Chicago GSB, Generation X and Some Changes Needed in Online Recruiting

As part of my ongoing discussions regarding the coming transformations in online recruiting, I will need to discuss the growing obsolescence and misleading nature of college and campus recruiting programs (The education is great, the actual access to certain career paths is not - I can say this as an alumni of the University of Chicago GSB MBA program). These serve to create artificial and inefficient job markets that work primarily to serve the future acquisition of students than it does to have corporations acquire the best talent available on the market. As a society we are not using all of our best resources efficiently due to these outdated recruiting programs and lack of full utilization of Generation X, many have not been redeployed full from the 2000-2003 downturn. This is a major part of the many coming transformations necessary when the baby boomers retire and ones that most organizations are unprepared for.

Blogtipping Inventor : Easton Ellsworth

Since I started blogging, Easton Ellsworth has been very helfpul to me. Easton is the creator of blogtipping. Due to blogtipping’s naturally networking and helpful nature, I decided to interview Easton about it in more detail.

- Why did you start blogtipping and what exactly is blog tipping?

I started blogtipping (or blog tipping) in April 2006 as a fun, simple way to remind myself and other bloggers to help each other. You just surprise three other bloggers by publishing a post in which you give each blogger three compliments and one suggestion.

- What positive experiences have you seen with it?

The best part has been getting to know other bloggers and encouraging them. I’ve watched as others connect with people they never knew before via the blogtipping meme.

- How and why do you spread it and how do you monitor that?

I blogtip a different trio of bloggers on the first day of each month. I subscribe to several keyword search feeds ( e.g. a Google Blog Search feed for “blog tipping”) that notify me when someone mentions the meme. I leave appreciative comments at as many blogtipping posts as possible. Finally, I do a monthly “round-up” post highlighting some blogs that I’ve discovered through blogtipping. It’s all very simple and takes little time or effort. But as they say, a little goes a long way. The biggest reason blogtipping spreads, though, is the “pay it forward” mentality it inspires in its participants.

- What suggestions would you have for others wanting to start a viral meme?

Keep it simple. Give it a unique name. Maybe fashion a few buttons or widgets to promote it (like my silly blogtipping icons). Make it recur regularly if possible, to encourage repeat participation. Set the example by doing it yourself. Don’t push it on others - just set it out where they can see it and remind them of its benefits from time to time. The key to it all is to create something self-replicating that helps people improve themselves.

- What plans do you have for blogtipping in the future?

I’ll keep doing it each month and continue recognizing the blogging tips I learn and the fine bloggers I discover as a result of others’ blogtipping posts. Perhaps someone will come along who wants to take blogtipping in a new direction, and that’s fine by me. I wasn’t the first to advocate regularly praising and critiquing others’ work in a public forum. Someday “blogtipping” might die, but the principles it espouses, like selflessness and friendship, will remain immortal.

- How can we help you spread blogtipping?

You just did :). Talk about it, try your hand at it. Even bashing blogtipping (which no one has done to this point) would ironically tend to spread it. The two best ways to kill a meme are to ignore (not attack!) it from without or to corrupt it from within. Were I value my meme above my friends or blog readers, it would reek of narcissism and quickly lose support. Let meme-makers remember that memes, like real viruses, hold no life of their own and must rely on living hosts for their carrying power. The power to spread ideas stays rooted not within the subsoil of technology, but much deeper: in the bedrock of human minds and hearts.

I’d like to thank Easton for his time, if you got something out of this, please link to, err tip it, to others!

Google’s 8th Birthday today

Nice Graphic…

Checkster.com - some more hints

Yves Lemusi is interviewed in this podcast, I met Yves at the Onrec recruiting conference. He is an interesting guy and I’m very interested to see what he has in store for this startup.

Next Google - A Trend?

Google Blogoscoped has an interesting post about trends today, here is my contribution. It’s interesting to see people search for this, are they investors, searchers or advertisers? Perhaps it’s all three groups. People are obviously looking for the “next google”.

US Cellular Ads Using Google Maps

The Chicago Suntimes had an interesting banner ad Friday. When clicked it led to a domain registered on September 7the, chicagosbestwireless.com, with Google Coupons. It would be interesting to see how well this campaign does.

The ad is interesting to me as I’ve reecently been thinking about changing celluar/wireless phone providers.

My First Edgeio Experience

I posted my first item on Edgeio today and liked the user interface to post content - a lot!!!

At the end of the sign up process, it said I would receive a confirmation e-mail shortly. It has now been five minutes and I have not received one. Now that it’s up, what is Michael planning so my ad is seen outside of the 53,561?

I’m curious about the spam controls that Edgeio will be using that is the main problem with Craiglist these days - spam.

Maybe Michael Arrington will drop by to explain.

Wanted: Brillant Administrative Assistant

Netowrking

Argh, I’m so behind on indexing my business cards!!! It’s terrible and I must catch up. I also have tons of correspondance and phone messages to reply to. I need help! At the moment I can’t offer you cash, only still hypothetical options of some soon to launch companies and the ability to interact with some amazing people. You must enjoy and thrive on meeting the most interesting and creative people in the world. In fact you should aspire to be on of them that is my only requirement.

Google Recruiting “Error” - “Fixed”

After over half a month, Google finally put up a site on the URL in the September United Airlines Magazine.

It’s interesting that this took over half a month for Google to properly coordinate this simple media campaign between a magazine and a micro site. It certainly shows all is not well within Google’s recruiting department.

British Airways - Outrageous Decision to Fly On

Simply Shocking!!! The Wall Street Journal is reporting that a British Airways jet lost an engine due to fire on takeoff from LAX and decided to continue onward with the flight to London!!!

“The Los Angeles air-traffic-control tapes, obtained by The Wall Street Journal under the Freedom of Information Act, show that controllers who saw the fiery engine failure with the jet just 296 feet in the air were immediately concerned about the flight and ready to guide it back to the airport. But the decision to return or keep flying rested with the captain and the airline. Ever since, pilots and aviation regulators have debated the decision of the pilots and British Airways. Their questions: Even if the plane was capable of reaching its destination, and perhaps legal to fly, was it smart to try? And was it safe?”

The incident raises extremely serious questions about British Airways choosing economics over safety of human life due to the reduced margin for error. The LAX tower deleted flight 268’s flight plan beceause they were certain that they would return to the airport.

“Flight 268’s decision clearly surprised Los Angeles air-traffic controllers. The flight took off at about 9:24 p.m. on Feb. 20, 2005. Trouble was soon visible, as evident in radio discussions of “Speedbird 268 heavy.” (”Speedbird” is aviation’s call sign for British Airways; 268 was the flight number; “heavy” refers to jumbo jets.)

“Remember that Speedbird I told you about?” the controller asked a colleague.

“Yeah.”

“He’s engine-out — No. 2 engine out. He’s going to continue to his destination or as far as he can get,” the departure controller said.

“OK. I have no flight plan on him.” The tapes show the controllers had assumed the pilot wasn’t going to London, so they deleted the flight plan from the computer. To reconstruct it, the departure controller called the tower.

“Is he going?” the tower controller who had seen the engine flames asked.

“He’s going,” was the answer.

“If you would have saw what we saw out the window, you’d be amazed at that,” said the tower controller.”

This decision (An emergency landing would have required dumping $30,000 of fuel, and the airline might have owed $275,000 in compensation to passengers under European Union rules if the flight was more than five hours late) wasn’t customer focused and creates serious questions about the difference between US and UK law on the issues involved.

I mean could you imagine being a passenger on that flight, seeing flames in an engine and then continue onward for a transatlantic flight of several hours? I have trouble grasping it.

British Airways should be transparant here, admit this was not wise and communicate exactly how they will act differently in the future instead of quietly communicating with the FAA.

Give Steve Sloan his Skype Back!

SJSU + Skype, give Steve his Skype back. Read his original post here.

Good luck! In fact this should be a bigger issue than SJSU, there are many places where this should be reversed, I hope Steve succeeds and starts a trend - please support Steve by linking to his post.

Jeremiah Owyang on Social Media at Ragan PR Conference

I arrived to the session late….

Corporate bloggers must have thick skin.

Community Manager – gather sources and send them away…they will come back.

How do I get all employees involved?

Community marketing allows engagement.

Responding to complaints:
- Engage the blogger – “we hear you”

Blogger relationships – treat them with respect and analyst.

Bloggers are egotistical.

I’m not in PR.

Prospects trust other customers than anything else. Embrace and use your current customers.

Let go, to gain more.

Do not over structure corporate blogs for product announcements.

Blogoshpere conversation benchmark tools are important.

Rift between corporate communications and web – often exists.

You should educate people to overcome that rift. Social Media consultant.

Just do it . The tools will evolve.

Give to the community and they will give back.

You need to trust and love your employers. IBM built it’s blogging policy with a Wiki.

Vivid examples given about how to use Myspace.

Wells Fargo has a blog, teaching credit. Useful content build trust.

Links, activity, forum and stickyness.

C-level blogs can save time as the future meetings are framed.

Sun, says C-level leader is to communicate.

“Social media is gray.”

Shel Holtz on Podcasting at Ragan PR conference

Shel Holtz is the second Shel in my life who studies social media. The other is Shel Israel. Shel Holtz refers to Shel Isreal as “Shel #1” due to his superior age characteristics.

“Podcasting is Tivo for audio.”

Podshow is a network of shows. Yahoo!, iTunes, Podcast Alley are other alternatves.

There are a lot of people out there who aren’t technically savvy. 11% of adults have downloaded a podcast. 35-44 is 45% of penetration area – dismisses the myth that podcasting is only for Generation Y.

Podcast listeners are:
- Educated
- Affluent
- Trend Leaders

Niche focused – listen to relevant content

Podcasts are detachable from your computer – iPod, etc. I listen to podcasts when I’m walking my dog, sitting in airport tool. Audio is the only communication channel that you can do while listening to something else.

Allows you to listen while doing something else.

Podcasting has low barriers to entry. I learned how to do it in under and hour.

Podcasting facts:
- 20,000 independent podcasts
- Podcasting community is supportive
- Has it’s own conference
- Spawned the “podsafe music” field (Pod Safe Music Network – let people know you use it and they are happy)
- Support services emerging

Lybsyn.com only charges you for file storage (monthly fee)

IBM Podcast – Investment Relations Department – talks with different thought leaders around the company.

Ipressroom.com – talks about the future of press

Nearly all podcasts are free.

Producing a podcast is about setting a consistent format.
- One host or co-hosts
- Interviews
- Segments?
- In the field

Mix/minus – gets rid of latency.

Eliminate glitches

Secrets of Successful Podcasting:
- Unscripted and natural
- Regular
- No overt selling
- Housed on a blog
- Listener feedback encouraged and incorporated
- Employ other forms of engagement

Hobson & Holtz

www.forimmediaterelease.biz

Blog.holtz.com

Getting noticed in the new word-of-mouth network

Robert Scoble: Keynote Speech: Naked Conversations

Talks about history, blogs are best way to get stuff indexed in Google.

There is an informal conversation network. Tells the story about how a few people he told that he was leaving Microsoft. How that spread and then a largely unread blog was the one that first posted it is why you need to pay attention to *ALL* bloggers, not just him.

Talking to bloggers is more important than covering Walt Mossberg.

People who read blogs are far more likely to click and take action.

The auto blog reader is more likely to click through to other auto sites.

Most people understand search engines. Talks about google.com and how people search “Yahoo” and vice versa. It demonstrates that it’s a Google world.

If you pipes are leaking, you need a plumber. So you type in “Chicago plumber leak” and you need to be on the top of the organic search results. Links are important and so are other things. Changing the content every day helps the algorithms. Blogs, due to the frequency of content update are excellent tools to do this.

He talks about the plumber blog that gets link due to the knowledge. Also talks about how he got a ripped off once with a carpet and is blog entry ranked higher than the company.

A dirty secret about Google is that the ad click through rate is lower there du to the higher educational level of a typical Google user.

People will link to audio and video more than they will text. Suggested video press releases. Be different. Hugh’s cartoon’s are different. Video and Flickr and other sites can create buzz.

Talked about the “Dell Hell” issue. (strangely few in the room had heard of it – shows how far we have to go) Tells the well known Jeff Jarvis story.

Talks about how to listen. (I would say this is Robert’s biggest gift)

Then gave examples of how he linked to complaints directly when he joined Microsoft, fascinating!

Currently, HP story is a great example. They have not listened to the blogosphere. It is making the ethics crisis there worse.

Every project should have a story behind it. Talked about channel 9 naming story and how Microsoft built transparency. The PR folks didn’t pay attention to our blogs and Channel 9 until we were in the New York Times. It’s so funny how that works. Tells more about telling good stories and how important that it. It’s all about story telling process.

If you post something it shows up in my RSS aggregator. Using RSS is far more productive!

How do I get my content viewed in new places…talked about second life.

Valleywag recently wrote about a bad pitch. Democracy Now, Z Fank, Ipod can aggregate. Steve Jobs used Rocketboom to do the recent Apple launch.

Again, HP – where is the engagement in the ethical issues?

Ragan PR conferece 2006

Last Night’s Blogger Dinner…

What can I say? Jeremiah Rocks! Enough said.

Ragan PR Pre-Conference Media Training

Scoble and company will be at Gino’s 930 North Rush sometime this evening.

The session was led by Gerard Braun, former Journalist, training media courses for 2 decades. Has seen the business from both sides. Good speaker with vivid examples.

How do you make executives care?

“If you could attach a dollar to every word that comes out of your mouth, would you make money, or would you lose money?”

If you attach the training to impact on the bottom line, they will listen.

An interview is an opportunity. It is as important as a business deal.

Make your quotes logical. That is going to going to make them “bullet proof”.

What do reporters want?
- They want a hot story.
- They want to make a name for themselves.
- They want to be recognized among their peers for having the lead story.
- They want a story that will help them advance their careers.
- Their producers and news directors want them to have stories that will draw viewers to their newscast or readers to their publications.

Gerard interviewed a member of the audience.

Tell me about yourself, really means “tell me about your organization and why should I care?”

Pause to allow editing.

Focus on the question, not the next question.

You need to lead the interview in the direction that you select.

Avoid jargon!!!

Elements of a bad PR message:
- Too mush PR-BS
- Contains jargon
- Fails to be quotable
- Long lists
- Cluttered with facts and figures
- Contains too many qualifying explanations
- Legalized sterilization
- “Please everyone” syndrome

Practice! Practice! Practice!
He had a lot of other interesting tips in his handout, but he ran long and didn’t get through some of the material.

Scoble You’re Cracking Me Up!!!

The other day Scoble posted about how video blogs are superior to text and I disagreed. Well two days later he posts this gem about Yahoo!’s announcement today about slightly lower earnings due to lack of realization of projections and guidance. (Maybe they should take Progressive Insurance’s stance and not give guidance, now there is a positive idea!) Anyway, today, Scoble says banners are discretionary spending while text ads aren’t and Google is winning and will outperform in a recession….blah blah blah…well guess what there is a large home page ad from Ford on Yahoo’s home page right now as I write this. People are talking about this little change in guidance like Ford told Yahoo! to go get completely lost, that is *NOT* the case.

This particular analysis is way too simplistic and there is significant other information to consider:

1. Unless you work at Google in sales or finance (maybe PR like David Krane), you don’t have any idea how this has affected Google this quarter.

2. That Ford ad on Yahoo’s front page is a *branding* ad, a picture of an actual vehicle! Any SEM worth anything will tell you that getting people to see a text ad as good spend for branding is a hard sell.

3. The Auto industry adopted online advertising early in the game. Perhaps they are reaching a penetration point where further accelerated growth is not possible at the same level? To confirm this thought further, a senior Google person I know (who actually returns her phone calls - props to her!) that I met at ad:tech in July recently moved from, guess what the Auto sector to Consumer Package Goods shortly before I met her (her card still said Autos). Maybe Google analyzed these same facts and decided to redeploy a valuable asset, in this case a person, to a place where it woudl get higher ROI. Good for them.

4. I also know that Ford recently hired a SEO firm to do alot of work on alot of sites. Maybe it’s because they realize that SEO and not text ads frequently have a superior return? Hmmm.

5. If text ads were the be all end all, why is Google launching radio and video ads?

6. UPDATE: Regarding financial services, this is all about the housing bust and no more “Own a $1.6 million dollar home for $99/month the first 4 years” text ads. I think this will affect everyone equally in terms of earnings and hoepfully some of those types of ads will never return.

So Robert which is it? Video and/or pictures or text?

Vlogs Ain’t Blogs

Alec Saunders has a nice post on why he thinks vlogs ain’t blogs. Brian Sullivan does the same. They saved me the time of doing this.

Then again, I myself posted video content in the past week (see unedited “loud announcement of Macy’s boycott” in my Marshall Field’s post). In my case it showed an angry mob and was in fact useful for this purpose. I wouldn’t want a whole blog filled with posts like that, but it served a purspose here for getting the passion across. Yet way more people viewed the text post than the Youtube video at this point though, maybe it’s because they too don’t find it compelling enough to click through?

Danny Talks Feeds

I was unhapy with my current RSS feed reader solutions, especially now that I have multiple access points and also frequently read them offline.

So, I recently emailed someone I know that travels…a ton…Danny Sullivan and asked him what his current setup was. Based on his blog post, it appears he wasn’t totally set in his ways and did some experimenting himself. Good reading, especially if you travel alot or have never gotten an RSS reader. Thanks, Danny.

OnRec Chicago Conference 2006 - Day 2

Joel Cheesman, President, HRSEO

Blogger’s view of online recruitment and beyond

“I’m in control. The individual is in control.”

Risk is good!!! Stare risk in the eye and take a chance!!! It’s not life or death.

Information overload – people are overloaded with information.

N’sync, sold 1 million albums first week, Napster. The Long Tail became an infinite tail of data for music. The tail is getting longer with job sites.

Search is very important to local job sites. Search is intent based advertising. Vertical search is particular channels. Indeed, Simplyhired, Jobster, etc.

API – I can take the technology of a company and put it on my own site.

Monster is not customer friendly.

Myspace – the suits moved in, TOS change so that we own it, critical mass attracts the evil doers now. Candidate for governor has a Myspace page. How uncool is that to young people.

Verticals have a problem with monetization. Simplyhired, lets get as many seekers as possible.

2 blogs created every second. What if you had blogs that showed the true face of the corporation. Showed “what if” example for McDonald’s with audience member.

Attract passive seeker with blogs.

Push versus pull - the world is changing about pull instead of push. Be remarkable!!! (or are you linkworthy?)

—————————————————————————————–
Shally Steckerl, Manager, Core Technical Central Sourcing Team, Microsoft Corp

Raised in Colombia, South America, has worked in Nicaragua and Australia

Former Peace Corps, conduct and train on International Sourcing

Why does sourcing differ from country to country? Privacy standards, solicitation is not OK in some places, blogging is not increasing at the same rate in other countries, some people perplexed by this amount of information and you need to read up on cultural nuances of each target company.
Windowontheworldonline.com – useful country cultural information

Recruiting works best by region, while sourcing typically works best by channel.

Topjobsites.com

Searchenginecolossus.com – country specific search engines

Domain extensions typically correlate with ISO country codes.

—————————————————————————————–
Patrick Sullivan, President, Workopolis

Canada’s biggest generalist job board, niche in terms of country focus

51% think they will find your next role on the web

Pecking order in Canada: Workopolis, Working, Monster, Jobboom

Strong partnerships with newspapers

Tiered levels – now additional fees

—————————————————————————————–
Peter Weddle, Edito and Publisher, Weddles.com

Climbed the Matterhorn – outstanding story

The way you approach a challenge allow you to define success.

The war for any talent (there is still battle wounds from this in my opinion) morphed into the war for the best talent

Scarcity on verticals and for A-level performers

Defining attributes
- They are passionate about their career
- They’re not as rare as you think
- They listened to their mother
- They must be convinced to change devils

We need to understand what works best?

Prediction: job boards will double every three years.

Specialization and Transformation
There is no barrier to entry in the online employment industry

It is one the most successful segments of the e-commerce space

It’s tough to tell a well capitalized, well run site from something else

It’s surprises Peter that the institutional knowledge is not collected for the enterprise

International Association of Employment Web Sites (800+ sites)

Protect the privacy of information, the data that they report to you is accurate

Career Community Centers are the new trend

2GP + 3N + 2D = 1GH

Summary
Advantages
Benefits
Capabilities
Sign-off/Call to Action
(tailor your information)

Mentioned University of Michigan study in which hiring managers were only 4% better than a coin flip.

—————————————————————————————–
John Sumser, Founder and President, IBN: interbiznet.com

Death of Diversity
- No Longer a Theory
- Requires Practical Tolerance
- Not Acceptance, Reliance
- Harness What You Already Have

Top 10
Transparency
Quantify and Test Your Assumptions
Lead With Like Gets Like
Encourage Collaborative Communications
Embrace Negative Publicity
Create Dynamic Employee Feedbackloops
Define Workforce Requirements, Flexible Solutions
Practice Small Group Commnity Development
Tune Employment Brand To Desired Workforce
Teach The problem. Use the Data. Encourage Dialog.

—————————————————————————————–
John Younger, Founder and CEO, Accolo

Employee Referrals are the Best Source of Candidates
Only the Outcome Counts
It’s the Work, Not the Job
Align the Values

Job Seeker and Hiring Manager Satisfaction trending lower

94% of online applicants never hear anything from anyone

Disrespect is now expected from candidate.

Exactly the same model is being used from 1963 – more tools does not equal more productivity!!!

Battle of the Brands
Corporate Brand
- Become Employer of Choice
- Focus only on Corporate Success

Personal Brand
- MySpace
- Family Web Site
- Personal website

Interesting Work – why the right person would want the job

Personal Interest at this time

His Currency
Trust
Accuracy
Relevancy

Recruiting Relativity Theory – Desire to move is not a constant

Conclusions
- We are all “temporaries”, it’s just a matter of degrees
- We are all in various stages of availability
- The term “candidate” only defines a stage of life

—————————————————————————————–
Matthew Parker, Group Managing Direcor, StepStone Solutions

Europe – labor shortage (20 million by 2030 per projections)

Sweden – Candidate must authorize data deletion

Matthew detailed a number of very interesting problems with data and legal conflict in Europe.

—————————————————————————————–
Louis Vong, VP Interactive Strategy, TMP (talks too fast)

Mobile networking is the web outside.

Mobile users are using “fill time”

There are more mobile than landline phone subscribers at this point n time

350 Billion text messages are exchanged every month

Advergaming - $1.8 Billion by 2008

Starbucks – Summer Scavenger Hunt

Dodgeball.com