Posted by Cameron Laker on Tue, Jun 22, 2010 @ 02:16 PM
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.
Posted by Cameron Laker on Tue, May 26, 2009 @ 01:21 PM
There is obviously a lot of noise about Twitter right now. Marketers are starting to use it agressively and recruiters and HR professionals are learning how to use it for attracting top talent. Here's a great video from Guy Kawasaki explaining how to use Twitter. This was his speech at a Vancouver Entrepreneurs Organization (EO) event last month. Hope it clarifies a few things, it did for me!
Posted by Cameron Laker on Thu, May 14, 2009 @ 02:15 PM
From www.cheezhead.com
One of the best recruiting blogs on the planet
"Where do your best candidates come from?
That’s the million-dollar question that the AIM Group, experts in online media revenue, wanted to know for their annual Recruitment Advertising 2009 survey. They asked 75 recruiters, HR professionals, managers, and recruitment agents where they are spending their limited ad budgets to find out what is and isn’t working for them."
Link to full article and report: http://www.cheezhead.com/2009/05/14/ved-recruitment-advertising-2009/
"Recruiters in the U.S., U.K. and Canada gave social and professional networking platforms and niche job sites the highest marks for bringing in quality candidates, supporting empirical evidence that recruiters are funneling more effort into these services. According to the report, when asked to rate alternative recruiting methods, networks and niches tied with 16% of respondents saying that both were great for bringing in quality candidates. No other recruiting methods came close in the “great” ratings.
Recruiters noted the two best networks for recruitment activity are Facebook and LinkedIn, with Twitter closing in fast. This is not surprising considering that Facebook is like a giant candidate playground for recruiters, 175 million potential applicants strong, while LinkedIn picks up about one new user per second. And both, for the most part, are free."
Posted by Cameron Laker on Thu, Mar 12, 2009 @ 11:06 AM
A recent study shows that 3 out 5 Canadians have a Facebook profile.
Surprise! Facebook represents a tremendous opportunity for advertisers and companies alike. The problem is that the current Facebook advertising platform doesn't work.....
Why does Google make so much money through its advertising, simple, ads are relevant and their timing is perfect. It works! If I'm searching for widgets, widget ads come up.
Facebook users don't search for products or services on Facebook; they search for people or groups. Advertisers might be able to target individuals with specific interests, geographies, ages, schools, employers or job titles but the effectiveness of the timing of the advertisements is suspect.
Status updates are one way to target people at the very right second they might be interested in a new job, new car, a vacation, but this represents many challenges on the value of the dollars you are spending and you can't currently only advertise to words from individual's status updates.
For Facebook to capitalize on advertisers' desire to spend hundreds of millions of dollars, they need to find a way to allow for ads to be relevant and timely.
Comments and suggestions welcome!
Posted by Cameron Laker on Tue, Feb 17, 2009 @ 01:23 PM
ERE did a post on a new facebook application by Appirio that is an Referral Management Solution for companies.
It allows a company's employees to pass along job openings to their Facebook friends and refer them to hiring managers.
The challenge is it only integrates with salesforce.com right now, full Applicant Tracking System integration (which I'm sure is on its way) could turn this into a must-have for companies with 1000+ employees.
Posted by Cameron Laker on Mon, Jan 12, 2009 @ 06:25 PM
We've had many discussions at the office around what an effective sourcing strategy should look like. Ultimately the goal is to find a great hire, but there are two seperate ways that companies source candidates. The Shotgun and the Rifle.
The Shotgun Approach:
The shotgun approach is quick, dirty and sometimes extremely effective depending on the candidate profile. This strategy includes identifying as many possible leads from resume databases, social networks, membership lists, internal database and sending out mass emails 'inviting' them to apply for a specific job opportunity. We have tremendous success with this for generic skill set... like an Entry Level Sales Rep, Customer Service Reps, Jr. Developers. Is does not however work when you are looking for a niche skill set and experience... but you already knew this.
The Rifle:
The rifle approach is as it sounds, limited bullets, specific targets and detailed. You need to check the wind, altitude, terrain etc., this takes extreme skill and experience. We recently worked a search for a client for a Semantic Web Developer, needle in a haystack. Our research was pre-dominantly focuses on the major semantic web blogs and looking for who is contributing the blog, commenting on posts, speakers at Semantic Web Conferences and using Linkedin to identify individuals at specific companies.
So which one is better? I don't like using 'guns' as a metaphor but felt is was an appropriate analogy.
The answer is you want both and likely two different individuals managing these two strategies, one individual has a marketing bent and the other a more anlytical background.
The next time you need to source, ask yourself if you are more likely to get results by running through the forest with a shotgun and spraying bullets wildly or sitting up in the hill with a rifle, sleeping bag, a scope and food for 3 days.
Both are effective depending on the profile.
Top sourcing tools for the 'Shotgun' approach:
- Resume Databases: Monster + Workopolis (CDN) / CareerBuilder (US)
- Spoke and / or ZoomInfo
- Online Forums and Membership lists
- Internal Database
Top sourcing tools for the 'Rifle' approach:
- Linkedin
- Blogs
- Twitter (really powerful when searching for keywords)
- Conference Websites - Look for speakers
Please feel free to contribute your thoughts / recommended tools in the comments field.
CL