Cloud Recruiting Nuts and Bolts - from $ apropos

From Chuck Hudgins' Blog: $ apropos

Over the course of the last few posts, I have fleshed out what I take to be the important aspects/core concepts of cloud recruiting. Two of the main points were:

Making use of social networking technology (using the same technology that makes up the cloud to connect others to the cloud)

Understanding that, in order to harness the power of free and apply Google's model, recruiters need to provide a service to candidates and clients alike: effective and productive professional networking

I can (and eventually will) break both of these down into several stages/parts. But basically I take these two concepts to be at the heart of what cloud recruiting should be. I will start with a focus on the technological side of things. Which social networking tools should we be using and how should we use them?

I think the best place to start is with a tool that helps individuals organize and stay on top of their social networking efforts: Asurion Mobile Applications' AddressBook. While the product is not out yet (you can sign up for the beta here), it should be available fairly soon, and for a number of different platforms although I am guessing that the iPhone is up first.

What it does: AddressBook essentially tracks all of the social networking activity between you and the people in the address book in your smart phone. For each individual, you decide which service that you would like to track (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc.), and AddressBook will show you every interaction that you have had with that individual when he/she is selected in your AddressBook. The initial benefit should be pretty obvious here. Staying on top of interactions with candidates and clients can be a fairly intensive process when those interactions are spread out over a dozen or so social networking services. This application allows you to respond "directly from your address book with a call, email, IM or status update." The app also allows you to set up "Smart Contacts" which allows easier access to services such as plane and hotel reservations.

what are we going to do with this aside from keeping track of who said what and when? Without a hands on evaluation, it is hard to talk about exactly what the app will what it won't. However, there are a few things to be said about the convenience and efficiency that this app would offer. First, it is one thing to have mobile access to Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.; but it is another thing entirely to have access to everything that an important contact has said on several different services with just a few clicks (maybe just two...). What's more, having easy access to this information from a mobile device for several individuals affords networking opportunities that might have been harder to notice without a more thorough and time consuming search.

Think about it this way. Professional networking is largely a matter of knowing who needs what (and/or who) and when. Typically this information takes a while to round up when it is coming from a number of different sources whoe are using a number of different services. This app affords you the ability to determine more easily and more quickly the flow of talent needs in your professional network. Of course it also offers you the ability to respond to issues (read: put out fires) more quickly.

More on Monday...

Chuck

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Comment by Tyler Brown on August 31, 2009 at 9:14am: Couple of proofreading issues here, but this is potentially pretty great. I like the idea of CRM-style features dealing directly with social media integration, but I know some of my colleagues who will be even more excited. It seems unclear as to whether this is mobile-only or not, but I think it would be very useful to have this as a desktop app for those of us without iPhones or crackberries.

Comment by Chuck Hudgins on August 31, 2009 at 11:01am: You can view a video of their demo here: http://www.demo.com/demonstrators/demo2009/165390.html
Looks like it is intended just as a mobile app at this point. I think you are right, Tyler, that this sort of thing would be useful on a CRM level, whether as a mobile or desktop app. With the number of social networking services increasing, recruiters will need something to stay on top of them all.
Chuck

Comment by Tyler Brown on August 31, 2009 at 11:22am: I'm guessing you already have looked into Jobvite, which is somewhat relevant though tangential.

Comment by Chuck Hudgins on August 31, 2009 at 11:37am: Actually that is the next thing that I am looking at on my blog. Going from SNS focused mobile apps to ATS's that integrate SNS as well. MaxHire has a social network "footprint" feature, and of course Jobvite is pretty much based on SNS as far as I can tell, although I have never had hands on experience with it.

Comment by Tyler Brown on August 31, 2009 at 11:50am: I've been impressed with MaxHire. The interesting thing though is that Jobvite's launching (or has launched) a standalone app due to overwhelming demand. I think it's a good idea because while not every ATS is going to work for a particular firm (a learned-in-the-trenches lesson), just about everyone in the industry is going to be able to benefit from tools that let us use SN in a more efficient, effective, and sane manner. Definitely worth looking some more into Jobvite.

Comment by Chuck Hudgins on August 31, 2009 at 11:58am: I am learning first hand how an ATS that isn't quite up to par can trigger the "software dictating process" phenomenon instead of "process dictating software" (which is how it is suppoed to work of course). I have only been in recruiting for a few months now, but the negative effects of being forced to use an ATS that doesn't lend itself to recruiting productivity are pretty easy to see (and feel at the end of the day). The interesting thing at this point is how to merge the mobile technology with the desktop software, which is what the combination of AddressBook and something like Jobvite (or MaxHire) has the potential to do.

Comment by Tyler Brown on August 31, 2009 at 12:10pm: One thing I was impressed with concerning MaxHire was the CRM focus and how they implemented the integration with outlook. The cool thing is if they can hook in SM/SN then you really start looking at some serious synergy. In regards to merging mobile and desktop, I think the best system that currently exists is to link a blackberry to a corporate email account, and then have your ATS or CRM software integrate with Outlook. I foresee something like Address Book allowing you to link a person's web presences to a single person record, such as in outlook. Imagine following a candidate on twitter/LI who's currently in your pipeline for a position, and seeing that they posted that they're looking to make a move, or they made a job-specific blog post.

Comment by Chuck Hudgins on August 31, 2009 at 1:03pm: That's pretty much where I see it going. You could also track quite a bit of referral activity if you were able to sync something like AddressBook to something like Jobvite. It would be an insane amount of information in the case of a larger enterprise, but breaking it down to a project management level could yield some interesting results (hiring manager tracks referrals for a particular job in his area for example).

Comment by Tyler Brown on August 31, 2009 at 1:50pm: I only foresee that being a lot of data if it's not managed properly. If on a micro level you're only really looking at one person's activities (maybe for SM, only those that match certain keywords) then it should be manageable, and if you're looking at activities from a macro level, you should be able to do plenty of trending. From what little I know from a networking perspective, it seems like the resource needs would be pretty well scaled to the size of the business, especially if the ROI is anything near what we've been discussing.

Comment by Chuck Hudgins on August 31, 2009 at 3:54pm: I guess the trick would be to associate individuals with certain positions ahead of time, and make a strong effort to stay on top of who needs to track what. And then include that in the trending/analytics work done to incorporate continuous adjustments. Regardless, it's a matter of how much leg work one is willing to do in order to make the most out of the entire referral/networking process.

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