For the past decade recruitment marketing has primarily focused on print collateral, career websites, and job boards. To me, a corporate recruiting blog creates a dynamic, digital recruiting “brochure” that can be accessed by anyone, anytime, anywhere. A blog can tell stories, promote opportunities, educate candidates, and provide an inside view into what was happening at an organization. I wanted to peel back the top layer of my company and let candidates see what it was like to work here.

Very little has changed though over the past few years. There are still only a few of organizations with active corporate recruiting blogs, with Microsoft, Sodexo, Rehabcare, and Hyatt serving as excellent examples. One thing did change however this past year: I finally had the opportunity to launch a corporate recruiting blog, “Success starts here,” at my employer.

Why has corporate recruiting been so slow to adopt? I believe it ultimately comes down to a lack of understanding and a lack of trust by the traditionally conservative and risk-averse entities existing in many organizations. These are barriers that can and should be overcome; there has never been a better time for corporate recruiting blogs.

When I joined my current employer, I was fortunate that my boss, along with the leaders of HR and Marketing, could see the value of a corporate recruiting blog. However, building a case and obtaining approval for the blog didn’t happen overnight. Several considerations and benefits had to be addressed and the understood first:

Considerations:

• Trust: Who would create the content? What would the subject matter be? What guidelines, if any, would be put in place to regulate content?
• Transparency and Tone: How open were we willing to be? Would we create content or accept comments that might be less than flattering in nature?
• Resources: Would there be more than one contributor? Who would monitor comments? How often would we need to create content? Would there be any monetary cost involved?

Benefits:

• ROI: Other than soliciting help from our marketing department to create a banner for the blog, it has been fully operated and maintained by our recruiting department. The only “cost” is the cost of our time, which overall has been minimal.
• Enhanced Traffic: Using site-visitation tracking tools, we know where our traffic comes from and where people go to when they exit the blog. Job boards, Google searches, and email signature links draw in the most traffic; the largest percentage of traffic exiting the blog are clicking to our career website, which was the blog’s goal in the first place.
• Branding: Not long ago, we recognized that our most effective recruitment marketing strategy would be a grassroots strategy, built upon social media and the Internet. With a target audience made up primarily of Gen X and Y’ers, this was an easy conclusion to come to. Our goal from the start has been to reach those who are at any stage of our recruitment process and educate them as to what it’s like to work at our firm. The blog is just one component of a network of social media tools that we use. These tools not only educate candidates, but also to draw in prospects.

Sounds great, right? But what does it really take to get started?

• Commitment. You need someone who is creative, who has a marketing-mentality, and who has good writing skills. If they have experience blogging, all the better.
• Obtain buy-in from your marketing and legal departments. Use a current blogging policy or creating one that has guidelines regarding the nature and use of content. Make sure to create a disclaimer for your blog as well.
• Select a platform. Blogger, TypePad, and WordPress are just three of the more popular options.
• Identify contributors and subject matter. A blog with multiple contributors can not only spread the workload, but also provide diverse voices and opinions. Selecting the subjects that you will blog about in advance will be helpful as well. Subject matter could include job-search tips, company recognition, spotlighting people, locations, community service activities, or types of jobs.
• Brand the blog. Your marketing department should be able to help you create banners and other graphics for the blog, effectively reflecting your company’s brand.
• Develop links. Traffic to your blog will be highly dependent on the links you create to it and from it. Create links to the blog on your career website, Facebook page, LinkedIn, email signatures, and on other relevant blogs. Register your blog with Technorati. Create links from your blog to other relevant websites and blogs. Conduct email campaigns to your candidates and prospects promoting the blog.
• Create content! Written blog posts should be brief — typically two to four paragraphs. If possible, include pictures, podcasts, and videos. Blogging platforms are highly dynamic and can easily support a variety of formats of communication.

Creating a corporate recruiting blog is a simple, economical, and effective way to tell prospects and candidates who you are, what you do and what it’s like to work for you. Do you have good stories to tell about your company? We did at RSM McGladrey, and the blog is now a powerful tool for us to share what is happening at McGladrey with the rest of the world. In a time and day where doing more with less is increasingly important, a corporate recruiting blog might just be the most cost-effective recruitment marketing opportunity available.

For some additional thoughts on launching a corporate recruiting blog, read this 2008 article by Microsoft’s Gretchen Ledgard.

• Jobster: a constantly evolving tool that allows recruiters to deliver job information to targeted audiences via a variety of means. Its job board aggregator allows job seekers to find jobs posted across the Web and use the Jobster service to connect with people they know in Jobster’s client base.
• ZoomInfo: Google for recruiters. ZoomInfo scrapes the Internet to create profiles of people who are referred to on websites, press releases, etc., and often includes their contact information. Anyone can create and update his or her own ZoomInfo summary.
• LinkedIn: allows users to create profiles (which are searchable) and virtual networks with people they know and people they would like to connect with. These networks allow users to connect with users divided by degrees of separation. LinkedIn also has job-posting capability.
• Simply Hired/Indeed: job board aggregators. These websites not only pull job search results from job boards across the Internet, but they also offer the opportunity for companies to wrap their jobs directly into these aggregators at no cost. Jobster, HotJobs, and Google Base also fit into this category, but Simply Hired and Indeed are primarily focused on aggregator functionality.

After using these tools for some time however, I’ve come to realize that what Friedman said is directly relevant to what is preventing the broader adoption of these new recruiting tools. And, I’m not referring to adoption by recruiters like myself. These new recruiting tool vendors are not having too much trouble attracting new clients who are looking for the next “killer app” in recruiting.

These tools were designed to solve some of the major challenges that recruiters face today, including 1) how do we more effectively and more efficiently connect with targeted audiences of passive and semi-passive candidates, 2) how do we better qualify candidates earlier in the process, and 3) how do we more effectively separate the best from the rest in a more objective and efficient manner? These tools, as designed, offer a great opportunity to solve these challenges.

In my opinion, these tools offer a better way. Recruiting is a two-way street, however. The general public needs to see these tools as a better way, too. These tools help to alter the paradigm of how people find jobs. It’s one thing to build a better mousetrap, but if the mouse doesn’t know where to find the trap, or doesn’t know what to do with the trap when it finds it, the trap isn’t very effective, is it? So far, most of the efforts of these recruiting tool vendors have been on building their client base. But, very little effort has been made to sell the public on this changing paradigm. When people consider making a career move, do a majority of them know to pursue opportunities via their networks? Do they know intuitively how to best present themselves online, or make themselves better able to be found by the right opportunity? Do they know what to do when they receive an email out of the blue, soliciting their interest or asking them to refer their friends for job opportunities? Currently, no. So when Friedman said, spurts in productivity happen only when “new technology is combined with new ways of doing business,” this is the type of thing he is talking about.

If anyone is close at this point it could be LinkedIn, because you connect only with those who are active users of the service. But, the use of LinkedIn is still relatively limited with a reach far short of the workforce at large. In order to be viewed by the general public as the new and best way to connect with great career opportunities, it is time for these recruiting tool vendors to spend more effort and resources on educating the public on why these tools are better than what the job boards have been selling for the past decade. This is a difficult proposition, as each of these companies is growing its business and is primarily focused on building client bases and increasing revenues. Reaching out to Joe Public to explain the virtues and benefits of these tools is both risky and challenging at best, with virtually no guaranteed payoff. But, imagine the possibilities if the company was successful. The days of post-and-pray would virtually be over. More people would know how to help their friends and colleagues get connected with great opportunities and, in turn, be helped themselves. More semi-passive candidates would understand what to do to enhance their online profiles and increase the chances of jobs finding them.

Job boards, applicant tracking systems, and resumes in their current formats could be history. The first generation of recruiting technology (job boards and applicant tracking systems) created an environment that has frustrated job seekers and recruiters alike. Job boards and applicant tracking systems have not done a good job in connecting the right people with the right jobs, and have not been effective tools to reach passive job seekers. These new recruiting tools offer exciting opportunities for recruiters to connect with active and passive job seekers in a more efficient and effective manner than ever before.

So far, I’ve had success using each of the tools I mentioned above. The potential of these new recruiting tools, however, has only touched the tip of the iceberg. The culture shift that these tools represent must be more effectively presented to the general public as the way for people and jobs to connect in the 21st century. These vendors cannot rely on word-of-mouth and viral marketing alone to spread the word about their products to the general public. It is time for these vendors to get as aggressive as the major job boards in their marketing and advertising, including to consumers. Generating broader adoption by the general public can only increase the success that their clients are having using their tools. In the meantime, if you haven’t given these tools a try, what are you waiting for? These tools are already allowing recruiters to make connections with candidates in ways that were, at the very least, more difficult and time-consuming previously. More recruiters using these tools to reach active and passive job seekers can also only increase the broader adoption of these tools by the general public.

This is an exciting time: We’re watching the emergence of the second generation of recruiting technology. The tools and rules of the game are changing, so don’t get left behind with yesterday’s technology. In the meantime, I encourage these new recruiting tool vendors to do more to educate the public as to how these tools offer a better way.