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There are three things to know about mobile recruiting, says Eric Offner, managing director of CareerBuilder Mobile. And each of the lessons applies to mobile marketing for consumers, too.

1. It’s about them. Using a mobile phone and a mobile phone application, Offner says, have to be a no-brainer or people will bail. “Make it easy. Let’s capture them and not let them go to waste,” he says, referring to potential employees using smart phones.
2. There are two Internets. There’s the web and the mobile web. Says Offner with a grin: “You either suck on one of them and are pretty good on the other, or you’re pretty good on both.”
3. Know your audience. “You have one today,” he says. “Start catering to them.” Hertz, he notes, gets the importance of mobile marketing when it comes to consumers, and should extend that effort to recruiting. “I love that site,” Offner says. “I can rent a car in a minute. I just can’t wait to rent cars because it’s so easy. They need to apply that same technology to recruitment. Anyone who rents a car could work for them.”

The PepsiCos of the world are leading the way in mobile recruiting, but most companies are still figuring out what it is job candidates want to do with a mobile phone, how they’ll use it, how much time they’ll spend on it, and what sort of experience they’ll want as compared to what they might want in a corporate career site.

With all that in mind, Charles Purdy, from Monster, speaking at a conference on mobile recruiting a few minutes ago in San Francisco, gave some advice for those corporations looking to put career information on smart phones: keep reading…

HR Tech, one of the coolest technology shows for HR people, opens in Las Vegas Monday. As is always the case, all the biggest vendors and many of the smaller and specialty exhibitors have been releasing — or are readying for the show — new products, updates, or applications.

I’ve had a few briefings, and gotten plenty of PR about what’s to come. So far, no moon shot, but there are some slick new releases. Mobile apps seem to be high on the list, followed closely by improvements in service integrations, SaaS-based tools, and even a few new entrants, who promise a better mousetrap.

In advance of the show, Lumesse, the former Stepstone Solutions, introduced a mobile app for its TalentLink recruitment management software. Lumesse Mobile is available for customer smartphones or tablets in the Android, Apple iOS and BlackBerry app stores.

The company says the app is “optimized for both slow and fast mobile connections and designed to deliver an individual, highly-personalized, enjoyable user experience with data and functionality specific to the role of the user.”

Achievers Still Loves Rewards

The company formerly known as I Love Rewards renamed itself in September. It’s now Achievers, but it still specializes in employee rewards and social media recognition programs. It also relaunched its website. keep reading…

Master Burnett sent over the infographic at right (click on it, probably twice, to enlarge) that he put together with Dave Martin from Brave New Talent.

Burnett emailed to say: “The digital world is globally moving at a huge pace to mobile Internet. The explosion of the smartphone and tablet is taking over the pockets of the world and will over take desktop web in 2013. The recruitment industry took 15 years to migrate from printed media to Internet media. Recently the impact of social media has provided innovation in recruitment and a new level of community driven and web-driven hiring outside of the traditional job board. Disappointingly employers have failed to maximise the mobile web and mobile apps.

Given the intrinsic partnership between social media and mobile web, employers around the world must recognize the value being missed on mobile. The attached infographic illustrates the opportunity and the failure to adopt mobile recruiting solutions.” keep reading…

Hey you there. Coffee person. That’s right you pouring your third cup before it’s even 9 a.m. You must be the HR benefits coordinator.

How did I know? Dunkin’ Donuts and CareerBuilder told me. The two of them teamed up again this year to survey workers about their coffee habits. Among other things, they found that HR benefits people are among the professionals who say they most need that cup o’ joe to get through the workday.

Now why would they do such a survey? Well, today, besides being Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, it’s also National Coffee Day. Spend a little money doing a fun survey about coffee, kick it out to us coffee-drenched writers (we rank 4th on the most-in-need-of-coffee list), and voila, a little PR for the two companies.

Why CareerBuilder? It knows a ton about jobs and workers. Why Dunkin’ Donuts? It actually has decent coffee and donuts, the staple of employee meetings everywhere. keep reading…

In a recent Harvard Business Review blog I came across this quote attributed to Steve Jobs (this has been paraphrased for the ERE audience):

Screw the channel.

Manage the present for optimum performance.

Reinvent the future.

The equivalent for recruiting goes something like this:

Screw sourcing.

Maximize quality of hire.

Become a great recruiter.

The point: hiring great talent is not about great sourcing; it’s about great recruiting. And if you continue to chase the next sourcing silver bullet you’ll wind upexactly where you are today in 5-10 years from now. In fact, those of you who have followed the “chase-the-sourcing-silver-bullet” strategy have not improved quality of hire in the past 5-10 years. The only companies who have shattered this fundamental truth in the war for talent have been those who have a great employer brand. For everyone else, improving quality of hire requires great recruiters.

In a nutshell, here’s my secret formula for hiring great talent:

Great Hires = Good Sourcing plus Great Recruiting

If you follow this formula you’ll be seeing and hiring far better people. Here are some ideas on how to reinvent the future of recruiting: keep reading…

The President came to California this week to do a little fundraising and hold a jobs town hall meeting.

Neither of those were particularly noteworthy except that the townhaller was hosted by LinkedIn in Silicon Valley, with 80,000 people watching a live feed of the event. keep reading…

What happens when your manager — who goes out regularly after work with a group of employees to scarf down chicken wings — has a hard-core vegan show up in the lobby for an interview?

That’s where “fit” comes in. You’ve heard it at conferences and read it here and most everywhere else people talk about hiring: you should look not just for hard skills, but hire for fit.

But, then again, you’ve heard the opposite: that you should seek out diversity, diversity of thought, people who bring different ideas, experiences, and perspectives to your organization.

Carol Schultz and I talk about this these two ideas, and whether they are contradictory, in the approximately 13-minute video below.

keep reading…

A European version of BeKnown’s iPhone app was released today by Monster, the latest in a string of enhancements and features the company has been making in its careers-oriented Facebook network.

Last week, at Facebook’s f8 developers conference, Monster said it was tightening the integration between its BeKnown networking app, and Facebook, on which it built the professional network. The enhancements will make it easy for BeKnown members who update their business profile to add those updates to their more social Facebook profile.

In the weeks before, Monster released smartphone apps for the iPhone and Android devices, allowing members to update their BeKnown profiles, send messages, make connections and, naturally, search Monster for jobs. Now, European members of the BeKnown network have the same capabilities. An Android version was released in Europe previously.

With the sweeping changes being made to Facebook, Monster’s decision to build its network-in-a-network on the social site seems almost prescient. Despite the current roil by the users who will have to get used to the changes Facebook is making, they eventually will. As they fill in their new Timelines, some of it will spill over into their BeKnown profiles. As Monster’s announcement last week noted, the opposite will also happen. keep reading…

The initiative going on in the U.S. to get 100,000 new science, technology, engineering, and math teachers up and running in 10 years now has 80 companies and non-profits on board.

Different companies are involved in different ways. Dow and J.P. Morgan Chase, for example, are involved in funding/allocating money. Google will be developing a program to recognize the top 5% of STEM teachers. The American Museum of Natural History “will prepare 130 certified science teachers for high-need schools by 2015; each teacher will commit to teach in those schools for at least four years.” Also, the museum will be involved in teacher onboarding/retention efforts.

Information on joining the effort is online, along with some frequently asked questions.

Recruiters and hiring managers love interviews. I have never been sure why that’s the case, but it seems to satisfy a human need for power and control. An interviewer has power to recommend for a job or not. Sometimes an interviewer has the power to actually make the hiring decision, and by holding a person’s economic future and career success in your hands, you can feel very powerful.

So anyone wielding such a powerful tool should be certain of its validity and of their skill in using it. The EEOC considers the interview to be a selection test, and requires that it be validated before use. Yet, I would guesstimate that few interviews are validated at all, and the ones that are may not be delivered consistently or by a competent, trained interviewer.

Research has consistently shown that the typical unstructured interview is pretty unreliable. It does not consistently ensure that the most qualified person gets a job or that the person will perform any better than another candidate chosen with less care. In all the studies that I have looked at, the validity of choosing candidates by only using an unstructured interview process is about the same as simply picking someone at random.

Interviews are rarely done consistently from interviewer to interviewer or from candidate to candidate. Yet, we typically consider all the interview inputs for a candidate as if they were done in the same way. Therefore we are comparing apples to oranges, and the hairs we split and the time we spend agonizing over a small detail or a particular answer to an interview question is wasted.

No wonder that candidates often roll their eyes at the absurdity of the interview process. keep reading…

The Facebook changes announced last week at the developers conference, and those in the weeks before, have major implications for the way employers use the site to brand themselves and build relationships with potential candidates and future hires.

Recruiters who now use Facebook exclusively or mostly to push out jobs will become even more marginalized by the increasing emphasis the social site is placing on engagement. Those who actively invest in courting their Facebook “fans,” offering content of value, and real conversations, will reap even greater rewards than they do now, earning their brand a place on user’s forthcoming Timelines, and the ability to broaden and measure their reach as visitors “Share” content with their own FB friends.

One of the consequence of these and the other changes Facebook is rolling out, is that it will be harder than ever for employers to compete for attention. Even before last week’s f8 conference, when the company’s most profound changes in years were announced by CEO Mark Zuckerberg, routine updates such as a “like” or a me-too comment, and job postings, were being moved to a ticker-style activity window on the profile page. Even more is likely to appear there as Facebook’s standards of what’s worthy of being a top post, and thus rising to the top of a person’s wall, become more stringent. (A good summary of the announced changes is available here.) keep reading…

"Why join the Navy, if you can be a pirate?"

Want to impress your CEO? Few CEOs wouldn’t mind having the innovation track record of Apple, so there is probably no quicker way to become an “instant hero” then by learning how Apple’s talent management practices have contributed to its success and applying those practices relevant to your organization. In this installment of the case study, we’ll look at internal branding, employer branding, and recruiting.

Internal Brand Encourages Fighting the Status Quo

Steve Jobs and the management team at Apple have worked tirelessly to build a unique internal brand image at Apple that positions employees (at least mentally) as revolutionaries and rebels. Many years ago the organization influenced this internal brand by challenging employees to think how much more exciting it would be to be a pirate, rather than someone who followed the formal protocol of the regular Navy. It even flew a pirate flag over its corporate headquarters. The tradition of being revolutionaries is upheld even today with many supportive slogans including “Part career, part revolution.”

Apple is well known for using T-shirts, parties, and celebrations to build cohesion and to reinforce the internal brand as a ragtag group of revolutionaries. keep reading…

In this hour long webinar, we will discuss how to drive change through your Talent Acquisition organization, from the earliest stages of articulating your vision and strategy, to the tactics that are important to implement and sustain change, to measuring and analyzing metrics.

For more podcasts, webinars, and articles on recruiting be sure to check out ERE.net!

Every year I attend the annual Society for Industrial Organizational Psychology conference to learn and make sure I am in touch with the latest goings-on in my field. This past year I was very excited to walk away with an unpublished research paper titled Legal Risk in Selection: An analysis of processes and tools, by Kate Williams, a doctoral candidate at Clemson University. This article has direct and practical value for the members of the ERE community. If you are in any way involved in shaping the staffing strategy of you organization or if you really want to know the practical requirements for ensuring the EEOC and OFCCP stay out of your kitchen, you need to read this paper, or at least the short summary of its major points that I provide below. keep reading…

Indeed and TheLadders are two of the most valuable startups in the world. How do we know that? Business Insider says so.

The financial and business site posted its list of the 100 most valuable digital startups today. Not surprisingly, Facebook is #1. According to Business Insider, Facebook is worth $80 billion, up from last year’s $50 billion.

(After today’s product and feature announcements by CEO Mark Zuckerberg at the company’s f8 conference, who knows how much the company will be worth.  A Huffington Post article calls the changes “profound,” putting Facebook “at the forefront of a paradigm shift.”)

While none of the other companies on the list even remotely approach the lofty valuations of Facebook (#2 is Zynga at $11 billion), Business Insider says Indeed, the job search vertical, is worth a cool $450 million, ranking it 37. TheLadders it values at $225 million, placing it at 59. keep reading…

Recruiting for retail and the service industry can prove to be a unique challenge. With seasonal demands constantly changing and a consistent need for part time employees, recruiters must approach things from a different angle. In the fast paced world of retail, if you beat your competition to the best employees, those employees will help you beat your competition.

For more podcasts, webinars, and articles on recruiting be sure to check out ERE.net!

“Most partnerships don’t end up in court.

Most friendships don’t end in a fight.

Most customers don’t leave in a huff.

Instead, when one party feels underappreciated, or perhaps taken advantage of, she stops showing up as often. Stops investing. Begins to move on.

No, I’m not going to sue you. Yes, I’ll probably put my best efforts somewhere else…”

Five things happened recently — three in the last week — that reminded me of the price we pay for thoughtlessness.

Since I’m always asking: “Is there a lesson here for the workplace?” when reflecting on experiences that happen in everyday life, these made me think also of the price managers — and employers as a whole — pay for:

1. Taking people for granted.
2. Forgetting basic courtesy, like not returning phone calls, not acknowledging time-sensitive information emailed to them (especially when someone asks you to confirm you received it), or not following up like they said they would. keep reading…

Google+ went public yesterday,  opening up its three-month old social network to anyone who wants to join. At the same time, it also announced what it said were eight new improvements, principally to the live video section it calls Hangouts.

Following close behind, Facebook unveiled some sweeping changes of its own, rearranging its News Feed and adding a real-time update ticker to profile pages.

The nearly simultaneous announcements, probably just a coincidence, are nonetheless evidence of the escalating competition between the two powerhouse companies.

Ever since Google+ launched in June (growing quickly to 25 million users who had to be invited to join), Facebook has aggressively added, enhanced, or otherwise changed key features of the site. Hangouts, which lets Google+ users video chat, was Google’s one-up on Facebook. Not even two weeks later, Facebook called a press conference to announce a partnership with Skype and its own video chat service.

When it launched, one of the more compelling Google+ features was its “Circles,” allowing users to organize connections as they see fit. Different messages can be sent to different circles.

Facebook’s one-group approach didn’t allow for different levels of connectedness; lists were available, but so clunky to create and manage that few people used them.  Last week, Facebook addressed that shortcoming, improving Friend Lists. Now, not only can users easily create lists where photos and posts are in one place, but the Smart Lists features automatically assembles groups based on common interests. The latter feature is optional to use. keep reading…

Over the last several years I’ve sat through no less than 100 staffing agency “pitches” in person or over the phone. At this point these meetings have begun to all sound very similar, so I’ll bucket agency sales pitches in to these three areas.

“We’re Different.” Almost every agency says they have a special/unique process for reviewing resumes, sourcing candidates, and access to candidates that sets them apart from their competitors. From my experience I’ve not really seen the impact of their “unique” process in the candidates they’ve submitted. Additionally, most agencies don’t appear to have a thorough understanding of their competition. At some point in almost every vendor meeting someone says that they don’t push paper like “everyone else.” I would encourage vendors to have a much more in-depth understanding of the competitive landscape before they make such broad sweeping indictments of their competitors.

“We Build Relationships.” Every vendor I’ve ever sat down with has said they build meaningful relationships with managers and they “get” our business unlike any other vendor in town. As a result they tell me they have the ability to make a cultural fit for our organization. To this statement I like to ask: “Give me an example as to how you screen for cultural fit.” I’ve been underwhelmed by all responses to this point.

“We Have a Proprietary Database.” I’ve heard this one a million times. Vendor ABC has a database of millions of qualified/ interested candidates at their beck and call to fill contract needs. I don’t doubt they have a long list of former contractors they’ve placed, but in my experience most contractors don’t feel the same level of loyalty to their staffing agency. Most contractors are more interested in the type of work, the end client, and compensation. And before you rebuke, I will concede there are notable exceptions to this point, but overall, it’s correct.

Overall my experience is that candidate screening is indeed not that different; that staffing agencies do not have a special candidate database (why, then do I get the same candidate submitted by different vendors all the time?); and your partnership with me is not that strong. In fact, too many vendors treat me as someone to work around than to work with.

Here are my suggestions. keep reading…