ReThink Recruiting Blog

Recruitment Innovation What!? Foursquare for Retail Recruitment...Just Maybe

Foursquare... totally hooked, no, I'm not a mayor anywhere... but I'm trying. Check out Starbucks, they are all over the latest in mobile social networking platforms. A cross between a friend-finder and a social-city guide, it's a mobile game that rewards you for doing interesting things.

Retail Scenario: Your ideal candidate is walking through the mall looking for your latest sale, promotions etc... then they see the elusive "SPECIAL".  They see your latest promotions for shoes, clothes etc and....... the "Talent Community Contest?!"

Talent Community Contest...sounds interesting, I think I'll "check in", no you aren't the mayor but we might just give you a badge, a badge you can share on Facebook that tells your friends that you want to work for us.

Now fast forward to 2013: Job Boards? I just have to walk down a street and see what companies are hiring just by checking in to my Foursquare. Gone are the days of walking in blind with a resume, and I've pretty much have already been hired because I have joined the talent community and I can show my Top Talent Badge... so when do I start?!?!?

Maybe a little far fetched... but uber cool.  We are less than 2 years away from companies being able to market straight to job seekers through mobile apps, automated SEO, and social profiling FOR EVERYONE! Hooray!

Maybe I'm being a little optimistic and love the future; I tried to turn my Dad's pinto into a delaurian and install a flux capacitor at the age of 6. Then got excited for floating skateboards in the year 2000.

Either way, the way in which we communicate is changing at a rapid rate, and there's a ton of room for innovation for retailers to become a top-of-mind employer.

If you are in the hood, "check in" to MFG on Foursquare, stop by and say high and if it's after 5 we will have a cold beer waiting for you.

A video message from our CEO

 

Date: Thursday June 24, 2010

Time: 10:00 - 11:00 am PDT

Cost: FREE

Register: Click here!

Making retail hiring easier, MFG launches new hiring portal!

After months of development, beta testing and design, we are excited to announce the full launch of our hiring manager portal to our retail clients.  

We have always found recruitment technology to be built for recruiters and sourcers, not hiring managers. For those of you in Recruitment or HR, I'm sure you would agree.  

Although many applicant tracking system vendors offer a 'hiring portal', the consistent feedback is that they are either slow, have too much functionality, they are complicated... or that they have yet another piece of software with a username and password to remember.

Here are some of the key features of the newest MindField innovation:

• Single sign-on capability
• Web-based
• Fully branded to each specific client with logos, font and color
• Takes less than 30 seconds to open a job
• Hiring managers can email to candidates directly from within system
• Centralized real-time reporting for head office

Coming Soon - 2010 / 2011:

• Iphone App
• Blackberry App 

We will be launching an iphone and blackberry application in late 2010 / early 2011.  

Yes.... Hiring Managers will be able to manage the entire recruitment process from their mobile phone, allowing them to open a job, review and contact candidates, update the candidate status and view the key recruitment data associated with their location(s). 

Here are the videos below, any feedback or comments are greatly appreciated either on the post or via email to cameron@mindfieldgroup.com 

HOW TO OPEN A JOB:

MindField was there...

The team at MindField was lucky to be front row for the early morning celebrations. Large crowds gathered right at our front door and our team was in the middle of all the action. 

Some candid shots from the sidelines below. Go Canada!

 

 

Photo credits:

Joel Schurman - Customer Success Manager

Jeff Summers -   Director of Technology & Systems

From one entrepreneur to another

Last holiday season, the MindField team decided to forego  the traditional gift exchange and sponsor an entrepreneur through an organization called Kiva. Kiva's mission is to connect people through lending for the sake of alleviating poverty and is the world's first person-to-person micro-lending website. 

Use Web 2.0 sophistication used to empower individuals and give them the ability help others, even those on the other side of the globe???!!!

In a time where information sharing via social networks, blogs and wiki's  has removed a large amount of face to face interactions, it is important to remember that Web 2.0 tools can also allow us to reach out and help others time zones away. 

So from one entrepreneur to another...all the best Mariamu! We wish you continued success!

__________________________________________________________________

Dear Mariamu,

Mambo! Thank you for your letter, the team here is always excited to hear from you and your continuing success. Three new sewing machines must allow you to run your business so much more efficiently and turn that vitenge, and kanga into beautiful pieces of clothing.

Please send our warmest greetings to your children, we trust they are working hard as ever in school!

Hope to hear from you again soon,

Sincerely,

The team at MindField

 

 

Picture of Mariamu at her tailoring shop in Tanzania.

Join us for our December webinar : "Lean on me : Store Manager Support", CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Social media recruiting - Should you hire another recruiter? A sourcer?

With the rising influence of social media in the business world, the recruiting function may be transformed to include a new role. As well described in this article here:  The Community Manager is a real consideration for recruitment departments. 

Let me summarize:

1. With social media, people (ie., candidates) interact, connect and learn about your company in new ways, through many different channels. It only makes sense to consider a shift in your recruiting operating model and your technology platform to keep up with the times.

2. Consumer marketers who aim to build demand for products or services are all over this stuff like flies on shizzle. Your modern day Marketing Manager is responsible for attracting, engaging, nurturing and retaining customers all in support of sales and brand. Creating Demand. AND - they are well funded to use the latest tools in driving the business, and truly understand the customer base.

3. Translate that Marketing Manager function into a Community Manager responsible for attracting, engaging, nurturing and retaining candidates all in support of recruiting top talent and your employment brand. AND - now invest and give them the tools to drive top talent and really understand what candidate profiles are the best fit. The intention is to get your organization connected, relevant and differentiated in this multi-channel world. The Community Manager will help increase the likelihood that you can develop an engaged and sustainable candidate community.

4. So where do you position a Community Manager? 

The community manager would be a direct report into the recruitment function team leader and interfaces with traditional recruiters, HR, marketing.  The community manager is focused on building pipelines and community not on individual open vacancies.

5. What is a Community Manager profile?

Communicator = listener.  Conducting conversations with an "authentic voice" of the company. Give real stories that give life to the company's brand.  Share intel back into the organization giving insight to HR and Operations.  They are able to manage a strategy that includes blogs, microblogs, social networks, user groups and email.

Company acumen =  The community manager is most effective when they master the company's authentic message to the world. They translate business into a conversation and align with all your corporate brand elements

Technically Adept = This role is a combination of conversationalist, sourcer, and marketeer. It's the social media technology that is the common denominator connecting all of it together

Persistently Curious = They are intrigued by social media, how people interact, they experiment, engage in discussions online and give insight to the company's recruitment strategy.

 

(Source: Talent Synchronicity)

How HR builds ‘street cred’ at the executive roundtable

You need data.  Facts.  Trending information.  Insights from numbers.  Baselines.  Graphs.  Benchmarks.

HR Metrics are a hot topic over at the BC HRMA.  In fact, BC HRMA's HR Metrics service is a comprehensive web-based HR metrics and benchmarking service with a survey and reporting system

Here's the simple steps:

• On a quarterly basis, you submit your organization's data online to BC HRMA
• Indicate on their survey which organization sector you prefer to benchmark against
• BC HRMA validates and audits your data
• Check your email inbox for your organization's metrics and benchmarking report 

To participate:

• You can submit all possible data points but you are only required to provide a few standard data points
• Data must be submitted within the survey timelines
• Your organization commits to submit data on a quarterly basis, at least three times a year
• You pledge to submit the highest quality data that is available and commit to improving the integrity of HR data; where accurate data is not available, you will not submit the data

 

As Snoop Dogg says "Drop it like it's the Profit Hot 50"

I figured we would get more eyeballs on this by quoting Snoop Dogg.

Last week MindField Group was ranked the 8th fastest growing company in Canada on the Profit Hot 50 list and I wanted to take this opportunity to thank some people for their guidance, support, belief and dedication to this organization... in no particular order:

- Our two longest standing employees who have had every job in the company since they started with MindField Group and continuously went through brick walls to see this company succeed in the early days, and still do...: Jennifer Summers and Corey Brooks
- Jade Bourelle, Karen MacPherson and Ken Miller for their advice, guidance and mentorship
- Praj Patel and Terry Hibbert for providing me with the opportunity to learn how to recruit... and for their patience :)
- Diane Campbell at Mr. Lube for believing that social media will work to recruit auto technicians
- Carol Crow at Growthworks for being the greatest client to ever work for and her support and advice along the way
- Ian Kato for truly being a partner and giving a small company a huge opportunity
- The entire MFG team for their ability to continuously adapt, flex and bend to whatever needed to get done that day and to have fun while doing it.

Sincerely,

Cameron 

What's The Social Technographics Profile Of Your Target Candidates?

Twitter is for old people...

I recently did a presentation on starting a business that I presented to 40+ grade 11 and 12 students at the UBC Enterprize forum.

I spoke at length about leveraging social media in marketing and how MindField Group uses it for recruitment.  I spoke about Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter....

Not one person in the audience had even heard of Twitter... this totally blew me away.  Has Facebook create such dependency amongst its younger users that there is no need to find, test and adopt new social networking applications?

Is this what Facebook saw... $15B valuation, it leads me to believe that the 20 and 30 somethings were never really the target, but in fact it was the tweens 3-4 years ago.  Unlikely... but interesting to ponder.