Sunday Shoutout: @mjebishop saves Ricoh UK £3Mn

The name of Mike Bishop might be a new name to many readers of this blog, given that he is not massively social. Neither has the business he heads the recruiting team for, Ricoh UK, implemented any new  innovations  in the social recruiting space. I have chosen Mike for this Sundays shout out because of what he has achieved over the last 2 years, in moving Ricoh from being heavily agency dependent, through to a direct sourcing model, and it has brought real results.

The shift to direct sourcing is probably the biggest change in the UK recruitment market. There is significant change afoot, and is a trend I’m expecting to dominate in 2012. I spoke to Bishop recently about the reasoning behind the change in thinking at Ricoh, and what the journey they had taken. Similar to other organisations I have spoken with who have followed the same route, it wasn’t all about reducing the cost of hire, although this has been a notable outcome.  

Bishop feels that direct sourcing has given them a bigger impact on quality of hire, control over process, (in particular manpower planning) and harnessing the employer brand to attract the best talent.

Bishop joined Ricoh in 2008, after a career in agency recruiting, joining from sales recruiters Robson Taylor Selection. Bishop had spent over 7 years working in the sector before moving to the corporate sector, and it is this background that has clearly influenced his thinking since joining, reflected in the teams proactive approach to sourcing talent.

When Bishop arrived at Ricoh, agency spend for the year 2008 – 2009 was £2Mn and 675 hires. Very little hiring directly, and calling an agency, any agency was the default process for hiring managers. During the same year they had used 124 different agencies, had no formal agreements in place and had terms that ranged from 15% of the annual salary to 35% of the total package.

It’s no surprise agency hiring was the only real option. There was no career site,presence in any social media including LinkedIn. and no dedicated recruiters. The business had no local employer brand presence at any of their locations, and no means for candidates to apply should they chance on the business. The average cost per hire was £3,600.00

Bishop drew up a plan for year one to bring recruiting in-house, which meant extensive negotiations with the Ricoh board to convince them to change what they had been doing for some years. This started with the hiring of 3 additional recruiters, one to focus on sales and two for general hires, including the call centre. Bishop’s plan was not to cut out agencies completely, but to operate in a more controlled way. This was achieved by introducing a P.S.L. with specific areas of focus and speciality. Agencies that could add value, rather than purely introduce people.

In year one agency hires were reduced from 82% to 30%. The additional 70% of hires were achieved by adopting a mix of direct headhunting, launching a careers section to the corporate site,  job board advertising, introduction of an employee referral program for the first time, and raising the local employer brand. The result of Bishops efforts for 2009/10 was the reduction of the average cost per hire to £945 over 675 hires, equating to a saving of £1.3Mn. No small change!

The year two focus for 2011 was a greater emphasis on direct sourcing approaches. Bishop compares this to operating as an agency only in-house, with the added benefit of being able to capitalise on employer brand and tell their own story. As a result of the savings and improved efficiencies in year one,  the team took on additional responsibility for all the temporary staffing within the business giving them control of all staffing.

Another of the benefits that Ricoh have realised as a result of direct sourcing and greater control of the hiring process has been significantly improved retention, reducing the need to 375 hires. During 2011 Bishop placed greater emphasis on sourcing via LinkedIn, and latterly Facebook. The team use LinkedIn recruiter accounts to identify potential new hires and make approaches via InMail and calls. The latest addition to the team took on the responsibility for locating talent and approaching them via Facebook, with this channel now representing 40% of their individual hires, and is a channel they are looking to utilise increasingly in 2012. These initiatives during 2011 further reduced the cost per hire to £498, representing a total saving close to £3Mn over two years, as well as greater efficiencies and retention rates.

What I think is different about this story is that it has been achieved by adopting a just in time sourcing approach without yet committing to a social approach for talent attraction, although this is coming during 2012. A business needs to be ready for a longer term approach to adopting pipelining. The results of the last two years show the foundations are in place, as well as the support from the business that comes with tangible results. During 2012 Bishop and his team will be taking on responsibility for hiring throughout Europe, proving the benefits that can be achieved by adopting an agency approach in-house.

Bishop will be sharing the Ricoh UK story in the direct sourcing track at #trulondon on the 22′nd and 23rd Feb. You should join the conversation!

Bill

Mike Bishop

Ricoh UK

Twitter Tricks For Recruiters #SocialRecruiting #TruLondon

I’m going to be delivering training next week to a team of corporate recruiters on effective ways to use twitter for sourcing talent. Whenever I run this workshop, it always reminds me how some of the most effective features in twitter are underused, in particular twitter lists and twitter searches.
I think the engagement aspects of the channel have been well covered., though I will talk a little more about this at the end of the post.  It stuns me when I hear of industry spokesman saying recruiters shouldn’t tweet, and shows a distinct lack of touch with reality. Twitter is the introduction channel. You need no invitation to follow anyone and engage with anyone. People are happy to talk to strangers about most things, and there is no real hierarchy of rank.

I know that if I invited recruiters to a networking event which was going to be attended by candidates and clients in their target market, you would be queuing up to attend. I think they would also be wise enough to know that once they got their, the conversation would be about a lot more than shop talk. They wouldn’t just walk up to everyone in the room and introduce themselves by saying “I’m a recruiter, do you want a job?”. There would be plenty of small talk about all number of things in order to start a relationship. Its part of networking. The people who talk only shop get shunned quite quickly, and new connections get tested out with questions or requests for advice from time to time. It’s a part of good networking, and why the concept of the elevator pitch is actually a bit of a joke as an introduction, though it helps to practice answering the question of what you do, without sounding like an a**e. It’s an inevitable question your going to get fairly early in a conversation. When I’m asked, My answer is that “I host unconferences and implement social recruiting plans.” That creates questions if they are wanted, without over pitching. The way you conduct yourself on twitter should not be any different, and small talk will form most of your conversation with any target contacts. This is a good thing, and part of the getting to know you process. In this post i want to share some tactics for organising your twitter followers and following, some applications that help organise you and how to make the channel work for you.
Another myth I want to challenge at the start of this post is that automated job feeds don’t work. Actually they do when they are operated correctly. I think anyone who recruits in any capacity should have one, and here’s why:

Among the social recruiting projects I’m involved in or have access to data, these accounts represent 20% of hires, and a higher volume of click-throughs. People are still actively looking for jobs in the way they always did, and that means searching via google, as well as other search engines, as well as searching in twitter. I’m not sure what the long term impact on this of the twitter feed coming out of Google search results, but right now it is still working, and there’s lots of searches going on within twitter itself. The key to making these posts effective is including location, using #’s for job type, job and location. It’s also important to list that the feed is a job feed, and not to expect engagement, (listing another account for connecting with recruiters for engagement.) Set the feed to post at different times during the day. You can use one of the excellent applications to do this like TwitJobSearch or TweetMyJobs, or alternatively do it yourself by setting an RSS feed to the twitter account or using an automated posting tool. The best I’ve seen at the moment for this is Buffer. Other tips that work are including the link in the middle of the tweet (5 times more likely to be opened), and where there is space asking for a retweet, it still works for increasing reach.

Although I haven’t done it myself, the results I’m seeing back for promoted tweets for jobs against targeted streams or topics are proving very effective, at a lower PPC cost than any of the other channels. I will be trying this myself soon, and will give you feedback.

What you need to do is not judge job feed accounts by follower numbers, you’re not going to get many, the posts just aren’t that interesting. In case you pick up a few though, add tweets every 30 posts or so directing them to a recruiter account for engagement, this stream is built for search, and will return candidates. I have heard of a number of corporates who are now very active with engagement focussed accounts, who started with an automated job stream, and the wins they got from this convinced the business to get more active. Some times its small wins at a time.

Another twitter feature that is grossly underused is twitter lists. I have always used Formulists to build dynamic lists.but unfortunately Formulist called it a day in Jan, so the service is no longer available. I have recently moved to Twitilist that is another good tool for building larger lists. it’s not as dynamic as formulists but it does a good job for simply building lists manually. 

I keep lists for my linkedin connections (this is even more useful now that LinkedIn have elected to take away the twitter app). as well as new followers and follows so that I can keep an eye on their activity for an engagement opportunity.

 For recruiter accounts I also build lists based on disciplines, job titles and employers from competitors. Although it takes a bit of time, you can build competitor lists from LinkedIn company pages by checking employer profiles for the Twitter address. I’m sure one of the super sourcers will have a quicker way of automating this, perhaps Martin Lee can help out with that.

Whatever your view of Klout as a measure of influence, the lists features are often overlooked. These lists are useful for keeping an eye on people who you engage with regularly, or are considered to influence. You might not agree 100% with the list, but I find them useful to follow the conversations they are having to join in where you think it is appropriate. You can export from Klout in to twitter lists, and the other way around. It’s another option for dynamic list building.

The benefit of segmenting twitter lists in to target areas is that you can organise your contacts in a way that is useful to you, and set columns on tweetdeck or hootsuite for closer monitoring and engagement.

Another area of twitter you should be monitoring closer with dedicated columns is competitor job feeds and accounts. You can omit jobs from the feed in the column set up to keep it clean. It’s worth profiling anyone engaging with the account, that way you can elect to make your own approaches. You can also follow competitor lists, or industry lists like trade magazines or events with one click.

One other way to identify potential contacts for following is by setting up twitter searches around geek words. Geek words are words or phrases which one user would tweet to another that would indicate that they work in a particular profession or job role. This allows you to profile the people you find. The clues might be in the bio or you may need to look at another channel, probably LinkedIn to confirm what they do, follow them and list them. As well as geekwords, another good search to follow is 4square check ins against competitor locations. Again you can set these searches up as automated columns in tweetdeck or similar. Check who is checking in so you can follow them and add them to twitter lists.

 Followerwonk is another great tool for building followers in a targeted way. One of the features I really like is being able to search bios to identify people to follow. It’s also great for delving in to competitors followers and lists,as well as comparing  your follow list with your competitors. You can break down their account by most influential followers, most active, by bio or tweetcloud. you also get access to some pretty neat data that helps you understand the strengths and weaknesses in your following.

Another application worth a look at is Twollow which allows you to identify twitter accounts to follow by key-word, as well as some other useful twitter management tools. The upgrade paid for version gives access to extra features including multiple keyword searches. Its worth trialing with the free version and upgrading when or if it proves of value.

I’ve always built twitter accounts organically, but I am aware of others who have used automation to accelerate the process.  The best of the automated twitter tools I’ve looked at and seen in action is tweetadder 3.0. This works by searching bios for keywords, tweets for content, hashtags etc. you can find and follow the followers of other accounts. You can follow lists easily by individual follower, search in multiple languages or by location. You can manage and organise multiple accounts, set to unfollow others who don’t follow you back (if you choose), or send an auto-tweet to identified users by tweet content, inviting them to follow or click on a link. It is very effective for building twitter followings quickly and on scale, and at a price of $55 for one account up to $188 for unlimited accounts, all for a lifetime licence, it’s not going to break the bank. It also has a clever way of switching between servers to avoid twitter jail. My personal choice is always to grind it out building organically, but there is a real benefit to building at speed using tweetadder, and it requires a lot less administration.

Another way to attract a following in your target market is to build a blog sharing account. By concentrating on sharing blogs in your market, you will get followed by people with an interest in the topics being shared. If you recruit auditors, and share audit content, then it is likely that you will be attracting auditors because of the nature of the posts. Because you are sharing blogs, you are also likely to get blogger appreciation, and that can go a long way. To set up a blog sharing feed set up a dedicated account with a clear bio. Search for the blogs you want to include. Although there is no obligation to do this, it’s worth contacting the writers for permission. Once you have this, sign up for the RSS feed from the blog and connect this direct to the twitter account with a share message e:g: latest from (name), post title. Every post that gets published goes to the feed. Monitor the feed for followers, profile them and invite them to your engagement account.

Using any combination of these tactics or tools, you’re going to build a targeted following fairly quickly in your market place. This is going to be worthless without any engagement. As a guideline, focus your time on @ messages first. This starts the conversation, and acknowledges those reaching out to you. My own division of time is roughly 70% on @ messages, 20% checking the main stream and commenting, and 10% on creating new content for the stream. This model serves me well. The important thing is making sure you are engaging and responding to those who want to respond to you. Not answering tweets is a bit like not answering people calling you. Don’t have an engagement account, if you have no time to engage. Organising your followings through lists and columns in tweetdeck help you to know what to engage about.

The last part of recruiting through twitter is analytics. You need to understand what is working for you, and the dynamics of your followings, including things like time to tweet. There are a few analytics tools available to use that mostly have a free version to play around with before you invest in a paid for version. My choice of tool is SocialBro which has some really useful and easy to use reports. You can also get bespoke reports in any area you want to investigate, as well as some useful features for search and list building, mapping, best times to tweet, spam control and plenty more. I love this app, and recommend you take a look.

Twitter is a great channel for recruiting when you adopt a proactive approach, both for building relationships, getting new introductions, branding and as a channel for just in time search. It’s also a great place to promote jobs, make friends, hang out and connect. I’d also say I’ve learnt more from Twitter than any other form of learning, it’s the place for self-development. I recommend the whole package to any recruiter.

This is a breakdown of some of the content that I include in the twitter workshop, which is hands on and interactive. Message me if you want to know more or follow the blog for the next set of dates that are coming out soon. I will also be covering some of this in my #trulondon track: “All of a twitter.” I hope you can join the conversation.

Bill

LINKS

TwitJobSearch

TweetMyJobs

Buffer

Twitilist

Klout

FollowerWonk

Twollow

TweetAdder

SocialBro

 

 

 

 

Being A Recruiter

It’s 2 sleeps till #truParis and only 2 weeks away from #TruLondon, and this week I’m preparing to go live on a big social recruiting implementation. It’s fairly crazy times, but there’s nothing new in that in Boorman world. This morning I completed a screen test for a series of programs on recruiting with a researcher today, and as part of a Q&A session they asked me what it was like to be a recruiter, and my answer, without any spin was that it was, and is a privilege.

Heres the thing, I sometimes need reminding that I’m a recruiter, and I don’t think I’m alone in that.Everyone who works around what I call the people space, does so with one end result in mind. It doesn’t make a difference if I’m working on a social recruiting implementation project, delivering a keynote or twitter or Facebook training, the end zone is still the same, if you’re a corporate or agency recruiter its the same, there’s no difference It applies to all the people involved in technology, digital media (in recruiting), job boards, whatever it is, we do it with the same objective, and that objective is to get people hired by companies, and to get companies the people they need to make their business succesful. Whatever the angle we are coming from, that makes us recruiters in my book, and though it is easy to lose sight of it with so much negative talk surrounding recruiting, it is a rare privilege.

As a reminder to anyone who might be wondering, this is why I’ve always loved recruiting.

You are empowered with trust. A company’s success is dependent on the people they hire. It is the single biggest factor, and businesses trust recruiters to find and hire the best talent. The single biggest factor in a person’s life is the work they do. Work that provides, motivates and impacts directly or indirectly on every other part of their life. People trust recruiters to make introductions and to make decisions that affect their lives more than anything else. They trust us with their careers and their futures. I’ll say it again, they empower us with their trust, and we should be proud of that.  

Recruiters are in a unique position to have real and meaningful impact in so many ways. However you label the people you come in to contact with in your professional life, talent, candidates, applicants, whatever, always be mindful that they are people. Not just numbers in a matrix, and that each resume and application represents someones hope and trust. We should treat it accordingly.

Whatever your contribution to getting people hired by the organisations you represent either directly, as an agent or just being involved in the process somewhere, be thankful of the trust placed in you, recognise the responsibility, and be proud to be a recruiter. I consider it an honour to have worked in and around recruiting for the last 30 years, you should be to!

Bill

Imagineering Recruitment Software And Process.

Imagine you could take a hammer to your recruitment software, smash it up and start again. Taking what you know now about the way you work, incorporating how you might work in the future and the features you might need. Starting out with a blank sheet of paper and imagineering something new.

Imagineering is a phrase coined by the Aluminium Company Of America in the 1940′s to describe combining known engineering principle and the imagination of what was possible. It’s a phrase adopted by Disney, who employ Imagineers, whose job it is to design, build and develop theme parks, and stretch the bounds of what is possible. Stephen O’Donnell wrote a blog post on #trulondon last Feb, and how this was like being in a room of imagineers on Recruitment technology, and from that post I had an idea. What if we could imagineer the tech we use day to day, and come up with something new.

We are very often limmited in our thinking and practice by the technology we have, rather than what we could have. We accept limitations in technology because that is what is available rather than what is possible. Most recruiting technology was built P.S. (pre-social), and although social features may have been added as an add on in recent years, most processes and the technology that supports it is built on old recruitment rules and practice, and things are changing. Most recruiting process in organisations was designed to fit technology, rather than process dictating the technology.

It’s a common problem that I see when I go in to organisations, in particular recruiting software that was built for information storage rather than information retrieval. The type of A.T.S. that is great at hiding information, obstructing candidates in the application process and to reduce volumes, tracking a legal process rather than smoothing the transition between candidate approach and hire. If you could start again where would you start?

Theres a few key features that would fit in with my imagineering, and the candidate would be at the heart of the process. Not thinking of the process as applying for a job, progressing or being rejected in a single transactional process.

I want connecting being as simple as one click, and to be connected in all the social places, not just one.

I’d want the process to be one where people are people, rather than candidates or talent, and companies and people connect and communicate,with accessibility between people in the outside world and the hiring organisations.

I’d like my data to be real time, constantly updating, rather than being dated from the first date of contact. (In particular I’m thinking of the resume/CV.) That means being able to access the latest data where it is, without the candidate needing to update it for themselves. Taking data from social places like LinkedIn and Facebook.

I’d like full analytics on everything I’m doing, that will help with decision making, so that I can make decisions based on facts rather than gut feel. I want to know whats working and why, rather than think I know. I’d like my technology to use the data to help with predictive decision making, and make suggestions to people that help them, like Amazon for recruiting. 

I’d like my tech to be collaborative, so that I can plug in to API’s, applications, tools and other tech, and get all the data in one place, and only need to make any action once, and to have my actions tracked for me, without needing to carry out other actions. 

I’d like to be able to search inside and outside of the technology, and access the results in one place, using any search methodology I choose.

I want all my information in one place, with a simple dashboard.

I want my data to be secure and confidential, with the flexibility to scale up and down according to the need.

These are just a few of my thoughts about how I want my recruiting technology. #TruLondon track sponsor and Microsoft Partner ColleagueRS are interested in the same thing. They want to look at how recruiting software could be with a little imagineering, and will be running a track to see what recruiters and candidates really want, and they want to learn by listening rather than talking.  The challenge is quite simple. One hour with a blank sheet of paper, active and vocal participants and an open mind, to imagineer recruitment software for the current day. They will be recording everyones thoughts and producing a post-event white paper on what recruiters think is possible and needed. It’s going to be a lot of fun! Thanks to the team at Colleague for supporting #trulondon.

Hope you can join the conversation, and in the meantime, fire your thoughts over in the comments section and apply a little imagineering.

Bill

The LinkedIn Contradiction: A Social Channel?

I think LinkedIn is having a bit of a crisis of identity. It’s driven by the search algorithm that impacts on search results and matching, and  the way in which connections are encouraged, and the way LinkedIn rules apply over invites to connect. I think it is part of the struggle the channel has with itself over weather they are a social network or a professional network, or if the two are really any different. There is a constant battle over features and functions between the big 4 social networks, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+. (I see YouTube sitting outside of this.) with each trying to find it’s place. No one channel can be all things to all users, and each has its place in the mix.

Facebook applications are moving in to professional networking in a big way. This week Glassdoor.Com, the employer review site launched an app that links reviews, jobs and connections, (more about that later this week,) BeKnown from Monster, BranchOut, Indeed, BraveNewTalent and others. These apps overcome the Facebook barrier,in that users can connect with employers and view jobs without needing to connect with their personal accounts, or show anything that they would rather keep hidden. Facebook users have responded by adding professional details to their profiles and interests, in numbers. It’s a big play on the LinkedIn space when you consider the difference in user numbers.

In the UK there are 8,373,511 LinkedIn users, or 13% of the population, compared with 30,249,340 Facebook users, or 48% of the population. (data from SocialBakers.Com.)

In the US there are 58,553,631 LinkedIn users or 19% of the population, compared with 155,701,780 Facebook users, or 50% of the population. (data from SocialBakers.Com.)

With changing attitudes as to Facebook as a professional as well as a personal channel, there’s a real battle on for recruiter attention and spend. There’s also the difference of time spent in the channels by users which is significantly different.This becomes important when you are considering the best place for a P.P.C. campaign. When there’s a fight for dollars, it is understandable why LinkedIn are looking for new ways to be social. More of the applications and functions are making it easier to communicate via LinkedIn, without ever going in the channel.You can e-mail direct to groups or respond to messages, post using applications like LinkedIn jobs insider, and updates from Tweetdeck, Hootsuite etc. These all lead to more time out of the channel by the users, with even less interaction.

Any good sourcing trainer will show you that the search results that can be achieved by searching LinkedIn via Google, Bing or other search engines rather than LinkedIn’s own search engine, gets more comprehensive results, and you get to see the full profile. Theres less reason to log in to LinkedIn as it gets easier to communicate from the outside, so is LinkedIn still working, and what do the users want from the channel?

This post isn’t intended to be a LinkedIn v Facebook post. Both channels have their place in the recruiting mix. My question is over the contradiction between how LinkedIn reward users with larger networks with results, and the way LinkedIn invites work. To get the most out of the channel, bigger is better. The more people you are connected with, and the more groups you belong to, the higher you come up in searches, the more jobs you get recommended to and the more people get recommended to follow you. While it makes sense to focus your connections on your area of recruiting, you want to connect with as many people as you can in your niche, because this returns you in more searches and more recommendations. LinkedIn however, don’t see it this way, and I think they should.

The twitter factor changed the way people are willing to connect. Before Twitter, networks were largely personal and connections were known. More of a means of keeping in touch or reconnecting, and then Twitter came along with its 140 character messaging, and the opportunity to follow anyone you wanted without the need to be known or accepted. The users liked this type of networking, and began to follow people in large numbers regardless of geography or relationship. New friendships got made through following and conversation, with no previous relationship, and most people liked that.

This new attitude to connecting switched to other channels. Even Facebook, which had very much been the personal channel, made it easier to find people and accept their friend invites. Whilst there was the opportunity to report people you didn’t know, this mostly didn’t happen. Both Facebook and LinkedIn responded by repeatedly suggesting “people you might know” to send invites to. This was based on groups you belonged to, companies you had worked for, or shared connections with those you were connected with. At the same time, the way in which invites were accepted changed. Despite what the “LinkedIn experts” might say, non-personalized invites with the standard text, were far more likely to be accepted than the ones where you try to justify an invitation.

The most successful invites are where you have a shared group, hence the benefit to joining all 50 groups you allowed.This is why many people belong to groups, and when they do comment, it’s via e-mal rather than from within the group. Whilst groups are seen as the most social part of LinkedIn, I don’t really see this. I looked at 6 of the groups I belong to at random. The combined membership of these groups is around 70,000. There were 266 discussions posted, which attracted a total of 106 comments, less than 0.5 per discussion. The comments figure was 90% from 1 group, Boolean Strings, which bucks the trend. These numbers tell me that they are largely inactive, and mostly noticeboard for posts. The ease of posting in multiple groups encourages the practice of posting, without visiting.

This is not all bad however. LinkedIn remains the highest referrer to my blog, and this comes from shares via groups, or reads from groups.(Taking in to account the e-mail update effect.) This tells me that on the most part, users are choosing to use groups in this way. It’s effective for posting, audience and reach, but can it really be considered social, when there is very little engagement? My view is that LinkedIn should forget about trying to be social, and look how the users use the platform. It’s a notice board, from updates to group postings, and is effective in this way. users should note the same to get the best out of the channel.

There have been plenty of occasions where I’ve considered that LinkedIn can’t be working for me because I’ve not been getting engagement, but then I’ve traced back business to either being found or seen in the channel. As a notice board, and largely a broadcast medium it works because the audience is targeted, and see notifications in their in box. The key to getting read is headline, (think writing for twitter), as most group updates are received and opened in this way. An occasional update catches the reader’s attention and tempts them to explore further.

When you accept an invite, or get an invite accepted, LinkedIn suggests other connections you might know based on this. The encouragement is to connect where there is relevance, even if there is not a relationship, and I would recommend this, in the same way as I would recommend looking at the section on a profile that lists the “People who looked at this profile also looked at …”, and to take a look for yourself for relevant connections, if nothing else, you can always follow them on twitter.

Company pages show who you are connected with at a company, and who works there that you are not connected with. This encourages sending invitations to potential contacts at companies you want to make friends with whatever the purpose. I know you can send requests for introductions through people you are connected with, but judging by the number I receive (a handful in the last 3 years), and the number I have sent out (maybe 3), I’m guessing this is not really used by others either. I’m far more likely to look if we share a group, then send off an invite based on this. I don’t list myself as a friend, colleague or having worked together (unless I have.), though I receive plenty of invites each day from people who claim this. It doesn’t really concern me, and must be working or people would stop doing it. I’m quick to disconnect with anyone who spams me, however. The second message is far more important than the invite.

This is where I think LinkedIn terms of use contradicts the reality of LinkedIn use. The user agreement, section 10B.5 states:

“Don’t undertake the following:”

“Invite people you do not know to join your network.”

Whilst the “I don’t know” function has been removed, to make reporting and suspension less likely, users are still encouraged to report violators, with the threat of either suspension of account, or only being able to send invites where you know the recipients e-mail address, and it matches the e-mail address on the LinkedIn database, recorded at registration.

This is an area I think LinkedIn should take a look at, considering how users are connecting, moving to open rather than restricted networking. Remove the conditions, and leave the choice of the type of invites users want to receive with the users. Users should be able to choose at sign-up the types of invites they want to receive, leaving the choice in their hands. On a personal note, I don’t want to discourage anyone from connecting with me, and neither should LinkedIn.

I have been looking quite closely at what is working for hiring companies recently, in preparation for this post. In particular, I have contacted companies who have either spoken or written about hiring from LinkedIn, to see where their success is coming from. I was really interested how much of their hiring success came from active sourcing, using the channel as the point of search, and how much was from groups, company pages, ads etc. The feedback and numbers for hires I got back show:

> 45% came from direct sourcing from LinkedIn where the recruiter initiated the approach. most had a LinkedIn recruiter account and felt it was effective.

> 19% came from PPC advertising. (In particular the ad featuring the picture from the profile in the “work here” ads) seem to have been very effective.

> 14% came from direct approaches to recruiter profiles or company profiles. (Hence the need for a well optimised profile and easy to find contact details.)

> 11% came from shared jobs and updates 

> 7% came from company groups

> 4% came from other connections

This tells me that recruiters get the most success sourcing from the channel, and this is where the most attention should be devoted, ensuring that everyone in the team are trained in search techniques, and in making approaches to target candidates. For potential candidates, they should be ensuring think of their profile as a findable document, rather than a sales document, and the LinkedIn search engine prioritizes by: (in order of importance.)

> Location

> Skills

> Job Title

The PPC results show that this is an option that should feature highly on the list of considerations. Similar to the approach that should be taken by advertisers using Facebook PPC, the strategy should be multiple ads, segmenting the audience according to key words,location and skills, changing text according to the target group. The lower the target audience, the lower the PPC cost, and the more relevant the ad and response. Think sniper approach rather than shotgun!

Moving forward, particularly as companies look to enable mobile applications or simple sign up, a LinkedIn profile will become the most likely source of information. The new referral engines from companies like Bullhorn Reach and Work4Labs actively find matches from LinkedIn. I expect this trend to continue, with more third-party apps looking to reference LinkedIn data as the main source of professional career information, and this is where the company should be concentrating their efforts, perhaps charging the apps for accessing the data, and finding new and innovative ways to make user profiles more accurate.

The update and missing data notifications to users made a big difference to users adding data. The 100% completion notification needs to be looked at to bring it up to date. At the moment this does not include the skills sections etc and misleads users in to believing they have a fully complete profile, and it has been out of date for some time. With the importance of the skills section to the matching/search engine, users need this fixing to get the best out of the channel, and the users should always come first.

If you’ve made it to the end of the post, thanks for baring with me. My conclusion is that LinkedIn is not really  a social channel, it’s a very effective notice board and directory of talent. This is the function I’d like to see the channel build upon moving forward. I think there is potential to add some other user functions, like Skype calling or instant messaging, to make direct connecting easier. I’d also like to see the “rules” on connecting relaxed to reflect user practice rather than a dated notion on how people network.

The LinkedIn tracks at #trulondon will feature super users, trainers and recruiters Jacco Valkenburg, Jonathan Campbell, Mark Williams and Gordon Lokenburg, covering a range of LinkedIn topics. You should join the conversation!

Bill

Sunday Shout Out: Steve Ward: An Agency Recruiter Who “Gets” #SocialRecruiting

Todays Sunday shout out is for Steve Ward of Cloud Nine Recruitment Group, who is well worthy of recognition. Steve is one of a rare but growing breed of agency recruiters who actually understand social recruiting and social media, as more than a job posting avenue. I first connected with Steve through twitter, where he is omnipresent. It’s understandable that Steve would be active in the social channels, given that his business Cloud Nine focuses on recruiting for the digital media sector, with an emphasis on social media. What is more interesting is the way in which Steve networks and contributes to the wider community he recruits from.

Long before immersing himself in social media, Ward had a long background in traditional agency recruiting, dating back to 1995, where he began his career with commercial recruiters Personnel Selection working up to a role as Branch Manager. He joined Recruitment Express as Commercial Business Development Manager in 1999, moving to Recruitment Cafe as Managing Director in 2002. After 3 years, Ward moved on to national recruitment business Select for a year, and the Randstad for 2 years as Business Manager. Ward set up Cloud Nine in 2009, and has not looked back.

The Cloud Nine Group is made up of a group of independent, single office recruiters, in which Wards Cloud Nine Recruitment provides the infrastructure. It’s not surprising to see the business structured this way, given Wards genuinely collaborative approach to social media. It’s a great example of the much over used adage: “TEAM: Together Everyone Achieves More.” In this case it is true.

I have a theory that you can draw many parallels between a local pub and how personal social media networks work. I use the term network rather than community because I think this fits better the way in which we connect and group together on social networks. In any local pub, people group together in much the same way. In any pub there’s a” go  to guy” for pretty much everything. When you need help, there’s usually someone with some experience or expertise who are more than happy to help. When you want something doing, like electrical work, plumbing or decorating, then there’s always a “go to guy” and if there’s not, there’s always a man who knows a man that they can refer you to. When you are active in social media channels, then you get the opportunity to become the “go to guy” for your specialist area, and this will always lead to business.

You get to become the guy by letting it be known what you do, without making it all you talk about. You help people when they need advice. For recruiters this can be as simple  as reviewing a CV, giving interview advice or passing on information. In any pub environment, you don’t talk to only the people who could do business with you, you talk to everyone who wants a conversation, and you talk about multiple topics, and just enjoy being there. Social channels are much the same, particularly twitter.

Steve has become that go to guy for anything related to recruiting within the digital media and social space. Steve is a great example of how to balance on-line and off-line activities. He plays an active part in the social media community, and is often found at tweetups, meetups and other events. He is a regular host, speaker or contributor, and all this ground work has placed Cloud Nine at the center of the community.

It’s not surprising given, Steve’s network, that most of his business, and candidates come from recommendation or shares. I get jobs from the Cloud Nine Group account in my stream. The jobs are relevent to my stream because they are based in the UK and in a relevent sector for a group of my followers. I quite often share them, and I’m sure there are many others who do the same. We share relevent content from our friends that we trust. Any agency recruiters should take a look at Wards stream and activity, as a good example of how to earn a similar position in their respective niche.

Last week Ward announced the launch of a new joint venture with social integration business Socialgility. Socialgility consult with businesses on how they can integrate social media and social culture in to all business practice. The new venture, Socialgility Talent addresses the need for recruiting in-house digital marketing roles. As more and more businesses are looking to integrate social, so the need to hire specialists is becoming increasingly important. People are at the heart of any social strategy, and Socialgility Talent provide the people. It’s a promising proposition, and I wish Steve well in this.

Steve will be back at #trulondon again, running his ever popular track “The Social Agency.” If you are an agency recruiter, then it’s a must attend track. Ward is a great role model in how to achieve success through social, on and off-line. More importantly, he is a recruiter first and foremost, and this gives him a real understanding of #socialrecruiting, rather than social for socials sake.

Bill

LINKS

Steve Ward

Cloud Nine Recruitment

SocialGility

The Inland Revenue Just Got Funky With Jobgram: Pass It On!

I should really start this post with a disclaimer, because I’m a bit of a fan of Paul Jacobs work, and his klout score on my influence ranking index would be much higher than Justin Bieber, and this might make me a bit biased towards his work. When I say his latest venture, Jobgram is brilliant. Make up your own mind.

Since I first connected with Paul via twitter, he has influenced both my thinking and my work, and although he has only attended one event at #truAustralia, has had a big impact on #tru. It was Paul who really helped me to appreciate live video on Facebook, and what could be achieved by brand advocates through his work at Deloitte in New Zealand. This is how Paul describes himself on his Facebook page:

“Olympian, male model, rock star, movie star, the messiah. Presently on anti-psychotic drugs for delusions of grandeur.”

Paul coined the phrase “Community DJ” to describe how he saw his role within the Recruitment Asia-Pacific Community that Paul set up a few years ago, and it is more than just a fancy community. Paul’s view is that you can’t manage a community in a traditional sense. The role of the DJ is to build the community space and promote it, encourage and support the members and let them determine what happens in the space and what the community becomes. Paul uses the DJ analogy because they create the ambiance, react to the crowd and spin the vinyl. The visitors do the dancing and decide what happens. I use this approach in all I do, and it makes a big difference to trying to manage things, with people able to make their own decisions with responsibility for their own experience. It seems to be working. if you “manage” a community, I recommend that you ditch the title, change your business card, treat people as grown ups and see what happens. It makes a massive difference!

When I was last in Australia at #truAus, I spent some time with Paul when he was starting to sow the seeds of a new idea, to use interactive infographics to promote jobs in social environments. i loved the concept, which has some real possibilities when used in combination with other tools. After a few exchanges on Facebook,Paul sent me his first project prior to launch. Now what type of business would go with this funky new way of promoting jobs? Perhaps a digital marketing agency, a silicon start up or some other gen Y business, you would be excused for thinking. It was in fact none other than the New Zealand Inland Revenue! (Well you didn’t think the UK revenue would take the funky route did you?)

When Paul first started putting the social recruiting plan together for Deloitte, one of the driving forces behind this was to move their image from being stuffy accountants hidden behind grey suits. To show the real face of what it was really like to work at Deloitte, for the young people in their first job. By taking a social approach and encouraging a community of bloggers, who told the story of work to the next years intake, and introducing the first live broadcast on to a Facebook fan page, Jacobs achieved this aim. The campaign was award-winning and massively successful, and has become the benchmark for other projects of this type. It should be no surprise then that an organisation like the Inland Revenue would turn to Jacobs to use his creative wizardry to do something similar for them.

Jacobs infographic is called Jobgram, which is a play on the words job and telegram, because it’s designed to maximise on social sharing. The infographic is hosted on a central website, and can be embedded on to blogs, websites and social places, and is tailor-made for social sharing. Social sharing is encouraged with the simple message: “Pass it on.” Much like asking for a retweet, (which works by the way), with the simple addition of sharing buttons I’m sure the Jobgrams will get shared. People like to share creative content, and the design fits this bill.

The infographics are divided in to the following sections:

> Job titles and what they are looking for.

> What you’ll be doing. (In pictures/illustrations.)

> Attributes you need.

> A typical week on the job. (As a pie chart.)

> A word cloud of what is on offer.

> A short statement of the purpose of the business.

> What their people say about them.

> How to apply (including a QR code.)

Each of the sections are built to be interactive. Each contains only the key points and a graphic. This makes the spec easy to read and pick out the key-points, without having to wade through plenty of small print detail. I’ve always seen job specs as being one of the worst ways to promote a job. The real selling points of the job get lost. One document reads much like another, and at the end of the day an auditor already knows what an auditor does. This is different, and the reader can choose if they want to click on any of the sections that they want to investigate. It puts them in control of the content they want to see. To look behind the job and investigate what they want to.

I’d like to see the addition of a “talk to” button to connect direct to recruiters, and a button that works in a simmilar way to the LinkedIn jobs insider toolbar to see how the potential candidate is connected with the hiring company, both social features that would add to the user experience.

As well as embedding Jobgrams on blogs and other social places, I’m planning on using them as landing pages from the Work4 tab on Facebook fan pages, a twitter landing page from a job link and as e-cards in a referral program linked to the Bullhorn Reach and Work4Labs referral products. Will keep you updated how they work when used in anger, and well done to Paul for another great initiative.

Bill

LINKS

Jobgram

Paul Jacobs

Deloitte

Automating Recruiting #Trulondon

WhiteTruffle is a San Francisco based web start-up, the brain child of Frenchman Alex Deve, who describe the business as e-harmony for recruiters. I met Alex in San francisco, and again in London recently, where he brought me up to speed with the progress the business is making. I like the concept and thinking behind the site, and the way the product is evolving. It is deliberately disruptive. More of an automated recruiter than a candidate database or job board.

WhiteTruffle introduces engineers to companies, and companies to engineers, and they do it in a different way to a conventional job board or C.V. database, adding recruiter thinking to technology, using dynamic data intelligence to continually understand and match profiles. It’s not surprising that the site is designed to think like a recruiter, as Deve’s 2 business partners are executive headhunters in the technology sectors. I know from experience that although recruiters mostly believe they work on instinct to see a match, with no real repetitive process, the reality is quite different. I’ve had the same discussions when trying to implement a recruitment database for a national business.  Habits become so engrained over time, they become automatic actions.

Deve spent several months mapping what his co-founders did in their recruitment business. How they read resumes. The questions they asked while matching and profiling candidates, and how they learnt from feedback. He looked at the questions they asked to understand job descriptions, and how they took feedback from clients to modify and change what they are looking for. More importantly, he noted the consistencies between one recruiter and another to determine the outline for the platform.

Not surprisingly, given the recruiter influence, they’ve introduced a pricing model that is familiar. The site is free for engineers to put in their profiles, and it’s free for recruiters to use. A fee becomes payable when a candidate gets hired. At the moment the percentage and fee is determined by what the hiring company thinks the candidate is worth, and so far it has worked out close to what an agency fee would be for the same placement. There’s no policing of introductions, it’s all on trust, although candidates can claim a $200 voucher when they get a job through the site, and this acts to make them aware of hires. In the next phase the plan is to move to a subscription model, regardless of volume of hires. 

Registration is simple and quick, as all sites should be, with one click to import the LinkedIn and Facebook profile and a CV upload, with the only fields required being those left unpopulated. This is followed by simple qualifying questions over work status, permit etc, and a series of tags relating to type of employer. The company and job description follows a similar frame, and the automated matching starts, as you’d expect, with the usual key-words. Thats where the similarity to a normal career site ends.

Both the job and the profile are kept anonymous. The job seeker gets to see the job and decide if they are interested, and the hiring company gets to see the profiles matched. One party only gets to see the full detail of the other when both have expressed an interests. Deve expressed an opinion that Linked In and the Job boards are over populated with recruiters. The candidates who use WhiteTruffle do so because they were tired of getting too many irrelevant approaches when they used the traditional sites, often as many as 10 – 15 a day. By staying anonymous until everyone is interested in a conversation solves this problem for all party’s, with recruiters also only speaking to candidates who are interested. It’s much cleaner all round.

The site includes some Amazon like features, like, other candidates like you were also interested in these jobs, and companies interested in this candidate were also interested in these candidates. While this is useful, the feature I really like though is the way the system learns from the candidate and hiring companies choices. Preference is given to those profiles on either side that are active and respond to approaches, and are “rewarded” with new introductions, those who are less responsive drop down the list.

When a candidate rejects or accept a job or opportunity they are asked why. The same for hiring managers rejecting resumes. The information gathered after each action and the answers are used to build up intelligence to enable the system to make more and more accurate choices. The more the system knows about you from your actions and feedback, the better it works for you. The questions asked and the data gathered are the same as the questions I would ask candidates or clients when I was a recruiter, that helped me understand their needs and wants a little bit better after each interaction. The more I understood about the emotions and motivations of candidates and clients, the easier it was to make the right matches. People get interviews based on skills and experience, and candidates take interviews based on similar criteria. Increasingly, research is showing that candidates are only applying for jobs they are confident they can get and want. This process can only help in this, and I will be watching the feedback with interest, to see how these intelligent profiles work out.

What strikes me is that this kind of intelligence gathering and matching technology has been used successfully for the last few years, hence the description as e-harmony. What we do know is that dating sites like e-harmony have a fantastic success rate of matching couples based on emotional intelligence, interests and feedback. A job is a kind of marriage, with an interview being a first date. If it works in dating and few people now question it, why not recruiting?

Deve gets excited and animated when he talks about the need for disruptive practices in the recruitment marketplace. In his view, (and I’m inclined to agree), much of the existing technology and practice that is used today is unhelpful for jobseekers and employers. It’s clogging up the market on both sides, and although there are some exceptions, mostly an overhaul is needed. I’ve heard Deve’s fellow countryman and friend, Jerome Ternyck of  disruptive ATS company SMART recruiters, speaking on the same subject. It is Jerome s view that there’s lots of open jobs, particularly in the SME sector, and plenty of people with the right skills who are unemployed. Complicated application processes and lack of acknowledgement and feedback has led to applicant lethargy. The employers are unhappy because they can’t connect with the right talent, and the job seekers are just fed up because they can’t connect with employers. The technology needs fixing to make the process work.Both Ternyck and Deve are setting out to open up access to all, and I wish them well in that.

I asked Deve what the long term vision was for the business. Interestingly, he was more interested in how the product would develop, rather than what the exit might be. Similar to Lucian Tarnowski, over at the talented community, Brave New Talent, Deve sees a future where these technologies can be used to identify skills gaps between where a candidate is now, and where they want to be in the future, benchmarked against others, with on-line resources being made available to develop the candidate to the required next level. It’s an exciting prospect to develop careers platforms rather than purely transactional job finding services. These forward thinkers make a valid link between recruiting and development through technology,and I’m starting to think this vision is not too far away from becoming a reality.

At #truAustralia in Melbourne, Kevin Wheeler spoke about how in the future the recruitment process was going to be considerably shortened through automation, video selection, assessments and testing and referencing, using products like Checkster, the brilliant 360 degree reference tool. Wheeler contends that there’s far too much time spent on preliminary interviews conducted by untrained interviewers. This is not effective for the hiring company, and frustrating for the candidate. This process change would reduce the number of interviews to 1 or 2, with better outcomes. I couldn’t help thinking how this might fit in with developments planned at WhiteTruffle. Wheeler will be leading a track at #trulondon on this thinking, and Deve hopes to be there. It will be an interesting conversation.

Whilst WhiteTruffle is focussed on engineers, this technology and methodology is equally applicable to any niche sector. Deve is quick to point out that there will always be a place for recruiters who can bring relationships and a personal approach. I agree with this, and it gives further evidence why recruiters need to be moving from transactional practice to one based on relationships, and the winner in all this could just be the candidate. Thats got to be great news!

Bill

LINKS

White Truffle

SMART Recruiters

Brave New Talent

Kevin Wheeler

Checkster

How to make a social referral program work #trulondon

One of my top 3 conversations I had last year, was with Brave New Talents newly appointed Director of Strategy, Master Burnett. Master is one of the smartest people I know, and I’m confident that with Master behind the plan, Brave New talent will achieve the lofty ambitions of founder Lucian Tarnowski, to become THE talented network. It was one of those conversations that almost makes your head hurt because you have to go away and really think about it, write-up your thoughts and keep going back to the conversation in your head, figuring out the right position to take.

We were at #truSanfran, and it was an unusual one for me because I found myself disagreeing with Master. He is a smart guy, and that doesn’t happen often. We were discussing referrals, and how to make programs work. Master is a bit of an expert in this, having spent the last 7 years or so researching referral programs, good and bad. He knows his stuff, so why did we disagree?

Master Burnett

I don’t differ from Master in this point, recommendations where there is a past relationship, knowledge of work and trust should always take priority, but I think we should take things further. I’m interested in the quantity as well as the quality. I want the employees of the company to be the introducers and not the recruiters. The recruiters should be the recruiters. I want them deciding who to see and who fits,.I want the employees to give the recruiters access by introduction, and I want the quantity, as well as the quality.

This is what I see as the difference between social referrals and recommendations. I understand the ratios are going to be vastly different, but if I can get the reach and the introductions, based on scale, I can get to the point where social referrals are the main source of hire, where there is high volume requirements. So whats the difference?

Each employee has an average of 125 friends on Facebook, and 220 LinkedIn connections. My research shows a 20% crossover, and about 70% relevance. Do the math for the possible reach if you got even half your employees involved in the referral program.

The social referral tech (you can read my review of the products HERE), matches profiles to jobs to come up with possible introductions. It’s quick, and the more intelligent software learns to get more and more accurate. I understand that only a %, probably no more than 10% of your connections are going to be known to you. I’m not looking for you to recommend who is a good fit, but to introduce me in the channel where you are connected, so that I can make a choice. This type of referral will only work when you’ve removed any type of accountability, and you’ve made it clear that you are not looking for recommendations.

It does help however, if employees can indicate those they recommend, as well as those they socially refer. I agree 100% with Master that the recommendations will be the most effective, and best source of hire. Priority must be given to these candidates, but I want both, to achieve higher volume hiring requirements. To get access to an employees social networks, I need to work on certain conditions of trust. This is a big communication exercise at launch to get accepted. We establish a trust contract with the employees.

The referral program contract:

> The software accesses your connections and matches with your permission.  The recruiters have no access until they are contacted by the refered person. You can remove access at any time.

> We acknowledge these are your connections and your network that you have worked hard to establish.

>We won’t scrape or export your contacts in to a database. Your network is your network.

>We won’t message or spam anyone. You decide who to message, when, what to say and how often.

>We won’t hold you accountable or responsible for introductions.

>We don’t expect you to know the people you introduce unless you say otherwise.

>Your referrals will be given priority.

>We will review your referrals within 48 hours and give you feedback.

>We will give you feedback on progress.

>We will provide you with anything you need to refer jobs.

>We need your help to hire the best people, and will track and recognise your contribution.

>We will strive to provide the best candidate experience possible. We understand that these are your introductions.

Social referrals form a big part of the consultancy work I do. From talking to teams and looking at schemes, I’ve drawn the following conclusions:

> Cash rewards don’t work.

> Referring needs to be technology enabled, quick and simple.

> The recruiters need to do the work, not the referer.

> Reward referrals not hires.

> Competitions work especially i-pads. A scheme that worked really well for me was a raffle ticket for each referral, with an i-pad as the prize.

> Public recognition, T-Shirts etc work wonders.

> Referral programs need high visibility on an ongoing basis. Posters, mailers and requests work wonders.

>Make sharing easy.

>Don’t ask staff to get or upload resumes.

>Leader boards and inclusion in reviews and meetings go far.

>Make sharing simple.Provide shortened links and plenty of supporting content.

>Work on relationships rather than expect referrals. (If you have people not referring, spend time with them to find out why.)

I agree with Master 100% that the preference is for recommendations. They will get you the best hires, but using social reach and referral has the potential to get you all your hires. Michelle Rea of Social Honesty and SocialCruiter, a recommendation product, and Pete Linas of Bullhorn Reach, a referral product will be leading the referral track at #trulondon, and I will be joining the conversation. With direct recruiters coming from the BBC, Oracle, Accenture, SalesForce and plenty of others, as well as agency recruiters, it’s not one you’d want to miss!

Bill

Two Screen Recruiting Events

I’ve been working at the BBC recently, on a social recruiting project. It’s given me a great opportunity to see behind the scenes at how a corporation and broadcaster are increasingly using social media to connect with viewers during programs. When you see the reach and the volume of activity it is quite astounding. The reality now is that we need all of our media to be interactive. Traditional media was one-dimensional. They broadcast, we watched.

I read somewhere once that Children under 5 had stopped watching TV because they were unable to interact with it. They have grown up with i-pads, computer games, interactive toys almost from birth, they can’t maintain interest in anything that is 1 dimensional. It is an interesting thought. Most mainstream TV has a hashtag these days, and the backstream goes on long after the program is broadcast. This starts with the topic or theme of the show, comments on the show then a whole series of side conversations, observations and new questions. For a great example of this take a look at the BBC Question Time hashtag, #BBCQT , the news or any political program, sports  event or soap. We don’t want to watch now, we want to be a part of the story, and connect with others who share our opinion or interest.

One of the really interesting areas this is developing is around two screen viewing. This is when the viewer can interact with the program, bookmark things, go and get additional information or resources and interact with others. Apps like GetGlue and Simo have been developed for viewers to check in and take part. The Disney app responds to audio from the broadcast or recording and pushes additional content to hand-held devices. More and more people are moving to dual screen viewing, watching and interacting, making television an experience. Think clapometers on the x-factor app, voting, tweeting and other functions, it has become a part of our day-to-day viewing. TV on, hand-held device within easy reach.

I’ve been thinking about how this can be applied to recruiting. If you follow this blog, you will know that I’m a big advocate of running live recruiting events particularly combining Facebook pages, livestream broadcast and employees. Webinars are another area that are much underused by recruiters. Broadcast a specialist topic to attract people with skills, and promote opportunities or a talent network at sign up as an option. It is proving very effective, and remember that it’s good content that attracts.

If you then consider how you could integrate 2 screen thinking in to the recruiting event, there’s a world of possibility. I don’t think it is that futuristic if we look at how this works with TV. The same technology and applications could be used to provide additional resources, more information and live connections with recruiters, hiring managers or employees in a private, instant messaging environment via a handheld device or tablet, whilst running a livestream, chat or similar on-line event.

I could see this being really effective, and a great way to reach a target audience of employees. I’d be interested in knowing if anyone is aware of any examples of this yet, or if recruiting is once again lagging behind in this area.

At #trulondon Paul Harrison of Carve Consulting is going to be running a track on “looking outside the social recruiting bubble.” The point of this track is to look at what other sectors are doing to develop tech and methodology, and how this can be applied to recruiting or HR. I’m going to be discussing two screen thinking as a part of this. I hope you can join the conversation.

Bill

LINKS

BBC Click: The phenomenon of two screen viewing

BBC R&D Blog: Dual screen experiences

Get Glue

BUY TICKETS FOR #TRULONDON