How Recruiters Can Get Started with Social Media

How Recruiters Can Get Started with Social Media As part of the Ask the Expert panel over at the Institute of Recruiters, I got a question about social media and recruitment agencies which I thought Id share here on the blog. Question: I am trying to introduce the features and benefits of various Social Networks to our Consultants. The two biggest areas for us are resourcing and branding. My biggest challenge to date is educating the more old fashioned phone and email recruiters on the benefits of Social Media. I understand that it will never replace the phone, but how best do you think I can overcome the objections of those that have never used Social Media and create an excitement around the new possibilities it creates? Answer (rest of this post): Some recruiters have taken to social media from day one, others are a little skeptical and then there is the old school brigade who think its all just a waste of time. This sometimes depends on which industry you are operating in; if you recruit PR professionals you would use Twitter as a primary tool. If you recruit nuclear engineers, you may not have much use of social media at this stage. The key here is to know your target audience. Social media impact on UK companies How much of an impact has social media really made for companies?  Some very fresh stats about large UK companies from  The Group  show that: 1.9m people connect with companies on LinkedIn Over 1.7m people follow FTSE100 corporate Twitter accounts There are 19m fans of FTSE100 corporate Facebook Pages January to June 2012 there were 62.1m views of corporate YouTube videos. This confirms that there is a sizeable following of large companies on social media, and it is growing by the day according to The Group. As a rule of thumb, people dont go on social media to look for jobs but they are happy to consider them when prompted. LinkedIn say that 20% of their users are actively looking for jobs at any given time, meaning 80% are passive candidates. Let me elaborate on the two main areas you have highlighted; sourcing and branding and take a closer look at each social network. LinkedIn Most recruitment professionals use LinkedIn nowadays, at least as a people directory as it has 10 million users in the UK (and 2 out of 3 professionals have a profile). It is a social network focussing on professionals and can be a goldmine if you know how to use it properly. There are several ways to source active and passive candidates on LinkedIn, both inside LinkedIn and using 3rd party tools. If your team arent using the big L as a primary recruitment tool you are missing out. As for branding on LinkedIn, there are endless opportunities. You can of course do updates on individual profiles, you can also run relevant polls and ask/answer questions (in the Answers section). You can get active in industry groups, or better yet you can run your own group and get peers to exchange useful information in your forum. You can also use your company page to do targeted updates to followers based on location, language, seniority and more. More ideas: How LinkedIn is Transforming the World of Recruitment [INFOGRAPHIC] Twitter Twitter is another social network that can be used effectively for sourcing, its relatively easy to use tools to locate the right conversations happening. Once you find users talking about your niche, you know these people are either good for your positions or they can refer others. You can also search through every users bio on Twitter, as its really short it tends to cover the most important keywords that you need for sourcing. Branding on Twitter is extremely useful, by having an account that puts out information about your industry and occasionally spits out a job or two, you let users sum up what your company is all about very quickly. If a social media savvy candidate gets two emails, both from similar agencies but one has an active and interesting Twitter feed which one will instill more trust? Related reading:  The Top 5 Twitter Apps for Recruitment. Google Plus Google Plus is the newest of the big 4 social networks and since its inception last year its been the fastest growing site in the history of the web. This site has attracted a great deal of early adopters, especially technology and IT professionals. The good news is that its wide open for searches, you can use 3rd party search tools or good old fashioned Google magic to bring out the best profiles for your vacancy. The jury is still out on whether Google Plus is that useful for branding, there are definitely SEO benefits for your company but as the user base is still made up of techies and pioneers you wont get a good cross section for an audience. Further reading at  How Recruiters Can Use Google Plus Like Guy Kawasaki. Viadeo Xing If you happen to recruit in Europe as well, you may want to check out continental sites like  Viadeo  (France) and  Xing  (Germany) which have a better reach of professionals in those countries. The only snag with these is that you almost have to pay to get decent access to other users, unlike most other networks. Facebook I thought Id mention Facebook last as the mere mention of the name scares off the money is on the phone type of recruiters. At the moment youll find that Facebook is pretty much useless for sourcing, its not even indexed by Google. The worlds largest social network have deliberately made it difficult to find people through searches, perhaps because they expect that candidates dont want to be contacted here for jobs. You can however still use Facebook to cross reference candidates and it is useful for branding, especially if you represent a well known brand. You can get users to like your Facebook Page and thereby agreeing to get regular updates from your company this basically adds them to your talent network. Once they see something of interest (be that a vacancy, an event or a free download), they will take action and get one step closer to talking abou their career with you. More on this at How to Recruit with Facebook [Slide Deck]. Conclusion Those are some benefits of social media in recruitment that would apply to most companies. Again, some industries will be better suited to some social networks and some may not be right for social media at all. It comes down to knowing your target audience; knowing where they hang out online and making sure you have a presence they already expect you to.

Why Your Bio Is More Important than Your Resume

Why Your Bio Is More Important than Your Resume Most job seekers understandably think that their resume is their most  important written job search tool.  Why?  Because most people associate  resumes with landing their next job.  Resumes are important, even critical,  to your ultimate goal of landing your next job.  However, resumes are best  used only when you are applying for a specific position.  After all, that’s  the purpose of a resume â€" to articulate your background, skills, abilities and  credentials â€" with the hopes of garnering an interview. However, any savvy job seeker in this current employment market knows that  blindly applying for jobs using your resume is a recipe for a long bout of  unemployment.  Generally accepted statistics demonstrate that only 20% of  all jobs are filled via job boards and newspaper ads. And of that 20% the  majority of the time the hiring manager knows who they want to hire before the  posting goes up. The other 80% of jobs are filled through networking with  friends, family, current or former co-workers, or through extended professional  networking through LinkedIn and  professional organizations. One page biography This is where the concept of a one page biography or bio, for short, comes  into play.  The bio is the document that you can most leverage during your  networking activities â€" and if networking is the key approach needed to land  one of the 80% of jobs that are not filled through traditional job posting  channels, and then doesn’t it stand to reason that a bio should be a more  important tool?  Remember, a resume is best utilized when you are applying  for a specific job.  A bio is best used to convey your background in a  crisp narrative format before, during or after your networking meetings. Benefits You may be thinking, “Why can’t I just use my resume during my networking  meetings?” Good question.  Probably the biggest reason is that a bio speaks  much more about your reputation, attributes, tone and makeup than a resume  does.  Written in the third person and without the rigid structure of a  resume, you bio is much more readable and conversational than a resume.  Another  reason is because your networking partner may equate seeing your resume with  applying for a job and they most likely will not have a job for you at the  present time.  When a networking partner feels like they can’t help you,  they may recoil and not provide you with the resources you were hoping to gain  from the conversation.  Another reason for not providing a resume during  networking sessions is because networking partners may get sidetracked wanting  to provide you with resume feedback. So, the bio gives you an opportunity to explain a bit about yourself in a  disarming, easy to read format.  Because of the way you’ll construct the  bio, it also allows you to convey more and different information about yourself  then you could ever do with a resume. OK, so now you agree that a bio is an important tool in your arsenal.  How  do you go about building one?  Keep in mind that you want to write this in  the third person and don’t be bashful! How to write one First, you’ll want to start with a summary which states your name, basic  profession and what your experience and expertise is. Second, you’ll want to  add career highlights and significant accomplishments.  Third, let people  know what you are known for.   Fourth, don’t forget your education and  other credentials and fifth, feel free to sprinkle in a few of your hobbies and  interests (as long as they are not polarizing hobbies!).  You’re welcomed  to review my bio as a sample. It can be downloaded here. Now that you have written your bio, you are ready to utilize it during your  networking discussions and you have document that you can also use for speaking  engagements, press releases and other related announcements. More reading at 8 Steps To Writing a Bio Like a Pro. Matthew Levy is a well-rounded HR  professional and Career Coach with fifteen years of broad experience in both  specialist (e.g., recruiting) and generalist (e.g., HR business partner) roles  at blue-chip companies, including Merck, Amgen and Johnson Johnson.

Personal Branding Interview Eduardo Porter - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

Personal Branding Interview Eduardo Porter - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career Today, I spoke to Eduardo Porter, who is the author of The Price of Everything: Solving The Mystery Of Why We Pay What We Do. Eduardo writes about business, economics, and many other matters as a member of the New York Times editorial board. In this interview, Eduardo talks about how price impacts everything that we do, even branding! Eduardo, what made you want to write The Price of Everything? The realization that there is a price involved in EVERYTHING we do. All our choices, from the most mundane to the lofty, involve pitting against each other the costs and benefits of our different alternatives. Actions that we believe to be motivated by profound emotions like love or faith, absolutely unrelated to “materialistic” concerns, are in fact the product of the same kind of evaluation of relative prices as choosing beer or toothpaste in the grocery store. I was always uncomfortable with narratives that portend to explain individual and social change as the product of some exogenous change in social mores, as if we spontaneously alighted on a better ideal. Culture, in this reading, come from somewhere outside our daily experience. Our norms and rules, our rituals and institutions just happen to be, and to change. Slavery was once the norm in much of the world. Today coercing workers is mostly illegal. Premarital sex was once very rare; it is no longer. These changes can be understood without recurring to a moral Deus ex Machina, as responses to changes in prices. Slavery ended when paying workers a wage got cheaper than feeding them, clothing them and keeping them enslaved. This happened when population densities rose, and more workers were made to compete for the available work. Indeed, studies of ancient societies found that slavery became particularly prominent at population densities p of about 40 people per square mile. But it started to wane as agricultural productivity rose to the point where it could sustain populations of 0 per square mile. Similarly, the popularity of premarital sex in the United States rose throughout the 20th century because its cost fell. In 1900 a woman who had sex before wedlock faced a high risk of becoming a single mother. What’s more, there were fewer defenses against sexually transmitted diseases. But new methods of contraception and effective new medicines against STDs reduced this cost enormously. As having sex out of wedlock got cheaper, more people indulged. Do you believe that you get what you pay for? In one sense you obviously do. A discerning adult who bought a house for $1 million in 2006 using a no-doc, interest only mortgage wanted to buy a house for $1 million. She got what she paid for in the most immediate understanding of the concept. But she also got less: she was pretty sure she was buying into a house that would be worth more than $1 million within a year or two, allowing her to refinance at a higher price and bolster her stretched finances. The point is that our preferences for things are often driven by expectations that do not always conform to the ideal of rational humanity that economists love. We often fall for snake-oil salespeople peddling houses, Internet stocks or tulips as a guarantee of future prosperity. Other quirks of our nature get in the way of our value judgments. Experiments have shown that people believe expensive placebos do a better job curing our ills than cheap placebos. So somebody who bought an expensive placebo might have gotten what he wanted in terms of, say, pain relief. But what was it exactly that he was buying? His neighbor bought the exact same useless sugar pill for less, but it didn’t work. And perhaps the biggest flaw in the notion that we get what we pay for is that we do not always really understand what we want. Americans over the past three decades or so have worked longer and longer hours, surpassing virtually every other developed nation, as more and more former stay at home moms have entered the workforce. This has contributed to enormous prosperity, leaving behind other developed countries like France or Germany. But these riches have not made us significantly happier. One reason is that with so much of our lives devoted to work, we are left with too little time to play. How critical is the price of everything in our lives? Are we all driven by price? It is absolutely critical. In The Price of Everything I posit that prices lurk everywhere. We navigate our lives by evaluating them â€"pitting one against the other. They are not always set in money, of course. They can be set in time, or in love, or in work. When we marry, we trade the expected benefits of a bachelor life against the anticipated rewards of marriageâ€"including companionship and kids. When we drive fast down the highway, we are trading a higher chance of suffering a fatal crash against our imperative to shorten our commute. When the federal government introduced the 55 mile-per-hour sped limit in 1974 to conserve gas in response to the Arab oil embargo, it was mostly ignored because the longer commutes imposed a cost on drivers that was higher than what they saved in gas from the increased fuel efficiency from driving slower. In 1987, the Feds relaxed the rule, allowing states to increase the limit to 65 mph. Many did, leading drivers in those states to drive faster and increase their odds of suffering a fatal crash. In fact, economists estimated that drivers valued one more death on the highway at 125,000 hours saved by faster commutes. Multiplying that by the prevailing wage, they concluded that drivers were valuing a life at roughly $2.1 million. What impact does the economy have on price and how we perceive it? Our sensitivity to price depends on our budget. That is, people who make more money care less about the prices of what they buy and are generally willing to pay more for any given item. Companies profit from this quirk finding ways to sell roughly the same thing at two different prices, for rich and poor. A restaurant may charge less for the same meal at the noisy standing-room-only bar than in the swank dining room next door. That allows it to capture the custom of the penny pinchers that otherwise would be lost to McDonald’s while still charging top dollar for those who have the budget to pay. This implies that in a fast growing economy with little joblessness and rising incomes companies will have greater ability to raise prices because consumers will care less and will keep buying. In dismal economies such as the one we are living in, with nearly % unemployment, companies tend to push prices as low as they can go, trying to keep their customers. There is, however, an interesting exception to this pattern: a good for which demand increases when its price rises, or when consumer’s income falls. Economists call it a Giffen good. While we are not sure anybody has ever seen one of these in the wild, it remains a strong theoretical possibility. Think of it this way: a poor nation that gets all its calories from cheap rice may change its habits once its income starts to rise. Perhaps it will choose to get 20% of its energy from meat. But if the price of rice suddenly rose, or people’s incomes suddenly fell, demand for rice would increase because they would no longer be able to afford the meat and would have to revert to the % rice-based diet. Brands command a premium price. Why do you think? That’s what brands are for. Companies spend tons of money to brand their products because otherwise they become indistinct commodities; valuable only for the need they satisfy. Paraphrasing Gertrude Stein: a shoe is a shoe is a shoe, unless you pay millions for Tiger Woods to wear it and convince hordes of young people that wearing that particular shoe will improve their abilities and general sex appeal. Advertisers like to explain branding as an exercise in consumer education: linking the boot with the swoosh to top-notch players is meant to communicate that it is of particularly good design and quality. But more often than not branding is about manipulating consumers’ notion of value â€"linking mundane objects like shoes to complex emotions like life expectations and self-esteem. This, in a way, is the exact opposite of education. It is obfuscation. Eduardo Porter is the author of The Price of Everything: Solving The Mystery Of Why We Pay What We Do. Eduardo writes about business, economics, and many other matters as a member of the New York Times editorial board. He has also worked as a journalist in Mexico City, Tokyo, London, São Paulo, and Los Angeles. He was the editor of the Brazilian edition of América Economía and covered the Hispanic population of the United States for The Wall Street Journal. He lives in New York.

Choosing the Right Price for Your Brand-Building E-Book - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

Choosing the Right Price for Your Brand-Building E-Book - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career Todays self-published authors have more control over the selling price of their books than ever before. As a result, choosing the right selling price has become a critically important task for authors writing and publishing books to build their personal brands. After deciding on the title and topic for their brand-building books and e-books, self-published authors must decide how much to charge for them. Perspective Traditionally, authors wrote books for income from publisher advances and royalties based on print book sales. Now, self-publishing and e-books are eliminating publishers as gatekeepers and increasing numbers of authors are writing for electronic distribution. Today, more and more authors are viewing books as brand-building loss leaders and SEO traffic magnetsinvestments in future profits from coaching and consulting services, speaking, and information products like audios, videos, worksheets, reports, memberships, and online events. Its more important than ever that authors choose the right selling price for their self-published books and e-books. Implications Here are some of the issues you may want to consider when pricing your self-published e-books: Risk versus reward. Authors, like readers, have to carefully balance risk versus reward. Income from book sales is immediately available, whereas theres no guarantee that back-end profits will actually materialize. Authors have to carefully analyze the likelihood that book sales will lead to future coaching, consulting, and information-product sales. Income versus exposure. Self-published authors also have to balance income from book sales against the value of added exposure. Readers are usually risk-adverse; as the price of a book or e-book increases, the number of copies sold often goes down. Competition. Its not only how an author balances income with exposure, its also how the authors competition balances income and exposure when setting e-book prices. Your choice of selling price should be influenced by the prevailing costs of quality competing titles that may be selling for $1.99 or $2.99. Your book might be better, but, unless the you can prove the superiority of your book to risk-adverse readers conditioned to expect quality for $2.99, youll probably have trouble selling your book for $10.00 or $20.00. Price and value Perhaps the best perspective on e-book pricing comes from the dialogue sparked by a recent post on Joe Wikerts Publishing 2020 Blog. Joe is an experienced trade publishing executive and observer with decades of experience. He was a Vice President Executive Publisher at John Wiley Sons and is now General Manager Publisher at O’Reilly Media.) As described in a recent post, Joe Wikert addresses Amazons Kindle Shorts pricing strategy from a value point of view. From his perspective, short, concisely written Kindle Shorts should command a premium price, because they save the readers time! In his words, brevity is a key product attribute, so dont be afraid to let it drive a price up rather than down. Pricing your Kindle e-book The issue of e-book pricing is not going to go away! As more and more business professionals make the decision to self-publish their brand-building books as e-booksKindle, or otherwiseincreasing attention will be placed on the importance of e-book pricing. Whats your perspective? Are you going to base the price of your e-books high or lowor, are you going to base the selling price of your brand-building e-book on the value it offers readers? Share your opinions questions as comments, below. Author: Roger C. Parkers Published Profitable blog offers daily tips for planning, writing, promoting, and profiting from brand-building books.

4 Executive Job Search Blunders - Executive Career Brandâ„¢

4 Executive Job Search Blunders Wonder what career professionals in the thick of the job search landscape say are the worst things they see  job seekers do . . . things that are sabotaging their chances to land the jobs they want? My good friend Hannah Morgan (Career Sherpa, @CareerSherpa)  recently put the question to a number of us  â€" career coaches, resume writers, recruiters and HR professionals  â€" and got a variety of answers, posted in Part One and Part Two of What Is the Biggest Mistake Made By Job Seekers? The two main themes were: Saying the wrong things, and Coming across as lacking focus and a plan Heres a teaser . . . three of my favorite job search folks answers (with their Twitter handles check out their conversations there  for more advice): 1. Job seekers don’t worry enough about their online reputation and the possibility that mistaken online identity is sabotaging their job search efforts. The solution is Defensive Googling.   ~  Susan P. Joyce, @JobHuntOrg, Job-Hunt.org and WorkCoachCafe.com 2. Simply asking people if they know of appropriate job openings is not networking! It creates awkward silence since people are not walking job boards. Instead, asking who else they know that would be a worthwhile contact for you is generally much more productive. ~  Harry Urschel, @eExecutives, The Wise Job Search 3. Most job seekers do not establish clear and tangible job search objectives. They leave their network with no clear idea of how they can help. ~ Tim Tyrell-Smith, @TimsStrategy,   Tim’s Strategy And my own contribution: 4. Understandably, job seekers can make many mistakes in the complicated new world of job search, but the biggest ones are these two, that go hand-in-hand: ? Skipping over the essential first step â€" identifying the kind of job you want, targeting the companies that will be a mutual good fit, and researching their current needs and challenges to determine how your expertise can help them. ?  Running straight for your old resume (if you can find it) and updating it â€" without first knowing who you’re targeting, defining your personal brand, and creating content (for your resume, online profiles and other materials) designed to market your unique value proposition and resonate with your target employers. Go to the two articles for lots of good advice from people in the know. Related posts: Today’s Executive Job Search Toolkit 5 Executive Job Search Tactics You Need To Try Self-Google or Doom Your Executive Job Search 00 0

3 Questions To Ask When Hiring A New Team Member

3 Questions To Ask When Hiring A New Team Member My daughter and I have been traveling across the country to visit her three top choice colleges so she can choose where she wants to go this fall. Since she’s a basketball player, we’ve been meeting with the basketball coaches at each school. One of them talked about what he looks for when he’s bringing in new players. As he spoke, it struck me that his thought process in selecting new players was consistent with my process in selecting new team members, albeit with slightly different vocabulary. Here are Coach Gould’s three questions concerning new players, and some observations from a job hiring perspective: 1.   Is she tough? The coach wanted to know if my daughter would cry or whine when things got tough in practice or if the other team was frustrating her in a game. (Of course not â€" my daughter is tough as nails and I’d like to think she takes after me, but in this case it’s probably my husband). Similarly, as an employer, I would want to know that a new team member could persist in the face of headwinds and pull their own weight when the going gets tough. In effect, I’d want them to be resilient, and have the ability to bounce back â€" if not bounce forward â€" from setbacks. Another aspect of toughness is whether or not a new team member is fragile and therefore likely to be “hard work” from a management perspective. Will they need lots of TLC (tender loving care) or as my friend and colleague Catherine says, will the person need a lot of “couch time”? 2.   Is she smart? Coach Gould looks for players who are smart about the game of basketball â€" people who can see the whole court, anticipate and make things happen. (Again, my daughter has this ability, and it definitely comes from my husband.) For me, it’s about whether someone is able to see the big picture, handle ambiguity and navigate through complex situations without me having to list out every step. Are they independent thinkers? Are they resourceful in getting things done while working with others? Are they “street smart” and not just academically smart? 3.   Does she have at least one skill that could help the team win? Coach wants each player to bring something valuable to the table from the outset, and expects them to know and articulate what that is. Then each player comes in from a position of strength and the task is to build the team up to be greater than the sum of the parts. (My daughter’s strength is that she’s a good shooter. This one comes from her work ethic â€" she’s put in more than her 10,000 hours.) For me, every team member has some unique strength that they bring, and the more they are in touch with and able to leverage this capability, the better our results will be as a group. It’s also important that these skills are complementary across the team. As I like to say, when you’re forming a superhero team (think Avengers, Fantastic Four), it’s pointless to have four Superman types â€" a little Kryptonite and you’re finished! While most teams in the working world aren’t using physical skills to win sports matches, the similarities between the two worlds are significant. Both value people who are mentally tough, able to see the big picture, and in possession of unique talents that we can mold into a high performing team that produces great results. So, what do you look for in your team members? And as a team member, what do you uniquely bring that contributes to the team’s success?

Resume Writing Tips For Graphic Designers

Resume Writing Tips For Graphic DesignersGraphic designers are required to think and prepare for a job before they go for a job interview. Their resume writing tips for graphic designers should reflect their creativity and attention to detail in order to attract the right people.Graphic designers are hired by companies that want to do custom designs for a variety of different reasons. They are not called 'designers' as they design based on the requirements of the company. Most companies make their choice based on the brief they send to their designers, so it is important to fully understand how to write a brief and be as creative as possible. Graphic designers are also expected to keep abreast of the latest trends, so it is important to research their industry to be up to date on all the latest developments in the field.A resume for a graphic designer is usually very short. This is because a graphic designer will be focusing on the briefs and end of the project. The first few pages s hould contain basic information about the employer, skills required, education details, and any relevant experience the designer has had.The best resume tips for graphic designers include highlighting relevant work experience and writing about personal abilities and interests. You should also consider how well you can meet deadlines, communicate effectively, and should be able to work independently and in teams.Most employers expect designers to present themselves as professionals, not as some kind of self-indulgent fun loving person who doesn't take themselves seriously and is only concerned with the thrill of the chase rather than formal lifestyle. Graphic designers are also expected to use business jargon appropriately and not to write in an overly formal manner.Before applying for a job, graphic designers should do some research into the industry, meet some of the current and potential employers, and ask their family and friends for feedback. If you already have a job, there are many freelance websites you can use to do resume writing for graphic designers. Use these sites when you are looking for job openings, and put your work out there for free so other job seekers can see your portfolio.It is also important to remember that the position you are seeking can change, so it is important to think about your future after you get your new job. When you do apply for a job again, you will be required to submit updated resumes to show that you have moved on and improved on the previous one.The most successful resume writing tips for graphic designers are to find an employer that is right for you, work hard at getting the job, and consider the many benefits of having a career in this field. It is a good idea to attend workshops or online training courses in order to stay current with the latest trends in this field. While graphic designers are highly specialized, it is important to be able to do several things at once and give many of your assignments multiple pr ojects to complete.