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I don’t know Edelman’s Cassel Kroll — VP of digital media strategy — but I know he looks really cool in a hat. So does Jimmie Stone, EVP and creative director.

They and a half-dozen other employees of PR giant Edelman star in this new video about working at Edelman. Edelman’s global and U.S. marketing teams came up with the idea for the video, and made it in about three weeks. The goal was to showcase the variety of new sorts of jobs that recent hires are doing at the firm.

It’s a bit more than two minutes, below. keep reading…

During the newly reinvigorated and exciting ERE conference, two attendees posed related but powerful questions to me. The first was “What advanced topics should be on the agenda of recruiting leaders at elite firms?” Or as another put it “What should Google be planning to do next in recruiting?”

At least to me, future agenda items are an important topic. Because after visiting well over 100 firms, I have found a dramatic difference between the agenda items that are found on 95% of the firms (cost per hire, ATS issues, req loads, etc.) and the truly advanced subjects that only elite recruiting firms like Google, DaVita, Sodexo, etc. would even attempt to tackle.

So if you have the responsibility for setting agendas or recruiting goals, here is my list of truly advanced recruiting topics that elite leaders would find compelling but that most others would simply find to be out of their reach. If you want to be among the elite, you should select a handful for implementation. However, even if you are currently overwhelmed by your current agenda, you might still find them to be interesting reading.

25 Advanced Recruiting Topics for Bold Corporate Recruiting Leaders keep reading…

This an “eyes-only” post. Under no circumstances let a hiring manager or your CFO see this. Now, close the door; darken the blinds, and be ready to blank your screen if anyone walks up to you.

Ready? There’s a robot getting ready to take your job. 

I’m not talking some automated software process like an ATS ranking algorithm. I’m talking a Robot & Frank, R2D2 cute kind of robot the Aussies have built that conducts interviews and assesses what the candidates say and their emotional response to the questions.

Sophie the robot, and her pals, Charles, Matilda, Betty, and Jack, are a joint project between La Trobe University Business School in Melbourne and Japan’s NEC Corporation, involves students and faculty from management, health sciences, sociology, psychology, and education. keep reading…

We’re all familiar with the funny image that goes by various names, but is basically “Social media explained with donuts.” As a reminder, the full list is here.

Companies, including my own, use the “Donut List” to simplify the major social sites to novices. But as these sites add features and move to our mobile devices, the differences aren’t all that clear. keep reading…

Employer branding videos are beginning to pop up with greater regularity on corporate websites as companies strive to attract top talent.

But what separates the good ones from the pack?

You don’t need to spend a gazillion dollars and bring in a team from Hollywood.

Here’s a simple formula for success: keep reading…

If you aren’t already using video for interviewing, what are you waiting for?

More and more employers all the time are finding that conducting at least an initial, live interview can save them both money and time, and can give them a better sense of their candidates than even an in-depth phone screen.

The heaviest users of live video interviews are the biggest employers; 80% of those with more than 10,000 workers have used or use video interviews. But even employers as small as 100 workers are giving it a try.

A GreenJobInterview survey of corporate leaders, most of them in HR, found that nearly half of all employers with fewer than 100 workers have conducted a video interview. And almost six out of 10 employers with 1,000 to 5,000 employees use remote video interviews.

This isn’t one of those shiny new object trends. Unlike the video resume, the use of video interviews is steadily growing as the technology has become both more affordable and easier to use.

keep reading…

Many search engine marketing experts today agree that videos and images drive more traffic in search engines than simple text-related results. In fact, a study done by Socialbakers, a leader in social media marketing and statistics, showed that as of December 2012, image-related posts led Facebook interaction by a whopping 89 percent. In 2012, according to Reuters, YouTube had an average number of four billion views per day.

With a multitude of free mobile image and video posting apps that are available for smartphones today, the ability to reach the public through multimedia has grown significantly, and today many companies take advantage of these major marketing channels. So what does this information mean for recruiters? keep reading…

Talk about differences in corporate cultures: there is serious and there is not.

And from the not department comes this new video from Groupon. keep reading…

You want to talk office culture? Having fun at work?

Go ahead and try to sell that system admin you’re courting with the foosball game in the lunchroom, and free pizza Fridays. Really?

Over yonder there in San Antonio, where salsa is almost religion and Rackspace is headquartered, they take their fun seriously. (Add that oxymoron to your list.) The Rackspace folks, who inhabit an abandoned shopping mall so big it’s huge (this is Texas after all), have posted a Google Street View of their workplace. It’s almost 28 acres, making it bigger than some neighborhoods.

Still selling that foosball thing? Well, grit your teeth, because one of the coolest features of what might be the world’s coolest workplace (not counting the ISS) is the slide between the first and second stories of the place. Which, of course, all but demands slide contests. Which, of course, Rackspace happily accommodated. Strike that. Sub in “encouraged” and made part of the whole branding thing. keep reading…

As a kid, I had a farm job. Among the tasks was cleaning out stalls and spreading manure. One of the less experienced, but know-it-alls among the summer help jumped on the tractor after I hooked it up, but not before I disengaged the spreader. The rest of us just stood there watching as he went down the driveway, spreading manure on the road, splattering the barns and everything else, enroute to where he was supposed to spread the load.

That’s the idea behind a website called You Had One Job; spreading workplace detritus around the world. In pictures — lots of them — it tells the story of workplace errors great and small. From the “oops” kind to the “what are you, an idiot” kind. If only I had a video of that manure spreader.

The New 1% keep reading…

An IT recruiting tool. An internship community. A new branding/careersite company. A video interviewer.

A website for “challenges” students can take, leading to a job.

And, two big new launches from the applicant tracking company Jobvite.

All below. keep reading…

Having fun at work today? Leaving voice mail for every call you make? I mean, really, is there a hiring manager who actually wants to hear from you?

So take a time out and enjoy today’s roundup, which, I promise, is low cal, purely intended as entertainment, and has no particular message (unless you happen to recruit lawyers, in which case, I’m so sorry for you).

Some Recruiter I Used to Know

From the land next to the Land Down Under, comes proof that like love, the recruiter/candidate relationship is universal. (It also suggests there are too few lawyers in New Zealand, which, you would think, would be a good thing.)

keep reading…

Guessing game time: What’s the #1 failure for the year in the recruiting world?

Oh, so many choices for the top (or should that be the bottom?) spot. The irreverent Jason Buss offers his list of seven “Recruiting Fails for 2012,” which includes those shiny new objects, Pinterest (for recruiting? Oh, come on. Did you really believe you could use it to source anything but recipes, cutsey animal pictures, and home decorating ideas?) and BranchOut.

One (that would be us) could quibble over the inclusion of mobile recruiting, and the exclusion of Monster and its slow-motion implosion. And argue about whether the Facebook job board disaster is really worthy of the #1 spot. But you (that’s you, and  us, too) have to give Jason credit for the absolute best recruiting quote of the year. Commenting on the Facebook job board, Jason credits this to an anonymous recruiting leader:

The 5 organizations behind one of the biggest recruiting fails in the past 5 years should be spanked, and spanked hard.

Really Great Discrimination keep reading…

It’s amazing how many companies say that “people are at the heart of our business.” Oh really? So how come so few employers bother to really develop their careers site to try to attract absolutely the best person for the job? How many bother to develop it beyond a simple list of current vacancies?

Most companies don’t have a very good careers site. Some suggestions follow:

Avoid Visibility and Death by Clicks keep reading…

A little of what’s new, from a “matching” site, to video, to job boards, a tool to find passive candidates, a place to review employers in Australia … and a look at what might happen if LinkedIn and eHarmony had a baby.

Let’s start with Jobdreaming. In short, here’s how it works. A candidate (U.S. only for now) puts in the type of job they want (let’s say a design job making $50,000 within a certain number of miles radius of a given zip code). An employer — right now for free — sends in a job listing to Jobdreaming. It gets sent to candidates who match, along with a question of the employer’s choice. The candidate is still anonymous at this point. But, if the candidate is interested, they can express interest, and answer the question. The employer receives the contact information on the candidate, as well as the answer to the question the employer posed.

Jobdreaming has under 10 employees and is funded by two VC firms. In response to my question asking how this is different than the laundry list of matching sites we’ve chronicled on ERE, the company mentions simplicity. Instead of starting with a specific job description and trying to match a long list of personal traits with it, this begins with the “what do you want to be when you grow up?” concept.

Entelo’s Passive-candidate Sourcing, and More keep reading…

HireVue, the video interviewing company, got $22 million the other day, a combination of $17 million in new investment and $5 million in an expansion of its credit.

The announcement of the new funding says it “will be focused on strategic investments in research and development, sales and marketing, client services, and global expansion.”

The $22 million, plus $6 million HireVue raised in two previous rounds, gives the 60-person company a big chunk of change. Exactly what it will be used for wasn’t explained in the announcement, and when I asked, here’s what I was sent:

HireVue also plans to increase headcount in solution development, sales and marketing and customer success to maintain its position as the leader in the digital interviewing category.

Kevin Marasco, HireVue’s CMO, offered more detail in a conversation today. HireVue already has such global, blue-chip companies as Walmart, Starbucks, Conoco/Phillips, and Rio Tinto, so a logical step is to move into Europe and Asia/Pacific, he said, mentioning Australia, India, and China.

HireVue, though, is quickly becoming more than a provider of virtual recruiting services. Its digital platform can be used — and is by some of its clients — to deliver company and branding videos to candidates. Some are already using the digital video capabilities for internal conferencing, and candidate onboarding. Marasco explained that other “extensions of the application” for training and leadership are likely.

Video recruiting is a crowded space, with at least a couple dozen companies offering video interviewing services, which tells you that online video interviewing is growing, and not a tough field to enter. In fact, anyone with a webcam (and that’s almost everyone these days) can load Skype and conduct a live interview for free. keep reading…

In the corporate world, HR leaders are frequently considered some of the most conservative and risk-averse. Running HR in a conservative manner might have served your company well in the 1990s, but unfortunately it may be inappropriate and even damaging today. This fast-changing and highly competitive business world has caused senior executives to now expect innovation not just in their product lines but also in all of their business processes.

As a result, it’s time for HR leaders to realize that in a battle to attract and retain top talent and innovators, your firm has to act differently with superior talent management approaches if your firm is to develop and maintain a competitive advantage in the talent marketplace. In fact, from an employer branding perspective, your firm needs to do a few unique things in HR if it is to stand out as a great place to work.

As a professor, I am fortunate to have the time to track and give corporate presentations on the array of leading and “bleeding-edge” programs that a handful of firms have had the courage to implement. Almost by definition, bold HR programs are new, controversial, and full of risk, so don’t be surprised when you don’t agree with many of the listed approaches. I suggest that you compare them to your own programs in that functional area in order to see if perhaps your firm is being too conservative and is falling behind the leading edge.

The Top 10 Bold and Outrageous HR and Talent Management Practices keep reading…

HireVue, the interviewing company that has grown from about five employees to about 60 employees in three years, is buying CodeEval.

I covered CodeEval’s launch as a testing company for technical employees in January 2011. Later, its screening tool, not its sourcing tool, became a free product.

HireVue expects to integrate the CodeEval testing tool so you can create “challenges” during the interviewing/assessment process. It’s probably going to take about three months to integrate the technology into HireVue.

You probably already noticed recruiting videos are getting progressively less ordinary all the time. More proof of that comes in this video by flash-gaming company Kixeye that’s starting to fly quickly around Facebook and LinkedIn.

I’ll warn you ahead of time that it’s more NC-17 than G. keep reading…

As online recruiting sites get more complex, they can get harder to read for people who can’t see, as well as others who use “screen readers” because of challenges with their arms or other disabilities.

It doesn’t have to be that way, says Corbb O’Connor, a web usability consultant with O’Consulting Group. In the video below, O’Connor talks about:

• Why video and slick images aren’t always a bad thing for the blind
• The problem with contacting a company and asking for special help reading the site
• What he’s finding on corporate career sites vs. job boards
• Craigslist and LinkedIn
• Simple things to keep in mind when designing sites

It’s about 10 minutes, below. keep reading…