Category Archives: Social HR

Check out this hangout with the @Gozaik team discussing the new Twitter Resume and Job Posting product Gozaik

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gozaikA few weeks ago I came across a new product for both sides of the hiring line – job seekers looking to find jobs and connect with recruiters online and for the recruiter and companies looking for prime candidates! I’m talking about a new kind of Google filtering within Twitter that narrows the job search for the above mentioned folks.

I immediately connected with the founder Joe Budzienski and asked if he would join me in a hangout to discuss it further, which we did. Here is the recording – it’s only around 30 mins!

I love anything that has to do with social and new technology! Check out the cool ways this is going to help you as Employers, Recruiters and Hiring Managers:

Promote Your Job Tweets

  • Gozaik job search displays job tweets to job seekers. Sign up now to validate your Twitter handle and drive more traffic to your Twitter job posts.

Search Candidates (COMING SOON!)

  • Identify active job seekers that meet your criteria. Review rich multimedia resumes. Watch video introductions.

Spot Trending Talent (COMING SOON!)

  • We spotlight ‘trending’ job seekers. Individuals with the most activity trend within your dashboard, highlighting job seekers you may be interested in.

Tweet Job Announcements (COMING SOON!)

  • Increase your job tweet response by delivering your job announcements through our ‘Job Announcement’ service. We structure tweets to optimize candidate response.

If you’re a job seeker or someone wanting to hire the best talent – do yourself a favor and check out Gozaik. Make sure to connect with them online. Get in on the ground floor!

 

Social Media ROI – Perhaps it’s not what we Thought

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yomamaI recently came across a fantastic article titled “The New ROI for Social Media Recruiting” which not only gave great insight into this year’s ERE Recruiting Conference & Expo but shared a little of why folks still are not jumping on the social media bandwagaon, especially executives. Perhaps we are trying to measure the wrong things.

This article talks of discussions that took place at the Conference that even big named brand representatives are still having a hard time getting their senior corporate managers and leaders involved or even understanding the ROI of social media and how it affects their organizations. We’re still looking at it as an end all, cure all as opposed to a valuable tool and channel of influence to our overall efforts. Perhaps that’s because of how it’s been presented to us.

Social is a grand tool for getting your brand out there and as this article surmises you can’t not be there.

You can’t not be on social because candidates, potential candidates, and those whom you hope to attract and someday hire will see your absence from the social media landscape as a negative. Doing it poorly is equally negative.

When a company fails to post regularly, and especially when comments and questions go unanswered for days or never, or when a company indiscriminately dumps all its job postings into Facebook’s news feed, it says, in the words of one recruiter, “This is a lame company that has no idea what social media is all about. Who wants to work for a company people think is lame?

The great thing that social enables us to do, and especially for brands and organizations, is telling the employer story and building its brand. Things such as the culture of the organization and what to expect in the hiring process on through to the day to day “what it’s like to work there” kind of things. These are the very particulars potential candidates are looking for when deciding whether or not to even begin the hiring process.

We may never be able to obtain ROI in how many folks we’ve hired through Facebook or Twitter (social in general). Instead, we should be looking at the value in branding and reputation building.

What does your company brand look like online? Are you a ghost town?

If you’re looking into a few easy ways to start, check out Glassdoor’s free resources.

Review and Demo of @SlideKlowd – a Game-changer app for Events, Conferences and Training

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slideklowd

I’m on vacation in sunny California so I thought I would pull a few of my favorites from the archives. Check these folks out. 

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You never know who you’re going to connect with on the Twitters.

Back a few months I had tweeted a post in regard to me preparing for my SHRM Work/Flex presentation and happened to mention my Powerpoint. I received a follow from @SlideKlowd and checked into who they were – as I often do before simply clicking the ole “follow” button.

Upon my investigation I found out more about their amazing mobile and desktop app that allows greater engagement between presenters and their audiences whether it’s at conferences or events, online hangouts or training. I was so excited about the possibility of doing away with “the way we’ve always done it” and having to fill out those paper surveys after a conference session or keynote, for one. Secondly, I see how this can tremendously affect the way we communicate and present future events and / or training for HR and beyond.

Just think about the possibilities of having real-time engagement with your audience and being able to walk away with REAL data. I guess it could be terrifying to presenters who are boring and those who can’t engage an audience and the like.

My next step was to follow them back online and hear more about their product and services so I did just that. I was hoping to use SlideKlowd at my presentation in October but it was cutting it short.

I sat in with my new-found connection > Justin Foster, one of the founders of SlideKlowd, in a private one-on-one Webinar to share more about what they offered and I fell head over hills with this product. I like it so much, in fact, that I told several of my HR buds about it and scheduled a Google+ hangout for Justin to present the demo to them.

hangout with SlideKlowd

Here is the hangout >

Thanks Justin, for a superb job and for the fantastic job you guys are doing at creating a greater way to drive engagement.

Oh, you’ll want to check them out at SlideKlowd.com and connect with them on Facebook and Twitter. I can’t recommend them enough.

Here is their latest video introduction.

Managing Social Media while Recruiting – Is it possible?

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Here is a great post I came across this past week by my online friend Bill Vick from his site where he dives into using social media as a tool in recruiting and social networking. He puts out some great content and I’d like to share this video interview he did with Leslie Mason of the recruiting team Intuit. You can find the original post HERE!

The most frequent comment I hear from recruiters when we talk about social media is that it takes too much time… they are super busy finding candidates and filling reqs and don’t have 2 -3 hours a day to spend on social channels, updating their statuses and broadcasting information. While I agree that it takes a bit of time up front, once you have all your social profiles completed you really only need to spend 30 minutes a day monitoring and updating them.  I am a big believer in automating whenever possible and have found some great tools to help me navigate the social media waters.

First get all your profiles “social ready” especially your LinkedIn profile.  Make it easy for candidates to find you, have your LI Profile completely updated.  Make sure you are an open networker and your profile clearly spells out what you are recruiting for, what industries, etc. and how to contact you so candidates can find you.  I also use a one click LinkedIn invitation and post that on my profile so people will connect with me.  A friend of mine, Stacy Zapar, figured out a way to do it.  Here’s her article with instructions: http://www.stacyzapar.com/2010/12/how-to-be-linkedin-pro-create-one-click.html.

My favorite tool and secret weapon is the Bitly Bundle!  Keep all your current job openings in a bitly bundle and post it on your LinkedIn profile at the top of your summary.  You can tweet and post to Facebook directly from the bitly bundle.  I socialize my bundle every Friday so people can review my job openings over the weekend. It’s quick and easy and only takes one click.  Bitly also tracks analytics and creates a QR code for your jobs… very cool.

Some quick ways to automate are to follow blogs and online papers like Mashable, TechCrunch, Fortune, VentureBeat, INC.com, Wired, Engadget, etc.  Then use RSS feeds to Google Reader or Outlook.  You can quickly scan and click on interesting articles and then use a tool like Buffer App to schedule sharing via Twitter, LinkedIn and FB.  This is a free tool that allows you to schedule up to 10 articles at specified times each day.

HootSuite or TweetDeck are great tools to manage social feeds.  I use HootSuite and have linked it with my Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn Feeds.  I have tabs for each stream and can schedule posts to all of these networks, multiple times.  Bullhorn Reach is also a free service to automate job postings; it will send your jobs out to your specified networks at specified times.

People are visual… we find that candidates today want to see what it would be like to work with potential employers.  A great way to show your company’s culture is with Pinterest.  You can create Community Boards with pictures of your campus and candid pictures of employees having fun at work as well as videos from the hiring managers.  This gives candidates a peek behind the curtain, into your organization.

Remember the first rule of social is to build relationships!  We are not out there to be a job board aggregator.  Become a subject matter expert in your area… follow thought leaders, engage with them, comment on and share their articles.  You never know…one day you may get an invitation from Bill Vick to be interviewed.

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Make sure to connect with both of these fine folks online – there’s great learning coming your way when you do.

Social Media Policies – Are they absolutely necessary?

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Social MediaYesterday, I had the privileged of hosting a LIVE Google+ hangout with two of my friends and employment attorneys in the HR space Heather Bussing and Mary Wright, discussing Social Media policies. It was a fantastic discussion on privacy, legalities and best practices of Social Media in the workplace.

Here are a few things we discussed:

  • Is incorporating social policies the cure all?
  • Who owns the social media accounts – the Employer or Employee?
  • The Applebee’s fiasco
  • BYOD (Bring your own device) Who has rights?
  • Monitoring Employees Social Media
  • Is anything really private once it’s on the internet?

Take a look:

I’m a huge advocate of incorporating social technology into our everyday workplace and these gals made valid points from both an Employer and Employee perspective.

We concluded that the best social media policy is simply “Be Professional.” I think we can all agree that’s something to keep in mind and that most of us should think before we post.

About my guests:

heatherHeather Bussing is an employment attorney and the Editorial Advisory Board editor at HR Examiner. Heather has practiced employment and business law for over 20 years. She has represented employers, unions and employees in every aspect of employment and labor law including contract negotiations, discrimination and wage hour issues. She regularly advises companies on personnel policies and how to navigate employment discipline and termination issues. You can connect with her on twitter @heatherbussing.

maryMary Wright is the editor of HR Gazette, a daily newspaper for HR Professionals and Employment Lawyers. She is an Employment Attorney who has been practicing law for 25 years. Mary is passionate about helping make sure Employers and HR professionals who struggle daily with all kinds of issues and wants to make sure they get a fair shake in the courtroom as well as the break room. Connect with her on twitter @hrgazette.

Photo Credit: Bizfest

Googling yourself won’t cause Blindness

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google yourself“If it can be Googled – it shall be Googled“ 

Last summer I wrote a post titled “Have You Googled Yourself Lately” which sparked a little conversation. It’s a catchy title and a pretty informative read that talks about the importance of your online trail – your brand. How you are perceived in the eyes of folks online. It also gives a few great social listening tools out there to see what folks are finding out about you through what you’ve allowed them to see online.

We joked about this on a recent Twitter Chat and someone stated “I hear that causes blindness.” And we all laughed.

Laughing aside, it’s important to understand that folks are using things like Google Search or other mediums to find out about you and what you’re sharing online. Whether it’s for a potential job to which you’ve applied, perhaps you’ve filed for FMLA and your manager actually wants to see if you’re in Cabo for the week, if you’ve recently applied for a loan and your bank wants to check you, or if you’ve filed an insurance claim for disability and you’re your insurance company wants to make sure you’re not off skiing somewhere – folks are starting to use the internet to look you up.

That being said, it’s important for all of us to see how others are viewing us and make sure that you are being represented properly and protecting yourself and your personal brand.

I’ve heard recently that because of Google’s algorithm, for example, there may be things that others see about you online that even you’re not seeing about yourself. But there are certain things you can do to protect your online personal brand whether you are in job search mode or simply concerned about how folks are judging you, online.

  •  If you have a Google account, you can set up Google Alerts where you can get daily or weekly email notifications when your brand name (or your name, etc) shows up online. This is a great way to see where you’re popping up online and it’s free!
  • Google yourself (or use another search engine) often to see what’s actually getting out there and what others are seeing.
  • You can make your social accounts (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook) private and change your settings – but why not simply behave yourself online. Most folks these days want to see your personality, interests and other things to see your human side. And, Recruiters and Hiring Managers are looking on these very same sites to fill key positions at their companies. See this Infographic about how Recruiters are using Facebook’s new Graph Search.
  • Everything you say online can and may be held against you. Here’s a great Infographic on managing your online reputation and some key things you can do to protect yourself. Take them to heart.
  • There are a few settings within Facebook that will allow you to remain semi-private. Here’s some info on the new privacy changes and what you can do to protect those privacy’s. Don’t fully disclose your birthday, street address and other information that others may potential steal and ruin your online reputation.
  • Don’t allow third party apps (especially within Facebook and Twitter) access to your information. When using these games and third-party apps within these platforms you are allowing them free reign to inside information and this can be damaging.
  • Don’t look at porn. If you simply find that you must do this – use an alter ego (a different name) so that these trails can’t come back to you. I see folks all the time on Facebook looking at naughty things and it’s posting to their Facebook walls. Just don’t do it. Go to the Library or something and use their computers :)
  • Think before you post. Don’t post status updates or pictures when you’re not being responsible or when you’re mad at someone. This is always the best advice to live by. These things can come back to bite you on the butt later on.

In the end, if you’re using social media and being aware of what you’re showing, what your’e posting and not making bad judgement’s then you should have no worries about what’s being found about you.

Go ahead and try it, Google yourself right now (I know you want to) and see what comes up. You may be a little embarrassed but I promise you won’t go blind.

Photo Credit: Sodahead

HR and your Social Strategy – Do you even have One?

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???????????????????I always love to go to my extra-smart friends for guest posts to mix it up a bit. I’m quite boring, in reality, and don’t wanna bore you to tears. Jeff Waldman is one of my go-to-guys in that respect. Check out this outstanding post and make sure to connect with Jeff and his team. You can find them all over the place. 

Photo Credit: en.blog.zyncro.

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SocialHRCamp business partner Salima Nathoo and I recently co-authored a 2 blog post series for SmartRecruiters and Blogging4Jobs on “Why HR Needs to Speed Up Social Media Adoption” and “Why HR is Slow to Adopt Social Media”.  The former post focuses on the business case and the latter on barriers to adoption.  It was a tough exercise to go through because there are so many reasons why HR needs to adopt and why HR has not already done so.  The focus of this post is on a simple question that can be applied across all business functions.  The question is… “What does social media adoption have to do with strategy”?

Oh Right… Strategy…
Does it not make sense that the activities that you perform during the course of your work day support some strategic aspect of the business you work for?  Sure there are tasks that one would describe as mundane, repetitive, pointless, etc… but if you ask yourself “why” you are doing those tasks you probably could, or should come up with some strategic reason for why you do them.  The same holds true for social media.

Ah Ha Moment…
Before you dive into the social media maze you need to clearly understand what your core HR business challenges are that you are trying to solve.  Forget about social media for a second; every organization has challenges and strategic objectives that are being tackled.  If they did not exist there would be no organization to work for.

Ask Yourself…
Pull out the dusty HR strategy and the business strategy and identify the top 3-5 priorities.  Are you trying to attract higher quality talent to “hard-to-recruit” jobs?  Are you trying to solve a growing retention issue?  Are you trying to support the business expand and enter new markets?  Will you be tasked with organizational restructuring or acquisition initiatives?  You get the point but it’s critical for you as an HR professional to figure this out first.

2nd Ah Ha Moment…
For all you non-HR people reading this blog post this also applies to you too.  It does not matter what area of business you work in, the fact remains that you need to understand the core business challenges you are trying solve before you dive into social media.

Now You’re Ready to Think About Social Media…
You now have a crystal clear idea of why you want to use social media; now it’s a matter of identifying the social media platforms that will enable you to achieve the best results.  The task of figuring this out will be so much easier if you have a clear idea of why you want to use them in the first place.  Sorry, just slapping up a Facebook page because “everyone else” has one is a complete waste of time, and will ultimately make you look foolish.

So, think strategy first, then social media second.

This blog post was originally published in the Social Media Camp blog.

About the Author:

jeffSocial media enthusiast, entrepreneur, social HR strategist and educator, Jeff is the Founder of Stratify, a social HR solutions consultancy and SocialHRCamp, the first-ever global HR unconference. With a background in business, HR and marketing, and a diverse career spanning all facets of HR Jeff has been carving out and leading the way in a growing niche that brings together HR, social media and business. Founded in 2012 SocialHRCamp helps the global HR community adopt social media into HR business practices and will be running events in Canada, United States, Singapore, Philippines and India.