// August 19th, 2010 // No Comments » // Employment Branding
Recently, I had a discussion with Riges Younan about his take on sourcing, recruitment and social media. Luckily, I had a camera with me, so you can now watch that discussion (or at least his side of it) as a video.
HR In Black And White – Riges Younan from Jared Woods on Vimeo.
// August 18th, 2010 // No Comments » // Employment Branding
Imagine your organisation closes its doors tomorrow. The people disperse, the product disappears from the market. Teams are divided off to competitors, the brand vanishes.
What would the world be missing out on?
What would you, as an employee, miss out on?
The answer to the first question is the reason your company exists.
The answer to the second is your employer brand.
// August 13th, 2010 // 3 Comments » // Employment Branding
There’s an old saying that applies to social media. “If all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail.” For those of us who have been swimming in the social media pool for a while, it’s easy to start thinking it’s a silver bullet. And maybe it is. Except that even silver bullets need to be well-aimed and fired from a gun that works.
Using online social networks as a channel for attracting and engaging talent is a great idea. It’s a great idea because it allows you to communicate in real-time with an opt-in talent pool. It allows you to stand up as part of the tribe, as a voice worth hearing in your industry. And it allows you to tell the story of your brand, your employment experience, and amplify the messages you want to send about your culture. Most other media, such as newspapers, videos and careers events, let you do that too. The only real difference is that online social platforms give your audience a voice to converse with you, too. The democratic nature of response-focused online media gives your brand greater access to feedback and conversation.
// August 11th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // Employment Branding
I’ve been engaged recently to be a ‘secret shopper’ for some friends. I’ve been applying for jobs through their corporate websites, and reporting to them on the resulting experience as a candidate. In some of those cases, I’ve done phone interviews as well, to skills test the internal recruiters. It’s been rather fun being a mystery candidate and evaluating the types of conversations and experiences everyday applicants are exposed to.
One of the things that struck me regularly was the utter lack of emotion in these calls. I rarely felt like I was talking to a person, let alone a brand ambassador for the employment experience. Often these calls were very one sided. “Tell us about you, and if you make it to interview, you can ask us some questions then.” In some cases (two recruiters in particular, both from the same company) the calls were very authoritarian. There was a clear sense of reading questions off an interview guide, of a rigid adherence to process that forbade any humanity sneaking in. I was literally told by one recruiter that he didn’t meed more information about my job history – a yes or no answer would do.
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