Tag: social media

Clarity, Communication, Closure – 3 Keys to getting Recruitment Right

(This post was originally written for HR Zone and published as part of their series on recruitment)

Recruiting, hiring, talent attraction, talent acquisition…whatever words you use you can’t escape the fact that sourcing and hiring new people for your business is far harder to get right than it is wrong, with new research showing that a negative experience can damage your bottom line.

Its long been said that you can tell a lot about a company by the way it goes about recruiting its people, and never was this truer than now, with technology and social media helping to create immediate and transparent contact between jobseekers and a hiring company, whether sourced directly or through a third party recruiter.

The process of hiring now brings your business into contact with a range of people…successful applicants, unsuccessful candidates, third parties, RPOs to name a few. And the rules of candidate attraction mean that your business will be visible through website, digital advertising, Facebook page, Linked In profile and very possibly a Twitter feed.

Getting the right person is now not the only key outcome… using the right approach is vital as those who are involved in that process now have channels through which they can vent their frustrations.

The best recruitment processes should contain the 3 Cs – Clarity, Communication and Closure – and should always manage expectations. Key questions to ask yourself are:

Why do you need to hire?

Every recruitment process starts with a need to hire, and whether you are looking for one person or a number of people it pays to know exactly why you are hiring, what role(s) you are trying to fill. Hiring managers need to put time into into scoping out exactly why they need someone, what they need that someone to do, and what deliverables will be expected…and the key question:

Do we already have someone here who can do this role, or do our people know someone who can do this role?

Many jobseekers talk of their frustrations at finding roles for which they have been interviewing eventually filled by internal transfer or promotion, or recommendation. There is nothing wrong with this, but it pays to be transparent from the start. Very often the approach is to see who is available and then compare with what you have internally, whereas the most successful pieces of hiring will often start with looking at the people in whom you have already invested time and training.

Assuming you don’t have an internal resource then a clearly defined role profile is essential before you go to market. It’s not enough to assume that the position is the same as it was three years ago, or send out the message ‘we just need a good person who can do x and y’; you need to know exactly what the new person has to achieve, what their key internal relationships are, and what scope there is for personal and professional development within the role.

In other words…clarity.

How will you find them?

As a 3rd party recruiter it won’t surprise you to find out that I still think that we are the best route! There are plenty of values based, knowledgeable recruiters out there who have a sound grasp of their markets and have built a community of some of the best talent within them. The way to approach this is not to brief a number of suppliers, with a low fee attached, and assume that this competition will deliver quality candidates. It won’t! The best recruiters rarely enter into these kinds of CV chases and you are more than likely to end up with a number of poorly matched, inadequately briefed candidates.

You should work with one or two recruiters who you have not only met, but also have taken a reference on from previous clients as to how successful they have been and how they work. It’s always useful to also go to their offices, find out a little about how they project themselves, how they are targeted, and how they deal with people who apply for roles.

Remember that the experience that your chosen recruiter gives to candidates who apply for a role with your company will reflect on you and not always the recruiter.

Should you go to market directly then a clear message will always be the key. From a well written ad, to the way that you contact all candidates, and the information that you pass on at every stage of the interview process…all of this says something about your business. Transparency is vital – everyone needs to know where they stand in the process, what is the next stage, are they moving forward (if not, why not) and when will they know more?

Clear and transparent Communication

How will you bring them in?

You’ve found the person that you want and they want to join you…what next? Well, from my experience of 20 years as a recruiter I would say that the majority of problems that lead to unsuccessful hires can be traced back to either before the candidate joins, or to their initial three months. It is important that once you have an offer and acceptance that everything runs smoothly. No waiting for contracts or other detail, regular communication between hiring manager and new hire and some clear information regarding onboarding and induction.

Many companies will leave this to HR, but I believe that those in HR need to involve not just the hiring manager but also the rest of the team in making the new person feel both welcome and valued. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve interviewed a candidate who is leaving a role after only a few months and hear ‘I knew straight away’ or worse ‘they gave me loads of information about themselves in the interviews that, as soon as I started, I realised wasn’t accurate’.

The most successful hires that you make will always be the ones who find no surprises at any stage of the process, never have to check where their paperwork is, never have to phone a week before they join to find out starting details and, crucially, walk in on day one and find not only is everything as they have been led to expect but that they have also already met everyone in their immediate team.

That is only part of the closure though…what about the candidates who didn’t make it through to this stage? A lot of damage can be done to an employer’s brand by poor communication to rejected candidates. They have invested time (research and preparation) and hope in working for your business, they have an emotional bond with you and may well want to work for the business at some stage in the future. They need to have expectations managed as rejected candidates are consumers and ambassadors for your business too.

Should Recruiters Do It On The Phone…or Do It With Social Media?

My Twitter followers will know that I got a ‘Headhunt’ call Monday morning, and I was less than pleased.

Now I’ve already written about my concern over what passes for ‘Headhunting’ in today’s contingency recruitment market…but I think that this one took the biscuit.

Traditional start, he got past switchboard saying he knew me personally, then gave me a name, said he was from an executive search company (?!) and told me he was headhunting for an HR Recruitment company who were looking to bring in an experienced HR recruiter, then said ‘is that the kind of job you would be interested in?’..

Er, what job?

‘The one I just told you about’

But you haven’t really told me anything about a job

I won’t bore you with the next bit…I asked him what he knew about me and he read the first 2 lines of my Linked In profile back to me. I asked why he felt his opportunity may interest me and he just asked what I was looking for.

So I asked if he could tell me more about this role, and he said…

‘This is an excellent opportunity with a fabulous company, that’s really growing’

That’s it…he read an ad to me.

I asked what else he knew about the role and he said he’d told me all he knew, but if it sounded like the kind of job I was interested in he could get a senior consultant to call me back.

Well, I thanked him for his time, and passed on the opportunity.

Now look, maybe I’m being a bit demanding here. Maybe the fact that this guy and I inhabit the same business sector bothers me. Maybe I was concerned how this ‘approach’ would sound to a candidate who wasn’t familiar with the workings of the recruitment industry.

Maybe I was just concerned about shoddy values and ethics, about a company who clearly are happy to let someone make calls like that in the hope that they may score a spot deal.

Now the thing is that I would probably have been less bothered if I got this approach as a message through Linked In. In fact I do get a number of messages and approaches through LI either asking me nicely, or asking me if I know anyone…I always respond.

I find that approach less intrusive…the lack of experience and knowledge of the person contacting me is way less obvious. Initially…but this can’t be used as a smoke screen, far from it as I can see a lot about the person contacting me – career history, connections, referrals, recommendations, groups, PICTURE – you’d better know your stuff if you’re going to use that medium.

Everywhere you turn the recruitment experts/gurus/thought leaders/entrepreneurs/traditionalists are telling us to forget social media and get on the phone…in fact I’m surprised I haven’t read a blog…

REAL RECRUITERS DO IT ON THE PHONE …

I usually take it with a pinch of salt, a bit like punk rock and spangles, it’s something we dinosaurs use to show the young upstarts it was better in our day…then today I read an excellent interview with Clay Shirky about paywall and why the print media won’t survive…talking of print media, and how 25 year olds prefer to read news online,  one quote really stood out..

“And to put it in one bleak sentence, no medium has ever survived the indifference of 25-year-olds.”

Oooh, not many 25 year olds pick up the phone these days…they prefer instant messaging, texting, tweeting, facebooking…hell, anything other that actually talking..

So maybe, just maybe, we’re approaching the time when…

REAL RECRUITERS DO IT WITH SOCIAL MEDIA…

So could times really be a-changing…let me know what you think…

Gotta Get Myself Connected…

Make sure you’re connected
The writing’s on the wall
But if your mind’s neglected
Stumble you might fall

I’m not sure that Stereo MCs foresaw social media when they wrote those lyrics, but one thing I am increasingly sure of is that if you want to succeed in business in the future, you’re going to have to be connected.

There’s little doubt that Social Media, Social Networking and Social Recruiting increasingly impact on my day to day working life…if I’m not communicating with people through social media channels, then the chances are that I’m engaged in a discussion about those channels…whether face to face or over the phone.

Very soon we’ll have the second ConnectingHR event. This is a meet-up for HR people using or interested in social media, and is co-organised and co-promoted by Courtenay HR, the company I work for. It will be a landmark event; I don’t think I’m giving too much away if I say that it will be the launch pad for the ConnectingHR Unconference, the UKs first specialist HR unconference…and an event where the attendees will have a unique chance to create and shape the content.

These will be just two of many events surrounding social media, and organised and promoted through its various platforms, which I will have attended this year and I never cease to be amazed by the energy, passion and momentum that each one generates.

At each event I have met intelligent, interesting and committed people who are there to meet and share, learn and inform, and do it all whilst having a great time!

If you’ve ever doubted social media, or its ability to connect people and facilitate learning and information flow, ideas and creativity, sharing of thoughts and opinions, then I urge you to just join in and go along to unconferences, networking events or workshops and experience it all firsthand. There are 3 things you’ll find:

1)      It’s the ‘Social’ that makes the media, networking, learning or recruiting so powerful and enriching

2)      Everyone you meet will be exactly as you imagine – one thing about social media is that the platforms and channels really do work when everyone is just themselves

3)      You will learn something! More knowledge is available through these channels that you could imagine!

What are you waiting for? Jump in and get connected…the writing’s on the wall!

Thoughts From an Exhibition…The Land That Time Forgot?

I did something today that I haven’t done for ages…I went to an exhibition, a trade show.

Wow…talk about the land that time forgot! I walked into something that has probably been unchanged for 20 years or least.

First off I arrived (tapping a code number into a machine which printed my name tag…false dawn) and thought I would check in on Foursquare, you know…see who else was there. No-one. I was inside one of the most prestigious exhibition halls in the UK, with about 300 people milling around…and I was the only person there on Foursquare.

And this was a SOFTWARE exhibition. (OK, I know that Foursquare is an acquired taste, and many readers of this blog are yet to be convinced of its relevance, but 1 in 300 at a show mainly centred around technology??!!)

Then there were the stands, lots of them. And all of them looking like they were erected 20 years ago. Seriously, barring the (very) odd laptop there was nothing on any stand that couldn’t have been there 20 years ago – right down to the bowls of business cards placed there for a prize draw!!

In front of each stand there were young men and women wearing dark suits and white or pale blue plain shirts, each one holding brochures. If you so much as caught their gaze then they were all smiles and straight over to you ‘how can we help you’.

There was a cafe, with an area for attendees with laptops and smartphones to e-mail, blog or surf. Except there was no wifi (OK, there was a free public connection which threw you off every 30 seconds) and no 3G.

I attended two presentations. One was about how to get graduates in to HR, about making it strategic, creative and consultative (which will surely only lead to disappointment when they realise that the first 2 years are mainly administrative) and the other was about how to write a good CV. I have to say that little in this latter presentation differed from the day to day advice that any competent recruiter gives (write about achievements not duties…wow!) but it seemed to go down well.

Did I meet anyone? Well I met up with some people who I already knew (and had previously met) through social media, and through them I met some other people.

And there’s the thing for me…I’ve been to unconferences, workshops, tweet ups and networking events all of which I have heard about, and been invited to, through various social media platforms, and all of which have an energy, animation, passion and quest for learning, sharing and knowledge that I found so lacking at this morning’s exhibition.

I was surprised. I assumed that the whole nature of these gatherings had somehow changed because the way we connect, interact and share information is changing on an almost daily basis…I was wrong.

Please tell me that I just had a bad experience, that I was unfortunate, that there are gatherings that loosely fall under the heading ‘exhibitions’ that reflect the tools, channels, technology and spirit that is evolving all the time.

Please.

Generation Standby…do you Home from Work??

I love a Generational classification. Readers of this blog would have seen me write about Boomers, Generations X, Y and R and even create my own…Generation Bowie.

So I couldn’t resist the chance to write about Generation Standby…not least because this one has little to do with when you were born. It probably covers many of us.

This is the generation of workers who are socially and technologically never disconnected. They never fully switch off from either home or work and expect flexibility from employers in return for longer working hours.

They don’t have a problem with this, because they balance it with ‘homing’ from work – performing personal tasks such as checking social networks, e-mail, shopping online.

Sound familiar? Can anyone identify with this?

I read this mainly from a survey by software security company Clearswift, and some findings that interested me are:

–        66% of all employees who ‘home from work’ say they make the time up by working later or through lunch

–        Men are more likely than Women to ‘home from work’…higher percentages for checking social networking, dealing with personal e-mails and shopping online

–        79% said over and above the role and salary, the most important thing in a job was being trusted to manage their own time, and being trusted to use the internet as they wish

I’ve often thought that companies need to give employees more flexibility and trust, whether it’s how they use social media for work (primarily blogging) or how they manage their time whilst at work, so was not surprised that almost 4 out of 5 want that flexibility.

I did read a blog late last year (sorry there’s no link, but I can’t remember where I read it, maybe someone can post a link) where one of the predictions for social media this year was that employees will begin to expect ‘Social Media Breaks’ for a few minutes 3 or 4 times during a day…a bit like ‘Cigarette Breaks’ used to be. Grab a coffee and take 5/10 minutes out to see what people are saying…

…it would certainly require a leap of faith from employers.

What is clear is that technology has offered us a completely new way of working…longer hours maybe, flexible locations definitely, but it’s also a different kind of work where we are socially and technologically always connected.

I’m interested to know how employers are going to adapt to this…any ideas?

Controlling The Message??

I’ve noticed a lot of concern voiced recently over the possibility of employees saying negative things through social media which may affect their employer’s brand or image. There’s a neat summary on this blog by Michael Carty and I was involved in at least 2 group discussions at HRevolution on the subject.

HR clearly feels that they will have to pick up the pieces. I’ve heard talk of controlling the message, of laying down ground rules and guidelines for staff who want to blog, tweet or go on Facebook fan pages.

Yet I wonder what damage is done when a senior person in an organisation voices something, either planned or spontaneously, that gives a negative impression of the business. And why are there no controls, guidelines or ground rules for them?

Surely an employer being indiscrete does more damage than an employee?

Some readers will remember the entrepreneur Gerald Ratner. For those unfamiliar, he was CEO of a large high street jewellery group. He once commented in a speech:

“People say, “How can you sell this for such a low price?”, I say, “because it’s total crap”.

When commenting on the earrings that his shops sold, he said that they were:

“cheaper than a Marks & Spencers prawn sandwich but probably wouldn’t last as long”

Needless to say there was an immediate negative impact on the business …the value of the group plummeted £500million with loss of custom and jobs. Clearly customers don’t like to taken for granted, but then neither do employees. Who wants to work for a company whose goods can be dismissed so lightly by the CEO? Negative employees don’t always put shoppers off, but a CEO dismissing his products will.

Most of my regular followers will know that I’m a supporter of Arsenal Football Club. Well this weekend I received my season ticket renewal application. It’s not cheap supporting a football team, particularly if you go to matches every week, and Arsenal is one of the more expensive clubs to follow, yet loyal supporters’ passions are not normally subject to cost criteria. They do, however, go into each new season with an expectation of seeing some success.

Football followers will know that Arsenal haven’t won a trophy for 5 years and that, whilst they may play some exciting football, supporters begin to get restless.

So it was a bit disconcerting to see the manager, Arsene Wenger, say last week that finishing 3rd in the Premiership, and therefore qualifying for the Champions League, is like winning a trophy. The rationale for this I believe is that if you don’t win the 2 main trophies (Champions League or Premiership) then automatic qualification for the Champions League will net you about £20,000,000 whilst winning the FA Cup will net you £1,800,000.

Which makes great commercial sense…yet will hardly quicken the pulse or heart rate of a supporter about to hand over a lot of money for their entertainment next season who desperately want to see their team win. Hardly the best sales pitch…come and watch us finish 3rd.

Never mind the customers (like me) what about the current and future employees?? A top club employs, and hires, players who want to be the best and win…yet what if your boss effectively tells you that not winning will be OK? That finishing 3rd is like winning? Can I be confident that when I turn up next season I will be watching players who want to win trophies…or just finish 3rd?

We football fans are used to seeing players moan about their clubs, and openly tout themselves as available for transfer, and none of this dims the supporters’ enthusiasm…yet a negative message from the manager (the voice of the club in terms of exposure) can achieve this instantly.

I can understand concern over employees voicing negative thoughts…but will a policy to counter this also cover comments from managers and owners?

What are the most damning comments you have come across…and what effect did they have?

Fear and Loathing in Social Media

At last! 

NOW is when it starts to get REALLY INTERESTING!!

What does??….Social Media!

For too long social media, and in particular Twitter, has been one long love-in…Woodstock, peace and love, one great happening…we’ve been awesome, we’ve been rockstars, we’ve loved everything everyone has written…

…or have we?? Is it just that no-one has wanted to make the first move to shoot from the hip, tell it like it is?

Suddenly it’s all changing…there’s Debate! Opinion! Disagreement! Argument!

What we say on Social Media? Who reads it? How do they interpret it? How do they judge it? Are they snooping or are they sourcing? Do they hire or do the fire because of it?

…and guess what…we don’t all agree with each other! Yay!

All of us…

…the employed, the self-employed, the under-employed and the unemployed…

…consultants, advisors, directors, experts, gurus, enthusiasts, commentators, copywriters, marketers, coaches, trainers, conference organisers and conference disorganisers…

…blogging, microblogging and guest blogging…

Debates are starting…

This morning a debate started at 5am (UK time) about use of social media websites for referencing…it spread from Australia to UK to US….and it’s still going…and we don’t agree…

Follow it Andy Headworth’s blog…the comments are long and passionate

And a new thread is staring courtesy of this morning’s blog from Aaron Dodd

Then turn to Alasdair Murray’s blog ‘A Job Description Isn’t a Sales Tool’ and look at the range of comments, the disagreements, and the tangental diversions!!!

Then there’s Felix Wetzel’s excellent blog…he posted about communities, Bill Boorman didn’t agree and was offered a guest blog to reply…and the debate twists and turns and rages on

In my opinion, this is what it should be…honest debate, lots of opinion, theories debunked, ideas written about and read and absorbed…

This is the conversation we ALL need to be a part of

The Conversation That Never Sleeps….

Social media is a conversation; it’s a number of platforms, a set of tools that enables conversation, engagement, transferal of thoughts, ideas and information…

It’s New York New York…the City that never sleeps

Its Old Man River…it just keeps rolling 

It’s a neverending networking event!

So many times I hear ‘I’d like to try Twitter, give it a go, see what it’s all about, but I don’t have the time’ and I say ‘just dip in and join in the conversation…you can dip in and out, or you can stay around a bit longer, make some contacts, read some interesting stuff you won’t see anywhere else’ 

I believe it changes the way we communicate, because there’s no end! If you phone someone – a client, a candidate, a contact – then there’s a beginning and an end to the call, and if you want to move forward you need to conclude with an action. You can’t just pick up the phone an hour later and say something else. 

But with social media, there’s always a chance to pick up the conversation, anytime! Whatever you talk about, you’re engaging with people. As long as you’ve got something interesting, engaging, informative or just plain funny to say, then people won’t mind hearing from you. 

There are very few HR professionals and recruiters from the UK on Twitter, which is a shame. I would love to be able to build an online rapport with them. I speak to many in the US and chat about all sorts of things. I have often asked them ‘if I was US based, then you could well be my client or my candidate – if that was the case, how would you feel about the conversations that we have?’ 

They usually tell me that it wouldn’t make any difference, that the business and personal can easily mix…this is who I am, take me or leave me. They feel the same about Facebook. In the UK though I think it’s a bit different, it’s more…

No Facebook Please, We’re British! 

Will it change? I think it will, eventually! 

So for this post I’m going to throw down the challenge to everyone from the UK reading this who is not blogging, tweeting, contributing to groups on Linked In, or generally joining in the conversation… 

Come on in, the water’s fine….!

Trains, Planes and Automobiles – #TruLondon and the Power of Twitter

If you organise it, they will come. And they did, from far and wide…representing recruiting, HR, technology, job boards, branding, marketing and many other disciplines. Some had laptops, some had smartphones, some had cameras, and all had a lot of ideas and passion.

I met loads of great people today, and there were plenty more that I didn’t get time to talk to. Hope to put that right tomorrow.

So exciting to put faces to names, personalities to tweets. And for me, Twitter is what today was all about. Without Twitter there wouldn’t be a TruLondon and I wouldn’t have met so many great people. I know them all from Twitter, and whilst they all feel like friends and contacts, you can’t beat meeting in person. Real face time.

As for today, it was by turns chaotic and thought-provoking, disorganised and inspiring…exactly what an UNconference should be!

I talked candidate experience.

I talked job boards.

I talked Gen Y (when do we not!)

I talked blogging.

I talked employer and employee branding.

I talked social learning.

And I met loads of intelligent, fascinating and inspiring people!

I was called a rockstar!

I was called enigmatic!

I was told I was talking BS on HR Happy Hour!

I was shouted down for making a ‘political rant’ in the Gen Y debate!

And I didn’t mind one bit!

And that’s not all…

I popped out at lunchtime and had coffee with 2 Twitter buddies, one of whom I’d never met before…she happened to be in Central London today.

This evening I went to a gig with three friends that I first met through Twitter. Turns out we all liked the same band. Midlake – an evening of glorious, cosmic country folk from Denton, Texas.

February 18th 2010 – a day when I did so much with so many people, all of whom I met through Twitter.

Friends tell me that they don’t ‘get’ Twitter. They don’t have the time and they don’t see the point. They’ve got enough friends and contacts without spending time online meeting new ones.

They’re wrong…

They should have spent today with me!

Power of Social Media : Collectivism, Individualism or another ism

We’re all allowed to change our minds, right? One of the exciting things about Social Media is its instantaneousness. And if you’re using Twitter, it’s brevity. 140 characters don’t really give you the space to evolve a theory, put forward an argument. You act, you react, and you shoot from the hip and type. You hit ‘send’ and think ‘did I say what I meant to say?’

I say this because I’ve changed my mind over something. On Sunday night in the UK a lot of us got excited about the race to be Number 1 in the Top 40 music charts. I say ‘music’ because it used to be the singles chart. But it isn’t anymore. A lot of music is now downloaded, not bought over the counter, and last year this led to the chart compilers deciding that tracks did not have to be released as physical singles to feature in the chart. If they could be purchased as a download then they could be counted.

This isn’t a post about music though; it’s about Social Media and the potential that it has to change things.

My immediate thought on hearing the news was ‘YES’!! The marketing might of the Cowell machine has spent its millions but had just been outsmarted by a Facebook campaign started by a part time DJ and his wife who wanted to challenge the omnipotence of the mediocrity that X Factor represents.

I immediately tweeted that this was a big moment for Social Media, that the big issue wasn’t who won but that a social media campaign, starting with 2 people and spreading to 700,000, made a big statement to big business. I noticed other tweets saying much the same, and Bill Boorman summarised it very well in his blog.

And yet…and yet…thinking it through yesterday morning I began to question, to see lost possibilities.

Fed up with seeing the Xmas Number 1 (in the great cultural scheme of things a fairly irrelevant accolade) effectively chosen for us by 1 individual, we have slapped him down and really shown him who controls the marketplace by ensuring that this year’s Number 1…has been chosen for us by 1 individual. Plus ca change??

Now I’m not knocking Jon Morter at all, am fully supportive of his motivations, and I can understand why he would choose a song with such a strong anti-corporate message for this purpose, but I ask you…our response to people buying any old mush that Cowell releases is to rush out and buy a download of a 17 year old track that a Facebook Group tells us to. Is this just another form of naive collectivism…following the herd for the end not the means?

To me Social Media offers unlimited possibilities for individualism. If we really want a revolution then shouldn’t we  just go out and do it, find like minded people and make things happen, rather than just find others doing it and tag along?

Oh the sweet victory if those 700,000 could have found a talented, unknown musician fully deserving of a wider audience and propel them to Number 1! Over 500,000 downloads selling because people use the power Social Media to spread  music that wouldn’t otherwise be heard would be a real coup.

Maybe we should be running a Social Media X Factor…let up and coming musicians circulate their work within a chart acceptable download environment.  Lets face it, 700,000 Facebook members bought 500,000 downloads whilst 20 million TV viewers only bought 450,000. Doesn’t that show the passion and power that should be tapped in to?

I’m hoping that the ‘power’ of Social Media doesn’t just become a channel for evangelical causes created by people with time on their hands for others to follow. Maybe I’m being too much of an idealist, but my question is:

What should the Power of  Social Media be about?? Collectivism or Individualism. How do we get a mixture of the two?

It would be great to get your thoughts!