As recruiters, it's our profession to identify talent in which a company would want to invest (aka: hire, train, develop.) In the search for sound investments, we at PepsiCo try to look at much more than what you'd normally expect to find on a resume or spelled out in cover letters. Skills, experience and references…

Every year The Redhead (my wife) watches The Oscars. She loves to see celebrities walk on the red carpet, check out the expensive jewelry or clothing, enjoy the faces of the winners and hear them give the rushed acceptance speeches. We as viewers are always shown the top handful of contenders for each award just before the envelope is ripped apart and the winner's name (or…

I want to be clear - as a recruiter and veteran in the HR/Recruiting field for almost 18 years, I like to think I know how to recognize a good thing when it relates to job seekers and candidate engagement. Heck, trying to find better and sustainable ways to connect talent to big recruiting teams is something I've been passionate about for years.  So it should be no mystery that I'm certainly interested in features or updates like the one recently at…

As SXSW Interactive week came to a close, I took a look at what our recruiting team had accomplished in Austin, TX.  What I found most interesting was the realization that I was looking at measuring the success of our participation from a "recruiting" standpoint much differently than recruiters or recruiting management might expect.  In fact, in speaking to anyone else in the staffing or…

I've returned this year to SXSWi with not only great expectations but fun deliverables. As I'm writing from my hotel this morning in Austin, TX I'm reminded that I'm only on the 2nd day of the event and already feeling like I have connected with a week's worth of people, heard a week's worth of industry chatter and seen a week's worth of after hours socializing.  It's not overwhelming, as some might…

A few weeks ago my out of office message told anyone that sent me an email that I was unavailable because I was having my wisdom teeth removed. The plan was to go in and have all of them yanked out at the same time - to just be done with it. I'm an advocate of change, but this wasn't the kind of change I'm usually excited about. So my out of office was simple and somewhere along the lines of:

"HEY, THEY'RE JUST TEETH... Apologies, but I'm…

I'm on a two week trip that covers a considerable portion of the globe (given the span of time) and where the focus is recruiting technology and marketing. The first part of my trip kicked off here in Australia where I was asked to be the keynote at the Social Media 101 event.

My presentation delivered some interesting (if not alarming) statistics around why social media is rapidly becoming a…

So another list has been issued by the good folks over at HR Examiner. This time around, it's an update - the first of its kind - to one of their previous lists. The review takes a shot at picking out, with the "least amount of human intervention possible," who the most influential online recruiters are today.…

David Als, Talent Attraction Strategist at Human Capital Management Solutions, reached out to me to talk briefly about the challenges of integrating Social Media into a recruitment strategy. It was terrific to be able to touch base with David before the upcoming…

A few months ago I was asked to provide my thoughts on an article being written by Jeanne C. Meister and Karie Willyerd in an upcoming edition of People & Strategy. The…

I knew when I joined the PepsiCo family to lead the recruitment marketing efforts I would be expected to work closely with teams around the globe to help recruiters be successful. I knew…

I'm calling you out. Yeah, you. I'm concerned that you aren't tough enough to help the Social Mudders team raise funds and awareness around the February race taking place in Austin, TX. It's an event where proceeds benefit the Wounded Warrior Project - a…

If you're a reader of my blog or if we've ever spent any time talking about the Recruiting and Staffing industry, then you know that I'm an advocate of constant change. Yes. Constant.

You'd also know that I enjoy pushing the envelope in regards to just about anything considered "status quo" and…

Every year my family and I try and plan a vacation that will be an adventure of some sort. This year we headed out on a cross-country trek from our home near Dallas, TX through Virginia, Washington DC, North Carolina, Tennessee,…

Wow - what a ride. My first 30 days at PepsiCo have been the busiest and most travel-heavy 30 days I've experienced in a long time. I've worked directly with a workforce more diverse in their ideas, backgrounds, and cultures than I've ever met collectively within any single organization. I've pitched new ideas that, as I write…