There is so much going on in the blogosphere about changes in recruiting. Search Engine Optimization for Jobs, Search Engine Marketing for Jobs, talent communities, pipeline building, ROI, and Social Media Recruiting are all the rage and this is a really exciting time to be part of recruiting, sourcing, HR leadership, and recruitment advertising. We've got new tools popping up every month or so (maybe faster) and I've had to stay silent.

Though it goes against my very being to be anonymous, I want in on this discussion. Why the anonymity? Well, my employer said so, or that's how I read it. I'm just not willing to risk a job I enjoy because of my personal need to insert myself into an interesting conversation - so anonymous I am.

Do you need SEO for Jobs? So we have an entirely new industry born and a totally new place to spend our money. SEO for your jobs is important. You can do it yourself, you can hire a vendor like Jobs2Web, OptiJob, SEO4Jobs, or any of the ad agencies now making a go at providing this service. The bottom line is candidates do start job searches/research on a search engine. Getting your company present for your top recruiting challenge terms is key. Some vendors will help you achieve your goals others tell you to download some software. Choose your vendor based on your specific needs, like you would anything, but ignore Career Site SEO at your own peril. Have a plan to be present and recognize that this doesn't happen overnight, it's a process. If you need a quick hit pay to get to the top by using SEM/PPC.

Are job boards dying? No they aren't dying they are evolving or better said, they will evolve or die. Job Boards will have a place in the recruiting world they will change their pay model, or they will better integrate with social media, or their sites will be more web2.0/community and action oriented. There will be job boards. There will likely be more of them with more niche focus built around a community. Simply Hired is fueling some of this in a unique way right now.

Should Social Media be part of my recruiting strategy? Well, I would say so. If you are doing nothing to tap into the power of these social networks in some way you are missing an incredible opportunity to tap into a passive talent pool. Social networks are a great place just to simply observe a target hire. If you can engage them, even better but if you aren't out there at least paying attention to trends where you hire - you are likely not going to find the caliber of talent you could if you did. There is so much more to say here about how, why, how much, etc. but do something. If you don't try it, you won't learn anything.

Do I need a talent community? Talent community is an interesting concept. I don't know who started the term, where it came from but...well, you have one. What you do with it is up to you. I am of the mindset that you should continue to grow, nuture, and leverage your talent community so you can come to rely on this community for additional talent. For far to long people have sat dormant inside of applicant tracking systems, emails, filing cabinents. You spent money once to get them there. Why keep spending extra dollars to pull back in people you likely already have in your database? It's not a question of if you need a talent community it's what do you do with it now that you have one.

What about ROI?I kind of laugh at this when I hear it because ROI is such an abstract term in recruiting. What's the return on investment? Can you even identify what your investment is? Yes you can say "I spend x on job boards or y on my SEO vendor, z on my ad agency" but are you accounting for labor expenses associated with cost of ownership, brand impact, risk, etc. I'll make the assumption that (x dollars/y hires) x employeevalue = return. Okay, well then you must measure sources-additionally, you must associate cost with what you may call "free" sources. Few ATS providers give employers an easy way to measure. Candidates often don't remember where they heard about a position. I can't count how many times a candidate said they found the job on Monster when I didn't even have ads on monster for over a year. If you want to measure your sources, then you need to get granular and it needs to be automated tracking. If I (which I have been) am in an HR leadership role, my evaluation of ROI on a source such as a job board or any advertising usually does come down to hires but I look at it minimally from a department perspective. Yahoo did well for finance for a long time, while Dice was my place to go for IT, if I posted a tech job on HotJobs, I wasted my money and the time my team spent weeding through unqualified applicants who thought "Microsoft Certified" meant they could use MSWord. So if ROI is your challenge, do it right, measure and analyze the right way. A wholistic I spent x and got y won't help you refine your approach for next year. Knowing what sources yield what types of hires might get you closer.

Well, I've finally spoken on the subject. Anonymously, but I must say it felt good. At the end of the day, the sources that produce the right hire, at the right time, will earn our recruitment advertising dollars. In some cities, it might even still be the newspaper (measure this too). There is so much more to do in this space to compete for the RIGHT talent - make sure you are ready to diversify your approach and don't be afraid to leverage your own corporate marketing department they've learned a lot of these lessons for us. Share the knowledge.