SEEK Launches Jobseeker Profiles and it’s Better Than Expected

This week saw the promised launch of SEEK’s foray into the online CV database market with Jobseeker Profiles.  The premise behind this is an attempt to flip the traditional job board model on its head and turn it into a proactive job search tool for job seekers, rather than reactive one.  Instead of applying to job ads as they appear on the site, this enables job seekers to post their CV and profile onto SEEK’s database and become searchable by recruitment agencies and employers looking for keywords or experience contained within those CVs.

Of course, this is a bit like when the football A-League was announced and launched back in 2005, bringing professional football to Australia and New Zealand for the first time.  Many people were like, “OK that’s cool, but really it’s about time seeing as every other country in the world has a professional football league already.”  So it is with this, with job board goliaths like Monster already having pioneered this facility many years hence.

So will it take off in our region?  The traditional resistance has always been that in a smaller market (particularly New Zealand) job seekers are going to be less inclined to post their details publically looking for a job in case their current employer should happen to stumble upon it.  I imagine SEEK will have set up numerous screens to protect the obvious identity of the candidate, until the candidate permits the release of their details to the employer, but it is still a cultural mindset that will be hard to shift.  The reaction amongst many of my fellow recruiters has been pretty under-whelming so far, a bit like the opening game of the A-League which I attended where Newcastle Jets lost 1-0 at home to Adelaide Utd.  A lone header from the visitors punctuating an inability for either team to string any passes together stuck a pin into the barely inflated pre-game bubble of excitement.

But I am an advocate of change and innovation if nothing else, so I am committed to giving this new thing a go.  And seeing as it’s Friday Whiteboard Day I thought I might as well provide you a running commentary of how I get on with my first foray into Jobseeker Profiles:

–          Open browser and click into SEEK.co.nz.  Looks familiar, notice the tile in the bottom “Look for a job while it looks for you, employers and recruiters are searching for people like you now”.  OK so that’s for the job seeker, but what about me?  I want to see what profiles I can find.

–          Click into it anyway to see if that’s where I should go…no it’s just for the job seeker.  OK well I’ll take my usual route for posting ads and click on “Advertisers Post a Job Ad” at the top of the screen.

–          Aha, here we go.  A new “Candidates” column on this page.  Click into “Jobseeker Profiles for your roles”

–          OK it all looks pretty nice, excitement and anticipation starting to build, where do I go next?  Only place I can see to go next is clicking on “your roles”

–          Here we go – familiar page but with a new “Jobseeker Profiles” column.  It is telling me there are 70 jobseeker profiles available for my “Experienced Recruitment Professionals” job ad – sweet.  Got to check this out, click on the 70.

–          Reduce the field to 29 by adding the keyword “recruitment” (as I am looking for experienced recruiters here, the word must surely appear on all profiles of experienced recruiters).  That also thankfully eliminates the “Hard Warking Boy” who wants to be a butcher (not sure which letter he mis-typed in that sentence)

–          Must say it looks like there might be one or two useful profiles for me here…have a scout through them.  As an introductory offer SEEK are giving away 10 free profile views per job ad so I’ll compile my short list and see how it goes…

–          OK got my 10 job seekers and click “Checkout”.  7 will have their CV’s released automatically and 3 are private profiles, so they get to review my job ad before releasing their info (this is where jobseekers worried about their boss seeing them looking can cover their arses)

–          2 of them are already registered with me.  One is a candidate I already placed 3 weeks ago.  The others are there for me to peruse and decide what to do with.

Overall I have to say this is quite a slick process.  It looks good and, once you have found your way into the right area of SEEK, it is very easy to use.  As for whether it will throw up the results recruiters are looking for?  Well I must say I was surprised to see the profile of a candidate who I have already placed.  This proves irrevocably that this could work very well for us in recruitment.  The fact he applied to me directly as well as posting his own profile meant I was able to work reactively on finding him a job, but this shows how it could become a more proactive process.

Looking at the rest, I will make contact, but on first glance doesn’t appear likely there will be the right fit in there.  But as this is taken up by more and more agencies and employers then more job seekers will load their details up and the quality of the database will improve.  I can definitely see this being of benefit, especially for overseas candidates moving to, or returning to, New Zealand, who wouldn’t necessarily know who to contact or where to look.

This is a good move from SEEK.  The calls about job boards becoming less and less relevant are getting louder, and have obviously prompted SEEK into launching this new product.  But this kind of move was essential for SEEK to remain relevant, to display some innovation, to just keep us all interested, especially as the likes of Linked In and Google make searching for candidates without job boards a realistic option for many recruiters.  Yes, this has been done before, but I must say SEEK have done this well.  As long as they now invest proper amounts in marketing this new feature to job seekers, to improve the size and quality of their database, then this could be a very useful tool in the recruiter’s candidate sourcing strategy.

Keen to hear about anyone else who has tried out this new feature in their particular sector, and any feedback you might have.

Is Your Hiring Process Quick Enough?

One of the strongest arguments against the practice of contingent recruitment is that the speed of response required to beat your competitors and get the wins up on your whiteboards dilutes the quality of service to your clients and candidates.  Smug, goatee-beard-stroking, retained assignment recruiters brandishing exclusive deals with their clients smirk into their chilled Chardonnays over leisurely lunches with a member of their prospective shortlist as stories are regaled of desperate contingency recruiters scrambling over each other to fire away said candidate’s CV the quickest.

But the huge majority of us out there are contingency recruiters, in the trenches, fighting hard to get some wins on the board, and finding ourselves in the necessary evil position of working at speed to fight off the competition.  Sure, many of you aspire to work more roles on a retained basis (hopefully without the need to grow a goatee), but this takes time, building of long-standing relationships, a significant track record.  All good things to work towards but not always something you can achieve in your early years of recruiting .  You can’t go to Barnet in England’s League Two and say “Look, we know you want to be more like Arsenal down the road and play in the Premier League, but you need to stop running around, shooting and missing the goal so much….just make sure you take fewer shots but that they go in more often.”  It just doesn’t work that way.

But as the market hots up again and the battle for top talent intensifies, there is no doubt that the recruiters who respond the quickest and most effectively, and the clients who behave in the same way, will come out with the results they are looking for.  But I wonder if this fact has sunk into the New Zealand business community yet.  Even in Australia, where it is widely acknowledged that the market is hotter than a nuclear fuel rod, frustrations amongst recruiters persist.  One of my Aussie Linked In connections commented a week ago:

“Time kills all deals. Candidates now have MULTIPLE opportunities. Don’t let the good candidates slip through your fingers”

Time kills all deals eh?  I’m not a fan of the phrase, mainly because it was the mantra of a particularly nefarious recruiter I once worked with and sends shudders down my spine, but it is true nevertheless.  Many recruiters responded to this simple comment with frustrations of their own.

So I thought I would test these frustrations against the very same recruitment industry that is expressing frustrations with their own clients.  OK, recruiters are starting to miss out on placements due to the time it is taking their clients to decide, so how good is the recruitment industry at moving quickly in a tightening labour market?  I collated the following information on average time to hire from my own clients in the recruitment industry, for the past five Quarters, the number being the average days it took from the date of the first interview to making the formal offer of employment:

Q1 2010                13 days

Q2 2010                24 days

Q3 2010                23 days

Q4 2010                29 days

Q1 2011                14 days

There does seem to be a clear increase in the sense of urgency amongst many New Zealand recruitment companies in reaching a quicker hiring decision than they did last year.  Although they were equally quick in the first Quarter of 2010.  Was this industry excitement at the launching of Rice Consulting and an unquenchable desire to use my services as quickly as possible?  Or is the first Quarter of each year always filled with greater levels of optimism and bravery that lead to faster hiring decisions?

Whatever the truth behind these numbers, there is no doubt that recruitment companies that want to secure top talent in 2011 are not going to be allowed to slope back towards the 23-29 days kind of mark again.  Those that do will find the candidate you just offered has already been working for your competitor for two weeks and has just paid a visit to your top client.

The Future of Recruiting? Predictions from 2004 vs. Realities of 2011

Last night I had an interesting chat with Dave Thomas who is the Chairman of CXC Global Board of Directors, ahead of his visit to New Zealand next week to make some presentations to our recruitment community and leaders. 

Dave is an affable, straight-talking South African / Australian who founded CXC back in the early 90’s by accident.  He started out as an accountant, which he despised, so he thought he would give IT a go, which he rather enjoyed.  Moving to Australia he stumbled across a company managing a payroll system that was not legally compliant with Australian tax laws, much to the shock of the company’s global CEO.

Dave spent 28 years as an IT contractor, travelling the world, before ending up in Australia.  So he reckoned that this, coupled with his accounting background, meant he knew a thing or two about contracting, payroll and different tax laws.  Turns out he was right as the company he started to provide a solution to that original employer now operates in over 30 countries worldwide.  CXC Global looks after self-employed contractors, sorting out their GST, taxes, salary packaging, payroll and all that boring administration stuff that gets in the way of actually doing your job.  This has actually provided a path for small to mid-sized recruitment companies to build their contractor books up too, which is something that has traditionally been hampered by lack of cash-flow and accounting or tax law knowledge.

Anyway, this isn’t a sales pitch for CXC, I’ll leave that bit up to Dave at the end of his presentations.  I’m mentioning it because the actual presentation really caught my eye and is probably well worth the attendance of all you recruitment owners, Directors, and general recruitment futurologists out there.  Here is the outline of Dave’s talks:

“As Dr John Sullivan saw it …5 years on”

In 2004 Dr John Sullivan, a world renown thought leader on strategic talent management and human resource practice, produced a paper “The Future of Recruitment” in which he made interesting predictions on the direction of the recruitment industry. Many of these have come to pass.  

At the time CXC Global ran a series of talks based on Dr Sullivan’s paper, and offered our technology solutions to the recruitment industry at large in preparation of these imminent changes.

Five years on, the face of recruitment has changed and the pace of change is accelerating.  Many agencies have adapted their business model, but is this enough? Is it sufficient to take you to where you want to be in 2020?

 

Putting on my cynical hat for a moment, I thought that 2011 would actually be 7 years on from that 2004 white paper.  And keeping up with the cynical theme, I decided to take a closer look at this white paper to see just how prescient this Sullivan fella really was.  Sure he has some good credentials.  A large body of work on HR Strategy, Recruitment functions, and an unhealthy obsession with Metrics to measure the ROI of everything, which I suppose is just a by-product of his being American.  Looking through ERE.net to get the links to this big article it is clear he is a prodigious writer, commentator and provocateur on all things recruitment, talent and HR.  He is, according to Fast Company magazine, the “Michael Jordan of Hiring”…oh and also a Professor of Management at San Francisco State University.

If you have the time or compunction to read through the entire article I have put the separate links here for your reading pleasure:

The Future of Recruiting Part 1

Part 2: Internal Departmental Changes

Part 3: Internet Recruiting Approaches Will Change

Part 4: Websites Shift to the CRM Model

Part 5: Metrics Dominate Decision-Making in Recruiting (see – told you so)

Part 6: Recruiters Will Change

I have to say it makes an interesting read, although obviously far more aligned to the US business style and recruitment approaches than ours here in Australasia.  But he made some big calls back then.  Try these out for size:

“Junior Recruiters.  Since managers using self-service tools will do the most recruiting, the few recruiters that remain on staff will be experienced recruiting consultants who will focus only on key hires”

Has this come to pass?  Demand for my services certainly hinges around finding more experienced recruiters and I get a sense that the days of filling recruitment agencies with young, energetic, have-a-go Graduates has shifted to a slightly more mature culture.  But is this really sustainable as the talent shortages start to really bite later on this year?

“Brand Manager.  As recruiting strategies shift away from short-term “paperwork” solutions (such as running ads or going to job fairs) and towards the ultimate long-term answer – a strong employment brand – the employment brand manager will become the most important position in recruiting.”

 

Bingo.  Although many New Zealand companies are still slowly getting to grips with this concept of Employment Branding, great strides have already been taken by the likes of Trade Me, Deloitte, The Warehouse, Air New Zealand and Counties Manukau District Health Board.

“Changes in Candidates Will Dramatically Impact Recruiting:  Resume Spamming.  Candidates can use software to continuously submit their resume to every possible job”

 

This really made me chuckle.  What foresight and this is a definite blight on the life of recruiters nowadays.  What the good Dr got wrong though, was how the candidates that spammed their resumes everywhere would not gain an advantage by doing this, but would in fact cast themselves in a poorer light in the eyes of recruiters.

“Social network referral systems.  As the popularity of social network systems grows, more recruiters and managers will utilize them as referral sources.  These systems will automatically rate the referrals base on the past referral success rate of the person making the referral.”

 

Hmmm.  An amazing prediction given how LinkedIn was in its infancy back then and Twitter was still 2 years away from even coming into existence.  But I am not convinced we have quite worked out how to use these social network systems as a truly effective referral method yet.  It’s still a work in progress but even in the past few weeks I have started to elicit more business and referrals through this method than ever before – so it’s clearly a hot topic right now.

Anyway, I’ve no doubt this will be an informing, thought-provoking and enjoyable presentation from Dave Thomas and I reckon you recruiters of New Zealand should check it out next week.  Here are the details for Wellington and Auckland:

Wellington – Lunch Presentation

Monday 7th February

12.30pm

Level 16 Vodafone on the Quay

157 Lambton Quay

Auckland – Breakfast Presentation

Tuesday 8th February

7.30am

Mecure Hotel

8 Customs Street

RSVP to kirsty.erasmus@cxcglobal.co.nz

How Effective is Linked In for Recruitment?

I clicked over that holy grail of social media targets this week when my Linked In network exceeded the 500+ mark.  I was quite chuffed with myself.  Social media is a key part of my marketing and branding strategy and, particularly as a recruiter, Linked In is a critical tool in networking with professionals and sourcing candidates for roles with my clients.

Or so I thought.

But having reached this milestone of the digital networking space I thought I would do an audit of my Linked In network and try and assess exactly how effective mine was.  After all, my approach to Facebook and Twitter are at odds to my hunger for connection-building on Linked In.  With Twitter I try and keep the list of people I am following as small and targeted as possible.  Most are involved in the recruitment industry in some way, then there’s a smattering of Arsenal-related tweeps and a couple of other amusing social media types.  But if I am “Followed” by some online hotshot with thousands of Followers of their own and a daily splurge of online diatribe, I won’t automatically “Follow” them back unless I am actually interested in what they have to say.  With Facebook, which I rarely even use these days, my approach is even more at odds with Linked In.  I have always actively sought to keep my network of “Friends” below the 100 mark (which I think it just crept over again recently).  I just think that it is highly unusual you would really have a real-life network of more than 100 friends, so I don’t see the point of treating this differently in the online space.

So how effective is my Linked In network?  Well I am currently up to 506 connections and I was surprised to discover that exactly 100 of these connections are not in any way related to recruitment, which if you’re not aware, is the niche area I recruit for.  I wondered if these 100 people were my Facebook Friends, jumping across to my Linked In realm to try and get noticed by me, because I certainly wasn’t on Facebook!  In fact half of them probably are friends from school, University, football etc, with the rest being made up of pre-recruitment work colleagues, and about 4 or 5 who I have to say I have no idea who they are…!

Still, that means over 80% of my network is directly related to, and mostly currently working within, recruitment.  Which pleases me greatly, as this is the kind of network I am seeking to build, from a professional standpoint.  So okay, I know that if I write a Status Update, or post a link to The Whiteboard, or mention a role I am recruiting for, then lots of recruiters, mostly in the Asia-Pac region, will see it.  Great.  But how do you measure the effectiveness of this?  When all is said and done, the ultimate aim of my business is to place recruiters into roles within the recruitment industry.  So how many of my placements for 2010 can I directly attribute to my Linked In network?

One.

What’s that I hear you say?  Yes…I said…One.  Hmmm.  I joined Linked In in 2007 and have worked hard building my online brand and network.  Many hours would have gone into it over the years.  But was it all really worth it?  Just for one guy to say he had found me on Linked In and me then taking him through to eventual offer and acceptance stage with one of my clients.

As a comparison exactly 50% of my placements for 2010 came via online advertising, mostly on job boards, in particular Seek.  Now I am also happy with this number in comparison to previous years as it used to be a much higher percentage.  Watching the percentage of applicants being placed as a result of online advertising reduce means that a larger proportion are coming to me through word of mouth and referrals.

And I think this is where the intangible benefits of a strong, engaged, Linked In network can really be found.  All of those candidates are connections of mine on Linked In.  Many could have seen my updates and decided it was time to make a move, but applied through my website, for example.  Others were referred to me by colleagues at work, who might have been connected to me on Linked In, but rather than directing them to my Linked In profile took the easier route of just giving them my phone number.

So I have to say I am happy with my Linked In network, with its strength and relevance to my specialist sector, and with my Return on Investment for the hours put into it.  But it seems impossible to scientifically assess its effectiveness in monetary terms.  Okay I can say I have made one placement in one year as a direct approach to me on Linked In.  But my gut feel, my instinct, is that my efforts in the social media space have generated many more word of mouth referrals.  Just don’t ask me exactly how many!

I will leave you today with one final thought that my analysis threw up.  17 of my connections have surnames beginning with “Mc” or “Mac” and all of them, bar one, are in the middle of highly successful recruitment careers, most of them occupying senior positions within the industry.  So if you’re ever unsure about whether to bring someone of Celtic origin into your recruitment team, chances are you should just go for it, they look like they’re made of good stuff!

A Glimpse at the Hays “social media policy”

I’m going to kick things off this week with an apology to Seek and their ex-GM of NZ Annemarie Duff.  Last week the question was asked whether she had had a dig at Momentum in her speech at the recent Seek Awards, as was the rumour I had heard.  Feedback from other sources has since suggested that it was a case of mistaken identity and comments were in fact made by an entirely different dark haired lady representing another four-letter organisation.

I enjoyed the company of Seek at an ad-writing seminar they put on at the Hilton this week.  It was pretty basic stuff but a very worthwhile refresher and there were plenty of new-to-industry and internal corporate recruiters there picking up some great tips.  Cheers also to Ross from Seek who showed great generosity of spirit in inviting me to their offices for a beer sometime in the future.

Onto other things and I recently heard from an old colleague who left the employment of Hays that they had to delete their Linkedin account entirely when they resigned from the company.  If you read The Whiteboard a couple of weeks ago you’ll have heard about another recruiter, from a different organisation, who was forced to delete Linkedin connections that mirrored names in the company database.  Well it sounds like Hays have taken things even further lately.

Hays have historically been swift and decisive in their handling of social media and the way their employees and ex-employees can utilise it, which is consistent with their strict enforcement of contractual obligations under restraints of trade for exiting staff.  They were one of the first to successfully challenge an ex-employee’s Linkedin network in a (UK) court of law.

As far as I’m aware Hays only recently allowed its employees in this region to have access to Linkedin.  Having computer systems that can allow certain staff access to certain websites, and others not, enabled them to say, “OK, you can have access to Linkedin at work if you like, but if we allow it then you have to sign this policy agreeing to delete your account if you leave our employment.”

This may seem Draconian but it is quite clever from Hays.  If an employee is using a work computer to access Linkedin then the inference would have to be that they are using the site for work purposes, and thereby the content of that account including its connections, messages and groups are owned by Hays rather than the recruiter.  So can Hays employees have any complaints?  They are not forced to sign such a policy, merely told that they can’t have access to the site at work unless they do sign it.  The more technologically savvy could still build their networks through a home PC or Linkedin i-Phone app.

So there is no doubt that such a policy will protect Hays’ IP generated during working hours, which is rightfully theirs to protect.  But I do wonder how such a policy would make current employees feel about the tools at their disposal as a recruiter.  Social media is an increasingly important phenomenon in a recruiter’s toolbox, and in my mind social media policies should be a collaborative and liquid affair, constantly moving with the times.  It should encourage recruiters to communicate, externally and internally, in a more personable and authentic way.  We are fast approaching an age where clients want to do business with real people rather than faceless brands and it is essential that personality and authenticity shines through.

Some of the top recruiters in our region are heavily involved with social media across all the different applications, but most notably Linkedin.  I would imagine that recruitment firms would be quite interested in securing the services of such recruiters and having them in their team.  So how, then, would it work if a recruiter joined a new company with an existing network of 500+ relevant connections and Group memberships, and utilised this network to generate fees for the new employer?  How would a policy such as Hays’ work in this instance?  My concern would be that it would be a big deterrent to that recruiter joining such an organisation in the first place.

It is completely understandable for Hays to impose such a policy but I think it is equally important that companies realise what they might actually be losing by doing so.  Something that black and white can give you security over IP and retention of existing business.  But it could also lose you creativity, openness and collaboration amongst employees, the hallmarks of the new social networking age, and mean you could be missing out on business that you didn’t even know existed.  

Discouraging or limiting social media activity must surely be a short-term fix rather than a long-term strategy.  One would hope so anyway.

Linked Out – recruiters forced to delete Linkedin contacts

 

I’m generally a pretty easy-going chap but there are some things, I’ll admit, that make my blood boil.  Technology that won’t do my bidding or listen to reason and insist on freezing no matter how many times I press CTRL / ALT / DELETE.  David Bentley at Spurs.  Pretty much anything to do with Spurs.  People speeding up in the lane beside me when I’m trying to politely indicate and change lanes, blocking my manoeuvre.  Trying to spell manoeuvre properly before resorting to spell check.

Quite a few things, actually.

But one thing in particular really gets my goat:  Employers who believe that the way to retain and develop staff and protect their business’s interests is to watch, monitor, scrutinise and basically harass their employees until they have created an environment of pure fear and paranoia where nobody dares express an original thought or new idea.

So I was pretty miffed when I bumped into a recruiter friend earlier this week who recently changed employers and is now working for a new recruitment firm, but in the same type of role they occupied previously.  After devoting a sizeable chunk of their career to the firm in question, they decided that the time was right for a new challenge, so they resigned.

A couple of strange things happened next.  Firstly, they were required to work out their notice rather than go on gardening leave.  Fair enough, this is the company’s prerogative as they are still paying that employee through the notice period so can essentially require them to do whatever they wish.  But because they knew this person was leaving for a competitor they spent the next month watching like a hawk, monitoring every little movement and action.  I mean what is the point?  You know they won’t be undertaking  any work of real value to your business, so the only reason I can see for this course of action is to somehow deter other staff members from resigning, because they can see how uncomfortable they will be made to feel.

Way to go with your retention strategy and talent management there guys.

But the other thing that happened is what really made my blood boil.  They were presented with the restrictive covenant clause from their employment contract and underneath the actual clause, they had written their own interpretation of the clause and how it related and pertained to social media connections.  The argument presented was that any Linkedin or Facebook connections or friends that were also contacts within the company’s database were in fact relationships owned by the employer and not the employee, at which point they were told to delete those connections there and then.

 

And being a sweet-natured employee not wishing to rock the boat, this person complied and proceeded to delete their Linkedin connections that duplicated those in the company’s database.

Can you believe this?

What is interesting to note in this debate is that there is no legislation or case law setting a precedent around who owns your Linkedin and Facebook connections.  So there is really no reason why anyone should comply with this kind of directive.  I certainly wouldn’t.

In a US case earlier this year TEKsystems, Inc. vs. Hammernick et al this issue reached the courts for the first time.  An employee of TEKsystems left for a rival IT recruitment firm and sent messages through Linkedin to 16 IT contractors to see if they were looking for work and would they like to come see her in her new company and see what was available in the market.  These 16 contractors were all currently on the books of TEKsystems and she knew of them through her previous work at that firm.

In fact here is an example of one of the approaches made:

Tom—

Hey! Let me know if you are still looking for opportunities! I would love to have come visit my new office and hear about some of the stuff we are working on!

Let me know your thoughts!

Brelyn
 

Hi Brelyn,

Indeed I am still looking. I have time, though!

Lets get together. Where are you working these days? Your profile still has you working at TEK Systems. BTW – my email address is …. if you would prefer the non-Linkedln route.

Tom 

 

I should also mention that the over-use of exclamation marks is another thing that annoys me, but it seems to be an affliction besetting many a recruiter out there.  Add to that she is American and…well…!!!!!!

Anyway, in my opinion this kind of activity is clearly breaching the non-solicitation clause of her contract and I fully expect the employer to be found in favour in this case (the actual hearing and outcome isn’t until August 2011).  The fact she used the medium of Linkedin, rather than sending an e-mail, making a phone call, or stalking them on the way home, doesn’t stop it from being an attempt to solicit business.

But what is starkly different here to our recent situation in New Zealand, is that this was positive, active breaching of the restrictive covenants.  By forcing someone to delete connections you are assuming they will use that information to damage the company’s best interests.  But what if you just wanted to remain in contact to share ideas and information, or had developed a social relationship as well as a business relationship?  No employer has jurisdiction over that kind of behaviour.

What’s more – how about this?  What if all of the social media connections had been made during the employee’s own time, on their own computer at home?  Why would any employer have any say over those relationships?  And just because Linkedin has become the tool used for business networking, where is it written that social connections on that medium alone must be for business reasons only?

For recruitment company managers and owners worried about the recent trends in social media and how it can be “controlled” in their business, there are some helpful pointers here which basically covers:

• Implementing a Social Media Policy – which I believe to be a good idea but it must be a fluid and ever-changing policy that can move and adapt with the times and is developed by consultation with everyone in the business in a collaborative way
• Placing resigning employees on gardening leave – a no-brainer for me, especially in recruitment, but clearly not a sentiment shared by everyone
• Specifically referring to Linkedin and other social media in the Restrictive Covenants of the employment contract – if I saw something like this in a contract presented to me I would leave the room laughing my head off

 

What employers need to grasp is that in the modern business world it is no longer efficient or effective to protect the assets of your business through command and control tactics.  We live in a world where so much information is so readily available that it is entirely pointless to try and physically prevent ex-employees from tapping into networks and contacts made during their previous employment – THIS IS HOW BUSINESS IS DONE NOWADAYS.

What employers need to be doing is creating vibrant, energised and positive workplaces that inspire collaboration and open communication and thereby engender the trust, respect and loyalty of your employees.  Don’t force them to stay working for you.  Make them want to.

That, for me, is a far more positive course of action than trying to police and control employees’ social media activities.

Hudson harness Linked In to put themselves about town

 

OK let’s see a show of hands.  Who out there received an “approach” from Hudson this week?

No?  Not you?

Well either you aren’t a recruiter currently operating in New Zealand or Australia, or you haven’t adequately described and categorized yourself on your Linked In profile (I know there is a third option that you might not have a Linked In profile… *gasp* …but I doubt you’d be reading this blog if you haven’t even progressed that far yet).

If you don’t know what I’m on about then I can explain.  This message quietly slipped into my Linked In inbox on Monday night:

Dear Jonathan Rice,

Hudson is the place where the best recruitment consultants do better.

From our A-list client base to a genuine focus on work/life balance, we invest heavily in supporting you so you can do what you do best.

Hudson is growing, and growing quickly. We’ve seen your LinkedIn profile and we’re keen to talk to you about joining the Hudson team. From A to Z, we can list the benefits of taking your next career step with Hudson.

We’re looking for talent management professionals and for recruitment consultants to join us across accounting & finance, sales & marketing, legal, human resources, ICT, office support, managed services, property, public sector, supply chain and technical & engineering.

If you’d like to find out more about why Hudson is the place where the best recruitment and talent management professionals do better, please email careers @ hudson and one of our team members will be in touch.

 

Pretty slick eh?  Thanks but no thanks Hudson, I’d rather remain a supplier if you’ll have me, but I admire the tone, nature and innovation of your approach.

So what’s going on?  How have Hudson managed to become a “Linked In Partner” and gain such unbridled access to all of our inboxes?  I imagine they have probably signed up to Linked In Recruiter Professional Services which is a system that basically allows you to use Linked In as a giant global CRM database and do candidate searches and “e-shots” (terminology from my Hays days) to people’s Linked In profiles.

Makes sense really – I mean did you think Linked In were a Not-For-Profit or a Charity?  Of course not.  It’s just that they didn’t really have much of a focus on revenue generating strategies outside of the US until earlier this year when Australia surpassed 1 million Linked In users and they opened an office on Sydney’s Pitt Street.  Steve Barham popped over from their Californian HQ as Director for recruitment solutions for their Australia and New Zealand markets and from that point on it was only a matter of time before we would start to see more premium Linked In usage entering our realms of reference.

One of the first to sign up was Rio Tinto’s internal recruitment team in Australia.  Now it looks like Hudson are having a go with it too.  So how effective do you think this will be?  I’m sure this premium product must cost a fair premium too – will they get a decent ROI?

I have already heard from a few recruiters out there in New Zealand who have received this approach from Hudson.  I’d be keen to see how wide the reach has been – feel free to leave a comment on the blog if you received it too (and yes, you can remain anonymous if you wish).

Most of all I’d be interested to hear your views on whether you feel this is an effective approach or not and, again anonymously, if any of you are planning on contacting them as a result.

I wish Hudson good luck with this new approach but I hope not too many of you say “yes” as I might need to start doing things a bit differently myself!  Always up for a bit of innovation though!

Have a good Friday and weekend everyone – talk again soon.