</p>
<p>Here are the basic rules of engagement for participating in the online HR and recruiting conversation:</p>
<p><strong>1. Don’t sell your products or services without first adding value.</strong></p>
<p><strong>2. Disclose any or all agendas, and clearly identify whether or not you’re speaking as yourself or on behalf of a company.</strong></p>
<p><strong>3. Don’t make personal attacks – attacking products and sweeping archetypes like, “agency recruiters” or “HR generalists,” however, is OK. But if you ever actually call someone out, make sure you can back it up.</strong></p>
<p><strong>4. Don’t make noise for the sake of being heard.</strong></p>
<p><strong>5. Own everything you do.</strong></p>
<p>That’s not hard. But when you choose to eschew a real byline for some silly persona (which, by the way, I can tell you can be done using an actual identify), then you’re not being a troll. You’re being a douche bag. And for an audience that mostly deals with candidates and hiring managers all day, there’s no need for more of that in this corner of the world of work.</p>
<p>I can think of a dozen people I know who do this crap off the top of my head, and the justification across the board is, “this way, I can say stuff I’d never be allowed to say if I revealed myself.” That should be your first tip off right there – sure, you can spill the dirt about recruiting in a way that would be highly illegal if you didn’t hide behind an avatar, but if it’s a violation of what your professional ethics – which is implicit in anonymity – then you should probably stop right there. Because when you go after people who have the cajones to actually use their real identity, you’re not only hurting feelings, you’re hurting livelihoods. I know of another instance where a completely separate fake account on a hashtag being monitored by a potential employer ended up in a candidate not getting a job offer because of what was likely intended as a joke.</p>
<p>But if you think jobs are a joke, and hide in fear of being found out instead of found online and in person, I’d suggest you’re likely in the wrong line of work. You should really consider going into a career in finance.</p>
<p> </p>Monster Shopping Spree: Big Board Swallows Social Recruiting Startupstag:recruitingblogs.com,2014-02-24:502551:BlogPost:17914082014-02-24T19:05:18.000ZMatt Charneyhttps://recruitingblogs.com/profile/MattCharney
<p align="center" style="text-align: left;"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://recruitingdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/monster-worldwide-inc-logo.jpg" target="_blank"><img class="align-left" src="http://recruitingdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/monster-worldwide-inc-logo.jpg?width=277" width="277"></img></a> A little over a year ago, Monster Worldwide saw its shares plummet after CEO Sal Ianuzzi <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-07/monster-falls-as-sale-process-continues-without-buyer.html">admitted that he wasn't certain</a> when - or if - the once venerable company would find a buyer,…</span></p>
<p style="text-align: left;" align="center"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://recruitingdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/monster-worldwide-inc-logo.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://recruitingdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/monster-worldwide-inc-logo.jpg?width=277" width="277" class="align-left"/></a>A little over a year ago, Monster Worldwide saw its shares plummet after CEO Sal Ianuzzi <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-07/monster-falls-as-sale-process-continues-without-buyer.html">admitted that he wasn't certain</a> when - or if - the once venerable company would find a buyer, a full quarter after retaining Stone Key Partners and Merrill Lynch to assist in its very public bid to get bought out. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: left;" align="center"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Scorned by potential suitors, the company, which quietly took itself off the auction block after failing to liquidate even its most saleable assets, seems to have completely shifted course, announcing today that it had acquired recruiting technology firms <a href="http://www.goziak.com">Goziak</a> and <a href="http://www.talentbin.com">TalentBin</a>. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: left;" align="center"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Deals of the terms were not disclosed. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: left;" align="center"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Goziak, which was only released in beta in April 2013, offers "Google like results" for employers trying to search Twitter and other social networks, will likely be integrated with Monster's 6Sense Semantic Search technology to include social media results when searching for candidates through their SeeMore product offering. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: left;" align="center"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">With social job distribution and optimization capabilities, it is likely that Goziak will also function as an extension of Monster's Career Ad Network, the behavioral advertising network that remains the primary legacy of its acquisition of HotJobs from Yahoo! That deal was designed to eliminate a competitor while buying visitors from Yahoo's powerful ad network, a three year arrangement that was a short term attempt to revive Monster's flagging fortunes by paying for Yahoo's career related traffic, a deal that has subsequently expired.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: left;" align="center"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">TalentBin, a profile aggregation tool competing in a crowded space with startups like Gild and Entelo, raised its most recent $1.2 million round of seed funding last July, and will also likely be integrated into the Seemore product suite in order to compete against Dice's Open Web product in particular. This is the more interesting acquisition, as their product's UI, UX and search functionality are far superior to Dice's offering, but the chance to have dynamic profiles and social results aggregated with Monster's already market-leading semantic search technology has significant potential to add new value to customers while extending the shelf life and utility of the resume database which remains Monster's biggest market asset.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: left;" align="center"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In Monster's press release, it is clear that the job board is making an attempt to pass these acquisitions off as a social recruiting play, although TalentBin is not explicitly a social media product, and Goziak really only utilizes Twitter's API and is therefore very narrowly focused within the much larger social media landscape (and really offers no utility beyond many similar, free tools available on the market).</span></p>
<p>“The acquisition of TalentBin and Gozaik completes one key component of a larger strategy designed to help our business grow,” said Sal Iannuzzi, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Monster Worldwide. “We look forward to sharing more details about these plans at our investor briefing event later this year.”</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">That delay is likely due to the fact that Monster still hasn't formulated a strategy for these acquisitions and may still be working out the details. Here's hoping that they learned a lesson with the disaster that was BeKnown, a Facebook recruiting application which, shortly after launch, had access to the LinkedIn API cut off, rendering the product largely unusable (they could face a similar situation with Goziak), and are able to more effectively support TalentBin than their somewhat sloppy repackaging of Trovix into 6Sense, which did not fully capture the search and stack ranking capabilities of its independent predecessor. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">One thing is clear: Monster intends to stay around for as long as possible and, after a somewhat tumultuous recent relationship with its investors, has the appetite to put their money where their mouth is. The real question is: will employers put their money with Monster?</span></p>LinkedIn Opens Publishing Platform; "Professional Network" Wants To Own Your Content, Tootag:recruitingblogs.com,2014-02-19:502551:BlogPost:17906082014-02-19T14:00:00.000ZMatt Charneyhttps://recruitingblogs.com/profile/MattCharney
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557527558?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-left" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557527558?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="300"></img></a> In his recent RecruitingBlogs post, "<a href="http://www.recruitingblogs.com/profiles/blogs/agency-recruiters-censored-linkedin-awash-in-tombstone-epitaphs" target="_blank">Agency Recruiters Censored!</a>," Nick Lagos wrote a sentiment which seemed widely shared by this community, which is to say, LinkedIn's move from professional network to…</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557527558?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="300" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557527558?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="300" class="align-left"/></a>In his recent RecruitingBlogs post, "<a href="http://www.recruitingblogs.com/profiles/blogs/agency-recruiters-censored-linkedin-awash-in-tombstone-epitaphs" target="_blank">Agency Recruiters Censored!</a>," Nick Lagos wrote a sentiment which seemed widely shared by this community, which is to say, LinkedIn's move from professional network to publishing portal has essentially stifled even the superficial social networks of what's more or less become a candidate database. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;">As Lagos wrote, "<span>LinkedIn has effectively stifled the voice of Recruiters (or any Independent) who have invested in the LinkedIn platform and for years have built their Networks (their customers) through careful crafting and maintenance, often using the In-Profile Activity Feed to establish </span><em>Current Relevance</em><span> with their Target Audiences."</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;"><span>This morning, however, the Mountain View based company might have finally taken notice to the not so silent grumblings about their shift towards owned, not shared, content - and a big step into democratizing its members' voices, agency recruiters or otherwise.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;"><span>According to a statement released by the company:</span></span></p>
<blockquote><p><span style="font-size: 13px;">"This morning LinkedIn opened its publishing platform to its members, allowing them to share their expertise and build their professional brand by posting original long-form content. When a member publishes a post on LinkedIn, this original content becomes part of their professional profile, is shared with their network and has the ability to reach the largest group of professionals ever assembled. Now members also have the ability to follow other members that are not in their network and build their own group of followers."</span></p>
</blockquote>
<p style="text-align: left;">What does this mean for recruiters? According to LinkedIn, this means that "by enabling members to further showcase their professional brands via their own long-form content, recruiters gain more insights they can use to better hone in on the right person for the job."</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 13px;">On <a href="http://blog.linkedin.com/2014/02/19/the-definitive-professional-publishing-platform/" target="_blank">the official LinkedIn Corporate Blog</a>, the title of the "official" announcement hinted at LinkedIn's ultimate goal: to become "the ultimate professional publishing platform." In other words, this move signals a further move by LinkedIn to try to not only own your professional information, but your content as well, encouraging and rewarding members for providing this multi-billion dollar publicly traded company with free original content (and, subsequently, the traffic needed to boost ad rates and stock prices). </span></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 13px;">The question is: will you use it? Is it worth it? Let us know by leaving a comment below.</span></p>Weekly Wrap: The Top 5 Recruiting Related Blog Posts We Were Too Lazy To Write Ourselvestag:recruitingblogs.com,2014-02-14:502551:BlogPost:17897572014-02-14T20:30:00.000ZMatt Charneyhttps://recruitingblogs.com/profile/MattCharney
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557529088?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-left" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557529088?profile=original" width="350"></img></a> Hey, did you notice there were current events this week?</p>
<p>Turns out, people really love content themed around things like the 2014 Sochi Olympics, Barack Obama signing an executive order to raise the federal minimum wage, and road conditions in the Northeast. And even if they don't, search engines do, which is really the only reason we have to write…</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557529088?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557529088?profile=original" width="350" class="align-left"/></a>Hey, did you notice there were current events this week?</p>
<p>Turns out, people really love content themed around things like the 2014 Sochi Olympics, Barack Obama signing an executive order to raise the federal minimum wage, and road conditions in the Northeast. And even if they don't, search engines do, which is really the only reason we have to write leads.</p>
<p>Because we're a B2B blog and these sites get notified when we get back linked, here are the top 5 articles of the week that we can use to reinforce whatever this week's editorial agenda happens to be to because we're too lazy to come up with original content at the end of the week.</p>
<p>We'll also tag the authors on all social media sites on the hopes that their ego will compel them to share worthless content.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbP2N1BQdYc" target="_blank">1. Making A Viral Video Every HR Generalist Will Want To Share:</a> This post shows a template that somehow works to elicit an emotional response in the hearts of every SPHR. If you want to engage an HR generalist around content that's not an OSHA poster, make sure to check this one out.</p>
<p><a href="http://deadspin.com/5935090/the-10-rules-of-pimping-as-written-by-an-actual-alleged-pimp" target="_blank">2. What It Takes To Become An Agency Recruiter</a>: As everyone in the human flesh trade already knows, you've gotta raise your chalice - and your game - if you want a spot at the Playa's Ball. Or to make a placement.</p>
<p><a href="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lvyyf0nRRz1qcro1do1_400.gif" target="_blank">3. The Secrets of the Most Influential HR and Recruiting Thought Leaders On Social Media</a>: This post shows the kinds of content that have consistently worked to ensure that people who don't really know anything about the topic on which they're tweeting get ranked on lists generated mostly by analytics tools that only look at volume and repetition of related keywords, kind of like someone using Boolean Strings To Search.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.hubspot.com/blog-topic-generator#/jobs/recruiter/technology" target="_blank">4. The Key To Generating Great Recruiting and HR Topics For B2B Content:</a> Have you ever wondered where marketing departments get all of their brilliant ideas? Turns out, it's only 99% genius and inspiration - the added secret to building an editorial calendar for blog posts like this no one reads is a tool none of them want you to know about.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.recruitingblogs.com/profiles/blogs/weekly-wrap-the-top-5-recruiting-related-blog-posts-we-were-too-l" target="_blank">5. Weekly Wrap: The Top 5 Recruiting Related Blog Posts We Were Too Lazy To Write Ourselves:</a> The entire point of these posts is to make it look like we're being really, really clever by building in a backlink to ourselves. Fooled you, didn't we? And remember that this site is the only site you need to find news that you didn't really care about or had already seen a few days back somewhere on LinkedIn or Twitter.</p>
<p><span>#FollowFriday #ValentinesDay</span></p>3 HR Jobs We Should Firetag:recruitingblogs.com,2014-02-14:502551:BlogPost:17894592014-02-14T18:00:00.000ZMatt Charneyhttps://recruitingblogs.com/profile/MattCharney
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557528797?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-left" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557528797?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="300"></img></a> <span class="font-size-2" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">For some reason, there seems to be more volatility in recruiting careers than any other part of the HR function or industry – hell, look at my resume for proof.…</span></span></p>
<p></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px;"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557528797?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="300" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1557528797?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="300" class="align-left"/></a><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-2">For some reason, there seems to be more volatility in recruiting careers than any other part of the HR function or industry – hell, look at my resume for proof.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-2">Which is too bad, considering recruiting is one of the manifold functions in the HR department that shouldn’t be outsourced or automated. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-2">While it looks like the job market is back on track, if you need to do some belt tightening around the human capital function, consider putting these worthless jobs on the chopping block, first:</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-2"><strong>1. </strong><strong>Career Coach:</strong> I’m talking about the ones who provide things like online career assessments from .edu websites that they found on Google.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-2">The ones who write blog posts like, “Top 5 Keywords Ever Job Seeker Needs On Their Resume” as their primary means for building brand awareness. The kinds who like Twitter chats, comfort eating and inspirational aphorisms. Not the kind that works directly with or within an organization on employee mobility, transitioning and training. Those guys are legit.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-2"> <span style="font-size: 13px;">No, the ones who actually care about their Klout scores as much as the candidates they purportedly help – who, inevitably, find jobs irrespective of the somewhat suspect career related coaching they actually receive.</span><span style="font-size: 13px;"> </span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-2">Oh, I know I’m going to hear it for this one, and while there’s certainly psychological benefits of having a partner to walk you through what’s potentially a socially isolating, somewhat traumatizing event like a layoff. But the per hour rate of most career coaches would easily pay for a real, board certified psychologist who doesn’t need to use Twitter to build a personal brand. And likely accepts COBRA.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-2">Instead, I find career coaches largely fall into the category of people who, through their own long term unemployment, reach the conclusion that their inability to find a position is due to a flaw in the hiring process that they can somehow fix for others; alternatively, they figure that their futility somehow translates into relevant expertise.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-2">Of course, there are all sorts of certifications and programs designed to legitimize career coaches, but this is a lot like saying that having an MBA from a for-profit online university is like going to a real B-School. You’re not really fooling anyone with those obscure acronyms. You’re still hustling to make ends meet. <span style="font-size: 13px;"> </span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-2">And in that, perhaps, career coaches can at least be sympathetic to the collateral damage of finding a job, if not actually helpful in finding the jobs that form the primary promise of their often overpriced services.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-2"><strong>2. Compensation Specialist:</strong> Granted, given my background as a recruiter, I’ve got a natural diversion to comp. They’re generally the ones, not recruiters, who determine whether or not a search gets closed with top talent (although we often expediently overlook that fact).</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-2">But the fact that many corporations actually have entire departments of number crunching, pivot table building glorified data entry clerks is as anachronistic as calling talent acquisition the personnel department. Things like salary banding, internal equity and compression are pretty easy to figure out once you’ve got a baseline established, and HR Generalists and recruiters alike can easily override these issues simply by following a really basic set of guidelines so easy even a hiring manager could do it. And likely should, considering they are the ultimate budget and P/L owners responsible for the new hire’s ROI and final arbiters of hiring decisions.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-2">Add to the fact that a litany of programs, from enterprise integrated talent management programs to free databases like Salary.com and Payscale, make finding pretty robust salary guidance as easy as punching in a few variables. For some reason, compensation rarely falls into the purview of employee self service initiatives, but frankly, it should be one of the first functions to feel the axe.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-2"><strong>3. </strong><span style="font-size: 13px;"><strong>Social Media Specialists:</strong> Yeah, I know, superficially I am one. But if you don’t get that this is everyone’s job, particularly in talent branding, then you’re already behind. And if you instead choose to delegate one of the most visible and critical public facing functions to an intern or recent grad with no actual work experience beyond maybe a few months at an agency, then you probably either suck at social. If you even bother with it at all. </span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" class="font-size-2">Although those in the latter camp are likely to have the last laugh once we figure out a way to meaningfully measure any of this stuff.</span></p>