Twittercide, Rockstars and Hot Fresh Resumes

I hate my job. Chances are, your employee has never said that to you. Chances are, you’ve never asked. How do you hire the right people in the first place? How do you keep employees engaged? How do you turn around a troubled employee?

All I have to say is that spam better not kill Twitter. I have recently become a Twitter addict and if spammers mess that up, oooh! I see a fairly easy solution. Just unfollow and block. Say it with me: unfollow and block.

How to find only fresh resumes in Google. Very nice Jim Stroud!

I really, really, like the unvarnished “this is what I think and I’m not looking for links in all the wrong places” take of William Tincup. Here he profiles Rockstar Recruiting, Marcus Mindte’s project, which is really fun and super intuitive (plus it’s red and black like Lohan used to be). Strange that I should be linking to Marcus, since he and I just had a very heated discussion about who was Jason Davis’s (oooh, backstory) honored guest at Kennedy. He lost.

New Rules, Old Rules, there’s always gonna be rules!!

The new rules are based on the old rules. Either way, follow the rules.

Andy Warhol once said, “In the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes.” Being a marketer, and having fully entrenched myself in the social media scene, I like to think that my 15 minutes is coming up.

I get a lot of questions in my line of work about search technology, social media, blogging and microblogging. They always end with the same question:

“Yes, but what does it do?”

Actually that is a question that marketers are more prepared to answer than ever. Since blogs have been around for a while now and the term “viral marketing” is now mainstream, there is actually research that backs up the ROI of blogging and social media strategy.

So why am I telling you? Can a dentist use social media to his or her advantage? This one did. How about an accountant? Social media is for more that just the “techies” or even those of us whose businesses touch those technical industries.

Start a blog. Or two or three. Actually, depending on the kind of person you are, blogs are fairly addictive. At last count I had roughly four (I also contribute). Some great blogging software: Blogger, WordPress, TypePad

- Link to other blogs frequently on your blog. Especially to those blogs you want to link back to you.
- When people comment on your blog, comment back to them. It’s about the conversation
- Have interesting and relevant things to say, even if it’s just a paragraph.
- Update about twice per week, minimum.
- Promote your blog on your website and/or business cards.

Blog too much? How about “microblogging”? You may have kids that are already doing this. Twitter is the most popular, although FriendFeed and facebook are coming up fast. This type of microblogging allows you to see and contribute to a stream of conciousness. On Twitter for example, you can follow people who have similar interests and see what they are saying and doing. Curious about how venture capitalists think? Follow one, two or 7! The rules are similar to above except with more frequent updates.

I Heart Apps. There are exciting apps for virtually everything. Third party applications make software (like the ones listed above) even more productive (try TweetScan to get a read on what people are tweeting about). On top of this, there are FREE applications often beta testing that you can be involved in. Not only does this put you on the cutting edge of capable and robust solutions for your business, it allows you to meet people with great and exciting ideas, I’ve found those people rarely just have the one awesome business in them.

Social Networking. I love Facebook and LinkedIn but the tools must be used properly. If you never reach out to those you are connected to on these networks, the connections sit unused and eventually rust. Most professionals I know are not willing to forward requests from random connections who never talk to them. Try to intro yourself to every person that you invite or that invites you to connect. Notable mentions: Plaxo, Ning

The truth is social networking is based on some very old rules. The same rules that marketers have been following for years. Perhaps you think that none of these apply to your business today, but soon, one of them will. So go educate yourself on how to connect with the consumers of today and tomorrow!

Becoming an Employer of Choice

I recently attended a Cisco event where Leigh Branham (of Overland Park, Keeping the People fame) spoke about engaged employees. His presentation was great, filled with real life examples, anecdotes and exciting graphs and charts.

Here’s the pathetic part. In a city will over 800,000 potential employees and a kick booty chamber which is upping that number all the time with neat initiatives like these, there were less than 25 people in attendance. Whaaaa?

So all that great technology (including webinars, teleconferences, real time messaging and employer blogging) that Cisco and IBM presented and all the research Leigh showed us about why employees are unhappy and perhaps 15 employers were represented. Nice.

Contrast that to the story I heard today about a former co-worker. She was out vacationing in Oregon, loved it and told her boss that she wanted to move there. Her boss said “So take your job with you“. The company had already invested in a laptop and expensive software so that she could do her job. They had spent money training her and promoting her (make no mistake, this no more than a mid-level position, allowing your workers to telecommute is not just for higher-ups). So you have a happy employee willing to bust her little buns to make sure she gets her work done.

According to Leigh, this kind of situation could have gone very differently. Said lady could have presented the situation to her boss and he could have told her congrats but there was no way (in a highly secure and regulated industry) she could work that far from the home office. She would have gone back, dejected, to her desk and dreamt of Oregon, her work and productivity suffering as a result. Eventually, she would have told herself that the company did not really value her (actions not words, people) despite the friday bagels and quarterly massages and started looking elsewhere. The company would have lost a valuable employee while the training for her position will stay with her forever.

It’s really not that hard!

PS If you are looking for the link to the picture of syrup and pancakes, it’s all in my tummy. I am hungry.

Feeling the O

Loving this new site from the Economic Dev people here in Omaha. As a small business person in Omaha, I feel really, really lucky that we have such a great Chamber and such visionary people here working on our behalf. Check out the site selection page along with the “start an initiative” section.

8 Dumb HR Moves

This post is based largely on John McKee’s recent post on TechRepublic. It’s called 10+ dumb business decisions and it made me think of HR Departments and Functions. As I once blogged on this site, HR is coming into its own as an industry not just a function of another industry. As I read through the list, I realized, these mistakes happen everyday:

1) Cutting back on customer (candidate/client) service to save money. To me this includes the following (probably more but I was up at five so…): not following up with qualified candidates that were not chosen, asking candidates who are not right for the job to go through arduous assessments to save YOU the time of accurately parsing their resume, not fully prepping the candidate for a difficult client, not getting permission to represent the client, not creating a space for a great candidate,

2) We can replace HR support, in-depth client development and phone interviews with technology. While technologies like resume parsing and applicant tracking systems can help competent HR Pros and Recruiters do their jobs better, they are not an excuse to cut performers from your team. Again with the lengthy assessments, particularly with high-level candidates/applicants.

3) We should lower compensation. Whether you are thinking of in your department, your firm or using candidate offers to increase your margin, lowering compensation (especially when people are already stressed about recession). With candidates aware of compensation bands and applicants seeking more transparency, lowering compensation is a bad move.

4) Growing the department, firm or company too fast. With a good deal of attention focused on recruiting talent, some professionals forget about developing the talent that they already have.

5) Getting a superstar (or brand name) in the office. John Sumser, who runs the recruiting roadshows is all about local talent. Make sure that your people know their value (heck that’s HR 101) and don’t put someone over them that doesn’t know your company, culture and area. If they aren’t performing and need assistance, make it temporary.

Number six is perfect as is

#6: “Our company is so cool we will always have a large pool of talent available”

History is littered with once cool companies that took their ability to attract good talent for granted and now can’t regain that cache. For example, The GAP, Yahoo, and General Motors were all considered to be “the” place to work at one time or another. Then too late, they realized that all the great talent was going elsewhere. Their results show what can happen when we take ourselves too seriously. In today’s economy and in a worldwide marketplace, coolness is pretty fleeting, and the job opportunities for the best employees have become especially broad.

7) Not making family a priority. HR departments and valued recruiters can change the way upper management sees benefits, especially in the area of family. Making sure that medical leave, adoption rights and work/life balance are ignored are great ways to make sure that college educated men and women with real talent never take a second glance at your company.

Make sure everyone is white/female/has similar strengths. Diversity means more than saying you are equal opportunity. Beyond actively searching for people in management to reflect the company’s commitment to diversity, try making sure that the people on your team bring different experiences, different strengths and well-rounded perspectives.

I bought a word. And it’s good one

Filipino "babes", input refugees and a rating system for recruiters

Amitai, the “bus driver” over at Recruitingblogs.com, dishes on his own blog about the spammers (the, ahem, babes) at Jobster. What I like about this article? No free for all here, true integrity to the work of bloggers (first) and recruiting (second) and then goes back to defend the former CEO. Actually practices what he preaches (smart blogging oversight) right there in post. Nice work Ami!

Amybeth, the reasearch goddess is all set to rock my former hometown of SF and her trip there was sponsored by David M of ERE. Since this same thing happened to me less than one month ago, I wonder if this constitutes a trend. The interesting thing (to me) is that when you go to conferences or talk to people about conferences, there’s always the same old groans and complaints about how airline seats are too small. Not moi, and not Amybeth! We’re dying to go and will work for networking, so it seems. Does that make us “input refugees“? “Bloggers/Tweeters for hire“?

Angel Investors, time to pay attention. Gopi over on Recruitingblogs.com has a great idea for a rating system for recruiters (I would go one eBay step further and extend it to employers as well). What a great idea! The concept could be included into a VMS like RockStar Recruiting or Talenthire and make the interface a full on marketplace.

The coolest post. Ever.

These are a few of my favorite things. . .

In case you couldn’t tell from the sidebar, there are some networks, blogs, etc that I am more partial to than others. They are in no particular order:

Recruitingblogs.com- This is a great site for recruiters of all strengths ages, abilities, whatever. For me, it serves as a place where I can be a little more casual and open about what I know and what I need help with. RBC’s cool laid back vibe has a lot to do with its founder Jason Davis and the collaborative spirit he works hard to maintain.

Fistfuloftalent.com- This is a blog that I contribute to, which is headed up by the HR Capitalist, Kris Dunn. Kris has long been a respected and (gasp) fun voice in the talent space and I’ve learned far more than I’ve ever contributed to this site. It’s phenomenal for “breaking down” the big fancy concepts we all pretend like we understand. V. smart people (present company excluded) write for this blog.

Six Degrees from Dave- Dave Mendoza is a master networker and and anyone looking to increase their visibility online or off, should take a lesson from his playbook. He does really in-depth articles on great recruiters and gives real insight into how each of us approach the business of recruiting.

The Brazen Careerist- okay Penelope, you won’t give me the time of day but LYLAS anyway. It’s a great site and gives tons of good, no-nonsense and encouraging advice about job seeking and career building.

ERE- Without a doubt, my go-to place for solid answers. Not a huge community vibe yet but working toward it. But the articles and forums can be spot on. If you’re looking for the pulse in a certain area, check ERE.

TechRepublic- I am a dork but the way TechRepublic breaks it down would make even GhostFace Killah blush. If I can understand unified communications, anyone can. No personal relationship there yet but the bloggers and articles are great for when someone asks me: What is ERP anyway? ACK! TR’s got my back!

Honorable mention: These are usually on my reader but I can’t get no play from the authors so I don’t feel obligated to write a big fat paragraph about them, I will put recent cool headline in parentheses though. Amybeth (Geeks are Hot), Jim Stroud (Cool and Crazy office spaces), LifeHacker (ipod touch into iphone yes!!!), Seth Godin (sweet flickr photo tips), Cheezhead (facilitating MONSTROUS behavior, get it? get it?).

Tech Thursday

Okay, this is starting to become a bit of theme here at Big O. Before I go any further, I must give mad props to the Chamber of Commerce and IAppeal Media for their innovative and FUN game. Check it out here and decorate your own Big O (even if you aren’t lucky enough to live here).

I feel like I have been talking techie all week long. My brain hurts a little to be truthful.

It all started with the Microsoft wine tasting where they premiered SQL Server 2008. It was a wonderful gathering with lots of fantastic people to meet and see. SQL Server 2008 has some pretty great features and the bacon covered figs were wonderful. The official launch here in Omaha is the 22nd and already full to the brim. I’m in (pay no attention to the fact that I am volunteering, the fact is, I’m IN). Also need to mention that the tasting was held at the local Prestige, which was very, very nice.

On Wednesday, I attended the AITP/SPIN meeting where Dave Welch from House of Brick demonstrated VMWare’s Virtualization, well. . .wares. Anyway, he was either a very good presenter or I am getting smarter, because I actually understood the gist of what he was saying. In Welch’s humble opinion, he likened the impact that stable virtualization will have on business to that of the IBM PC. We’ll see. . . .

Neat but not earth shattering: I am a big fan of the Where I’ve Been app on Facebook. Makes me feel pretty world weary.

This post on The Walrus sounds like my kind of party. Only I don’t think I’m enough of a fashionista to hang with the PopSugar crowd or enough of a smartypants to speak Geek.

Very cool. As a recent twitter convert, I love this story about how Twitter helped someone out (OF JAIL). Actually, just in case you are disappointed, he’s not actually out of jail at the time of this writing (okay NOW he is) but with most of the world going wireless, Twitter could save lives and increase accountability (at least that’s what us Rainbow Connection peeps think.)

Sorry no real Talent news today. But if you want to hear me rant on talent on a semi-regular basis, check out Fistful of Talent, for my opinion and some others ones that a pretty cool too.

When to make a change

At HCI, we work with both talent and technology. Two groups that seem highly disparate. However, since I oversee both departments, I am often astounded at how similar the they are. Take for instance, making a change.

The investment in proprietary technology is akin to the investment that an SMB or a large corporation makes in its employees (or even its HR system/strategic plan to find said employees but that is a different post), so change is not really welcome in either space.

Take two situations, the first deals with a highly visible company that has completely pulled support from the state of Nebraska (where we live and work). For three years, zero support, save extremely expensive fly-ins have been available to the large and important customers that use this company and their tools. How long do these companies wait to make a change? What about the cost and training implications involved in making that change? Are there other options? Often in situations like these, companies are forced (due to budgets and the high cost of new hardware) to make a “patchwork” change. While this can be a good move from a cost perspective, it is often a terrible idea in terms of security and the false sense of entrenchment in a technology it gives.

When do you fish or cut bait?

The same holds true for a bad hire or even a low-productivity employee, especially in times of recession. John Sullivan wrote a great post on how internal and external HR and Recruiting functions can guard their jobs and/or departments against shrinkage. Assisting upper management in two very tough functions were on his (lengthy) list:

1) Help management determine who the lowest producers are and assist in the termination.

2) Use external vendors for high-need and high visibility positions to reduce chance and cost of bad hires.

Sullivan’s argument is that this increases your value and simultaneously allows the internal HR person to focus on metrics, ROI, budget issues and current employee development.

Making a change is tough, but I think the issues behind either are very much the same. Making a significant change in technology or talent requires an in-depth cost benefit analysis. One caveat, make sure that people involved in that field (in that case of talent, obviously HR or an 3PV firm; in the case of technology the IT director or VP and the people actually assisting with the transition) are in the room when doing the CB.

Had to put this article up here. Since I have a beloved nephew with Autism, I found this post on the connection between Aspberger’s/Autism and IT to be kind of. . .cool!

Also check out FOT’s take on compensation with new cont. writer Ann Bares.