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Social Recruiting and TalentBin: A Match Made in Heaven

by on Feb. 13, 2012

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laptop blue

Since the last article I wrote, I’ve gotten a lot of questions around how to find candidates on Twitter. And while there are a few great ways to do this, the one that I’ve had the most luck with lately is TalentBin…in fact, I’ve become so in *love* with TalentBin that I decided to dedicate an entire blog post about it. (OCD much? Yeah, yeah, I know.)

Open Web Sourcing…Before TalentBin (Yawn)

Because I’m assuming that everyone that reads this is probably a bit more resourceful than the average recruiter, I’ll spare you a lecture on what I think a “good recruiter” looks like. We all know that using job boards should not be a recruiter’s first place to source. More often than not, those candidates have already been contacted by everyone and their mother (hell, maybe even *your* mother) and they aren’t the best candidates available. It is well known that {almost always} the best candidates are the ones that you have to really dig for and they aren’t searching for a new role.

So, where in the world do you find those people then?

(For those of you who said, “Show up in their bushes!”…you’re a creeper. Sorry.)

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Industry News, Social Media

Facebook Files For IPO

by on Feb. 2, 2012

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facebook-logo

Yesterday afternoon, Facebook did what everyone expected: It filed for an IPO.

In the paperwork submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission, Facebook said it expects to raise $5 billion from the public sale of its stock. That’s based on the registration fee it paid. The New York Times says it could end up raising much more.

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Social Media, The Sourcing Function

The Strategic Role of Sourcers in the Social-driven Economy

by on Jan. 25, 2012

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puzzlepiece-world

The role of sourcers is changing as quickly as the role of marketers and in very similar fashions.

The times when marketers assumed that customers would buy a product because they needed it (or be brainwashed by advertising into believing they did) are rapidly vanishing. Today, as consumers, we expect to build a relationship with a company. We expect an experience – a positive experience, not the “bad” experience that makes us return products and try competitors – as well as vent our disappointment on social networks or other public venues such as Groubal.

In today’s competitive business environment, consumers demand personalized attention before and after any transaction. So do job seekers. They don’t want to be treated as interchangeable pawns, even for lower positions. People are not job-fillers… They are people first – and if they are unhappy, they’ll just look for another opportunity. Let’s keep in mind that the vast majority of people who look for or are open to a new job already have one!

It’s time to start looking at things a little differently. 

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Social Media

Are Twitter Followers Considered Property Assets?

by on Jan. 6, 2012

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twitter-dollar-signs

Recruiters and sourcers who frequently use Twitter to gather leads, promote jobs, and source candidates for their company will be specifically impacted by a recent lawsuit involving PhoneDog (a tech review site) and former employee Noah Kravitz. If you currently blend your personal and professional social media profiles, you may want to consider a few of these issues and take heed to some precautions.

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Social Media

The Best of SourceCon 2011, #1 — How I Made 3 Hires In 6 Weeks With Twitter

by on Dec. 30, 2011

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Twitter logo transparent

Editor’s note: this article by Megan Hopkins was the most popular article on SourceCon in 2011. It originally ran in July.

Confessions of a Twitter Hater…

My relationship with Twitter started out very slowly, and much like my relationship with my ex-husband, I was not a fan. At all. In fact, whenever Twitter was mentioned around me I cringed (much like I do when I hear “Steve Jobs” or “Apple”) and immediately tuned out. You see, not only am I stubborn, I am also all-knowing — just ask my parents…I am NEVER wrong. Okay, so to be fair, “never” is a bit of a stretch… In any event, I associated Twitter with all things stupid that did not catch my fancy (though I’m sure Ashton Kutcher is a very nice person) and I preferred to stick to my tried and true recruiting ways. Experimentation is not my thing.

After what seemed to be the one hundredth Twitter argument (that I won), I was forwarded an article in the Orlando Sentinel about a local girl that got laid off and used Twitter to notify the masses that she was back on the market. Within a week or so, Brittany Ward’s tweets had gained so much attention that an unlikely suitor came calling and wanted to do a featured story on her and her love of Twitter and social media. Apparently the Orlando Sentinel needed to cover something other than Orlando crime (and Ashton Kutcher was unavailable) and Brittany Ward seemed to be just the ticket. This was her defining moment and she was catapulted into Orlando stardom.

I was intrigued (and I was stalling a few recruiting calls…naughty, I know) so I decided to read this fine piece of literary work. I was instantly impressed by Brittany and her creative use of Twitter to get her name out in a challenging economy. After I read the article, I called a friend and mentioned to him that I know a girl that would be great fit for his company. I emailed him Brittany’s resume and within two weeks, he had extended her an offer and she accepted (and she LOVES her now job, thankyouverymuch!).

This got my wheels turning. I thought if Twitter could facilitate a placement with a perfect stranger so easily, there had to be some way I could leverage it to improve the way I recruit.

My little pea-sized brain was on to something!

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Leadership, Metrics, Social Media

The Best of SourceCon 2011, #2 — 10 Common Mistakes of Sourcing

by on Dec. 29, 2011

1 comment

JHascheRIS11

Editor’s note: this article derived from Jennifer Hasche’s RIS presentation was the 2nd most popular article on SourceCon in 2011. It originally ran in October.

During her presentation on sourcing strategies that produce results this Monday at the Recruiting Innovation Summit, which took place at Facebook in Palo Alto, CA, Jennifer Hasche, a Senior Sourcer at Intuit, shared her list of top 10 sourcing mistakes that are typically made within a recruitment organization. These mistakes are often the cause of missing the right candidates, taking too long on a search project, not understanding your business, and most frustratingly the misuse of available sourcing talent within an organization.

Read through the following list and make sure you aren’t making these mistakes yourself!

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Social Media

The Best of SourceCon 2011, #4 — Five Fatal Social Recruiting Mistakes

by on Dec. 27, 2011

1 comment

social media overload

Editor’s note: Shaly Steckerl’s article was the 4th most popular article on SourceCon in 2011. It originally ran in September.

Our Recruitment Genome Project demonstrated that 85% of surveyed staffing leaders utilize Social Recruiting avenues yet 70% of them lack any form of strategy. With all the choices available and potential legal, audit, or regulatory entanglements many recruitment leaders are confused or even paralyzed by fear. Hiring organizations know the recruitment world has made a dramatic shift, and recruiters know they need to meet prospects where they already are, but without a clear strategy many end up jumping blindly into social recruiting and make easily avoidable mistakes.

If you think the best way to recruit with social media is feeding your jobs RSS feed through Twitter but then get distracted with new entries into the social networking space such as Google+, we wrote this series just for you and hope this helps you avoid an epic #fail by falling victim to some of the most common mistakes.

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Social Media

Digging For Gold: Three Layers of Candidate Sourcing

by on Dec. 21, 2011

7 Comments

gold-nuggets-

I still remember those days when word “sourcing strategy” was define mainly with the names of job portals we would have an access. Well now, the situation is relatively similar — we have simply replaced job portals with Social Media and LinkedIn. More often than not, these so-called “strategies” appear pretty one-sided, lacking an in-depth understanding of the entire sourcing gamut. For now, it seems we are drifting toward “Social Media” as an entire strategy whereas in reality, it is simply one part of the entire strategy.

We get easily carried away with numbers like 800 million on Facebook and 150 million on LinkedIn. Do you know that 81% of LinkedIn and 76% of Twitter users never visit their account? Facebook, by contrast, has a higher engagement ratio — over 42% of users visit Facebook every day. I’m sure you will agree that the actual target population size is much bigger than just these numbers, which means with Social Media we are only looking at one particular section of candidates – not the whole group. Maureen Sharib has touched on this point very well in her Phone Sourcing discussion.

So – when it comes to Social Media channels, do we expect candidates to fall in our laps for easy pickings? Will this be a holy grail of candidate acquisition?

My answer is NO. If what we call a Social Media “strategy” simply means posting jobs in every corner of the Internet and expecting positions to fill, then we are missing the trick. What we need to look at is where our candidates are — are they all hanging on Social Media channels? Are they all equally active? Wouldn’t we look at candidates who are not using these channels? There are several layers of hidden treasure beyond social channels that remain to be excavated.

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Industry News, Social Media

Facebook Introduces Private Messages For Business Pages and Fans

by on Dec. 20, 2011

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facebook-fan-page

Though the news hasn’t appeared as an update on its official blog, Facebook has has begun introducing a new feature which allows business pages to receive private messages from their fans on the social network.

Right now, the new feature has only been rolled out to Asia-based admins. When it launched on Monday morning, Facebook page admins woke up to the following information box:

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Industry News, Social Media

Twitter Takes Aim at Facebook and Google Plus, Rolls Out New Profile Pages

by on Dec. 9, 2011

1 comment

new Twitter updates

On Thursday, Twitter made an announcement of some major changes to its profile pages:

…we are introducing enhanced profile pages that help marketers create an even more compelling destination on Twitter for their brands.

Communicating with users isn’t just about what you say. It’s also about how you say it. Now, your profile page does more to help you make an impression with a large header image for displaying your logo, tagline, and any other visuals.

With a goal of making the site simpler to navigate, Twitter says it wants to “win over more users and make the site more attractive to advertisers.” Twitter’s Chief Executive Officer, Dick Costolo said,

As other services tack feature after feature after feature on top of each other, we’re going to go in an entirely different direction and offer simplicity in a world of complexity…This new Twitter is really a foundation for us.

Through the site they’re calling “Fly,” Twitter shares a video showing some of the new capabilities of the new profile pages. And they look to compete with Google Plus and Facebook for marketing and advertising reach.

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