First up they are not the same thing! They can be related but they are not the same.

Let me start with utility computing. According to Wikipedia the first real reference of utility computing goes back to 1961!

If computers of the kind I have advocated become the computers of the future, then computing may someday be organized as a public utility just as the telephone system is a public utility… The computer utility could become the basis of a new and important industry. - John McCarthy, MIT Centennial in 1961

Grid computing on the other hand is completely different:

• Applying the resources of many computers in a network to a single problem at the same time
• A form of distributed computing
• Usually based on open standards
• High levels of reliability

Finally we get to cloud computing, again from Wikipedia we get this quote:

According to a 2008  paper published by IEEE Internet Computing ”Cloud Computing is a paradigm in which information is permanently stored in servers on the Internet and cached temporarily on clients that include desktops, entertainment centers, table computers, notebooks, wall computers, handhelds, sensors, monitors, etc.”

So attributes of cloud computing are:

• Customer do not own the infrastructure
• Access is usually based on rental
• Can be based on the utilitiy model
• Delivered as a service with data stored in the cloud

Now this is very confusing as how do all these terms different from “Software as a Service” (SaaS) or Application Service Provider (ASP) models for software delivery?

I see things in a rather simple fashion. To some degree ASP has become SaaS with some addtional features, which is now moving towardds cloud computing but not always as there are other pieces to cloud computing. All can be done with a grid or utility model again not always. Now some technology architects will disagree with this simplified model but I feel it works.

Marketing folks will repackaging existing tools to use the new buzz words. For example Taleo back in September at Taleo World annouced “The Talent Grid, built on Taleo’s on-demand application platform, will deliver the infrastructure and resources to power organizations’ future talent needs”. Based on the press release it is not a grid computing model but using the name gives the average person the wrong sort of messages. They are certainly moving towards a cloud model but if they are not really doing grid are they really doing cloud or is it just marketing? To be honest I have not seen the details of all their products so I cannot answer the question.

I would suggest Taleo are not doing cloud 100%. Why? Review these 15 items by James Governor from MonkChips to get the general idea, some are a bit tongue in cheek but should give you a starting point.

If you peel back the label and its says “Grid” or “OGSA” underneath… its not a cloud.

If you need to send a 40 page requirements document to the vendor then… it is not cloud.

If you can’t buy it on your personal credit card… it is not a cloud

If they are trying to sell you hardware… its not a cloud.

If there is no API… its not a cloud.

If you need to rearchitect your systems for it… Its not a cloud.

If it takes more than ten minutes to provision… its not a cloud.

If you can’t deprovision in less than ten minutes… its not a cloud.

If you know where the machines are… its not a cloud.

If there is a consultant in the room… its not a cloud.

If you need to specify the number of machines you want upfront… its not a cloud.

If it only runs one operating system… its not a cloud.

If you can’t connect to it from your own machine… its not a cloud.

If you need to install software to use it… its not a cloud.

If you own all the hardware… its not a cloud.

Am I wrong? Thoughts, comments?

ShareThis

While regular background checkinf is a standard part of most recruitment processes, using search engines and social networks to background check candidates still seems to be the exception. I find this amazing that a quick 5 minute search online to learn about a candidate is still not part of standard recruitment workflows!  I Google anyone who I am going to meet or speak to for the first time, regardless of who they are.

I first wrote about background checking and search engines over 3 years during a week where I focused on background checking, identity, reputation and Google. Which is why finding the following story is disturbing, sad, and laughable.

A simple Google search could have saved the NSW Government the embarrassment of hiring Labor Party kingpin Joe Scimone, a State Government committee has heard.

This comes from an article today where the NSW Government hired Joe Scimone into a $200k per year role only to have to let him go 3 weeks later once his background came out.  I wonder what that has costs the NSW Government?

Mr Scimone was appointed on January 14, 10 months after he quit his job as a Wollongong City Council manager and almost a year after the Mercury reported he was facing a harassment complaint from a female employee at the council.

Now it seems things have got worse for Mr Scimone.

In February this year, Mr Scimone became embroiled in Wollongong’s corruption scandal. The Independent Commission Against Corruption later found Mr Scimone to be corrupt and recommended that criminal charges be considered against him.

Here are a couple of the news articles I found from back in 2007 that would have easily been uncovered by a simple background search. (I will note it took me 5 minutes to find these as I had to sift through the current documentation.)

1. Sex harassment claims shock council general manager - 14 Feb 2007
2. Councillors unaware of Scimone payout

To quote Steve Dunn Chief Executive of the NSW Maritime who hired Joe “Googling does not form part of the public sector recruitment process“. Well maybe it should!

ShareThis

“Our auditors have asked us to re-evaluate the timing of certain elements of our revenue recognition,” said Mike Gregoire, Chairman and CEO of Taleo. “This is a timing issue, and does not impact the total amount of revenue that Taleo has under contract. Taleo continues to accelerate along many vectors, as we develop innovative new products, penetrate new markets domestically and internationally, and build a platform and community that will define the future of Talent Management. In addition, our customers will continue to receive the same high level of software, services and support from Taleo that they have in the past.”

However things got even worse for them overnight with a class action lawsuit being filed by Johnson & Perkinson on behalf of investors resulting in another 21% drop during trading! Shares are now trading at US$6.05 down from a 52 week high of US$34.20. Not the sort of news the leading Talent Management vendor needs while still trying to digest it’s Vurv acquisition.  Interesting Taleo paid US$123 mil for Vurv and their market cap is now at US$190 mil.

ShareThis

• Citigroup 50,000 worldwide after four quarters of heavy losses.
• BHP Billiton looks like it will have to lay off 25% of it’s Kambalda workforce following Consolidated Metals sacking 180 of it’s 200 plus workforce.
• ANZ Bank is rumoured to be about to lay off 1,000 middle management roles.
• Sun Microsystems looks like shedding 5,000-6,000 workers globally to keep investors happy, about 15% of it’s workforce. Note this is their 8th restructure and the company shares are at their lowest level in 14 year. Titanic anyone?
• NAB cuts 180 more IT workers on top of the 260 already revealed.
• HP is cutting several hundred workers following its takeover of EDS.
• Fairfax is slashing hundreds of jobs, while giving the CEO a 24% pay rise!
• Even the Government looks to be taking out the axe, 4,000 jobs in the NSW public sector
• Optus took out 400 jobs in October.
• Telstra is cutting 800 jobs while integrating BigPond into it’s main operations.
• Pacific Internet, now known as PacNet offshores 22 jobs.

The average job line might soon look like this.

Not only are jobs being lost but at the end of October it was estimated that $1 billion per day was being lost from our retirement savings.

But wait all is not doom and gloom, if you are a CEO your salary rose by 96% in the last six years vs the workers you are now sacking their pay packet only went up by an average of 32%. The average CEO now makes around $5 million per annum or $96,000 per week. In other positive news Indian outsourcer Tata is still hiring about 100 people a year.

How inspiring! Time for a coffee, or maybe a stiff drink!

ShareThis

Last month Virgin Atlantic sacked 13 cabin crew for criticizing the airline and its passenger on Facebook.

The action follows an investigation into the remarks posted on Facebook, which concerned planes flying from London’s Gatwick airport and insulted passengers, as well as reportedly saying the planes were full of cockroaches.

“Virgin Atlantic can confirm that 13 members of its cabin crew will be leaving the company after breaking staff policies due to totally inappropriate behaviour,” the airline said in a statement.

This week Australia forklift driver, Matthew Garry Ward, was convicted of breaching safety laws by conducting burn outs and two-wheeled stunts on his company provided forklift. How did he get caught? A video on YouTube, which unfortunately is not longer available, was found by a fellow employee and reported to management. Matthew had filmed the stunts using his mobile phone and posted it on YouTube. Before being convicted he had previously been sacked by his employer, Australasian Pipeline & Pre-Cast Pty Ltd.  The WorkSafe media release indicated that forklifts were one of the most dangerous pieces of equipment in use at workplaces.

WorkSafe’s Executive Director (Health and Safety) John Merritt, said forklifts were among the most dangerous pieces of equipment in Victorian workplaces accounting for 56 lives since 1985.  Of these 19 were forklift drivers. 

Once again while companies need to be careful of what is published on social media sites so do employees. It is going to be a long time before anyone using search engines to background check Matthew Garry Ward before his activities do not appear, not to mention any basic police check will reveal the conviction.

This comes as US President elect Barack Obama requires all applicants for senior positions in his government to disclose online activity and complete a seven page, 63 question job application process which includes:

“If you have ever sent an electronic communication, including but not limited to an e-mail, text message or instant message, that could suggest a conflict of interest or be a possible source of embarrassment to you, your family, or the President-elect if it were made public, please describe.”

And

“Please list and, if readily available, provide a copy of each book, article, column or publication (including but not limited to any post or comments on blogs or other websites) you have authored, individually or with others. Please list all aliases or “handles” you have used to communicate on the Internet.”

My 5 tips for managing your brand online is called The Mother Test:

1. Make sure you have a consistent profile you are willing to show your mother. It is very hard if not impossible to remain completely anonymous online, even if you never use your real name. For example I know of several bloggers who blog under anonymous names, but I also know who they really are. 
2. Make sure you don’t do/say anything you would not be proud to show your mother. You might not want your mother to see what you have done, but if you had to show her and example yourself would you be proud of what you had done?
3. Make sure you don’t post pictures/videos you would not be willing to show your mother. Like doing or saying things online, if you had to explain yourself could you and would you be proud of what you have done?
4. Is your reputation online one your mother would be proud of? You might not specifically say or post anything that is suspect but we all have a reputation, even on sites that are password protected. 
5. Would your activities online make your mother trust you? Trust is the ultimate test of what you are doing and defines your integrity, ability, or character. 

If you don’t have that sort of relationship with your mother, substitute with your father, children or grandparents.

ShareThis

So let’s start at the beginning, what is performance management?

an approach to help the individuals within the organisation focus on what needs to be done to help the organisation meet its overall goals

(Paraphrased from the Performance Management unit in the AHRI Professional Diploma)

There are lots of models and method for doing performance management but as Jason says in his post:

Performance management should be about making, supporting and visualizing decisions for all levels of management that drive corporate performance.  It should cater to every talent stakeholder and answer the question that are important to them such as…

• Managers - How do I reward and penalize individuals and teams based on performance?
• Directors - How do I analyze and compare the performance of my team against other departments and divisions within my company?
• VPs - How can I model my group against other high-performing regions, geographies, roles and skills to drive my company’s performance?

It is not about giving a rank to an individual based on the last X number of months work. Taking this further Justin brings up four good summary point:

1.  We believe in the concept and vision of daily performance management. 

2.  We believe in a future-facing performance management environment.  

3.  We believe in open lines of communication between the manager and the employee. 

4.  We believe in customised and relevant content in the performance evaluation. 

I have to say I agree with what everyone has said, and that your technology enabling performance management needs to be more that just filling in an apprisal form online!

Even more so if we assume that a vast majority of workers are now knowledge workers. Knowledge works is by it’s very nature ambiguous, complex and tends to have long feedback cycles (you don’t press a button to see a result), where employees tend to work autonomously but require collaboration with others both internally and externally to get the job done. Add to this that the outcomes tend to be more important than the process followed. (I know there is a whole core competency discussion here as well.)

So really the performance management process needs to be about supporting or facilitating the performance ahead of time not looking back. This of course needs to be part of the broader succession, development, learning, and workforce planning process. And it is not just an end of year thing!

Once the right process is being used we can then add the technology!

ShareThis

Best in class practice indicates that during the recruitment process organisations should target, engage, inform and respect candidates (borrowed from CareerXRoads). In addition it is very unusual for a candidate not to spend a bit of time reviewing a company before attending an interview. 

It is through the career’s website, and it’s links, that candidates answer the above questions and gain an insight into how an organisation will treat them if they were employed.

So what should be included in a best in class career website?

• Does the site match the overall brand of the organisation? Most marketing executives would never let a print media be in non-compliance with the corporate brand so why should the career’s website be any different?
• Can candidates determine if you have the right type of roles for them?
• Do you explain the recruitment process so they know what to expect?
• Do you promote the benefits of working for your organisation?
• Do real employees provide testimonials of what it is like to work for the organisation?
• Does it match the culture of your workforce? No point having a hip web site to appeal to Generation Y, only for them to start work and find a old school organisation focused more on command and control than free expression.
• Is the site easy to find from the main corporate web page?

I want to pick on AMP for a minute. For my international readers AMP is a funds management company employing just over 4,000 people looking after around A$117 billion of assets under management. While the content about careers on their main web site is nicely integrated into the overall brand, the same cannot be said for the job search and application process on http://careers.amp.com.au/. 

By clicking the links below you will see what I mean.

Main Careers Site

Jobs Site

This is worse than just a bad or few missing images and a bad stylesheet. Most of the links back to the main corporate site do not work following a recent re-launch of the main site! If someone’s first entry point to AMP is via this site they are going to have a VERY poor experience. Does it show AMP is engaging, informing or respecting candidates, not at all.

So what message does this send to a candidate, maybe something like “Our marketing machine is really good, but our administrative processes are badly designed and maintained”? What about internal employees? Even more so what about the marketing team, are they aware of such a bad image?

Some potential costs to AMP of this poor integration:

• What the abandonment rate is from the front page careers.amp.com.au site? How many people get to the site and go “Oh my what a mess” or “Am I in the right spot”? 
• I’m not a legal eagle but are there not regulatory issues some of those broken links?
• Some of the images on http://careers.amp.com.au/ seem to be referencing previous corporate branding approaches, does that not de-value the new approach?
• Does the lack of integration reflect on AMP care with their investors money, I doubt it but you never know.
• Missing out on the great candidate who abandons the application process part way through due to the branding mistake.

ShareThis

Down to the product:

• It is telepresence, nothing really new here
• HP has built a nice control panel to make using the service very user friendly
• Halo allows both laptop sharing and a tabletop camera for the sharing of physical objects
• It allows you to include non Halo endpoints from suppliers such as TANDBERG and Polycom
• They have a gateway to also include endpoints that support ITU H.323, H.320 and SIP
• A majority of the devices in each room have IP addresses assigned which means they can be maintained remotely
• All Halo rooms have access to Halo’s 7×24 Concierge service for support.

Where the product is a little different from other systems is in the installation. HP have built Halo to be a fully managed solution, from installation to deployment and operations. All Halo rooms are connected to each other via the Halo Video Exchange Network (HVEN) a specialised fibre optic network run by HP just for Halo, HP install a 45Mbit (also called a DS3/T3) link into your premise. This enables several benefits such as reliability, bandwidth availability and cross company collaboration.

Like many I have experienced old school video conferencing before with all the issues of latency, crappy images, and crap audio. Halo, like all telepresence solutions, is none of that. The Halo meeting rooms is purpose built panelled in light brown fabric (to enhance audio), with half the room taken up with a board room table. In front were three 42″+ HD screens, at table level, with a fourth screen above for control.

On the three table height screens were the other meeting participants, almost life size and disturbingly really. The audio quality was fantastic, you heard all of the subtle noises from the other rooms, just as if the people were in the same room as you.

HP’s sales approach is, to reduce travel, increase productivity and support the environment, in fact the theme for yesterday’s launch was the environment with several presentations covering all the things HP is doing to be green.

My thoughts?

This is not for small business with the basic solutions starting well over A$100K not including the monthly managed service charges.  Having said that for large enterprises any product that improves productivity or reduces costs is a bonus, especially in these tough times. HP claim to be cutting up to 20,000 trips during 2008 just due to having Halo installed globally and that ROI is achieved by most customers within 12 months.

The almost real life nature of telepresence allows for significantly more interactive meetings then are possible over pure audio or older style video link ups. However given the price tag maybe virtual worlds are a better choice for many organisations who want collaboration?

ShareThis

• Lots of people a squatting on accounts using the names of the top 15 companies in Australia across a wide range of social media sites.
• The sites with the highest number (17 occurrences) of accounts (real or squatting):
  • Blogger
  • eBay
  • GMail
  • Live Journal
  • Yahoo
  • You Tube
• The sites with the next highest number (16 occurrences) of accounts (real or squatting):
  • Twitter
  • MySpace
• Most of the companies seem to have their brand being hijacked on at least one site, some have higher rates than others due to their brand also being general name, eg Shell.
• The companies with the non general brands with the highest number of accounts (real or squatting):
  • AMP (33 times)
  • NAB (29 times)
  • Coles (29 times)
  • Qantas (19 times)

This work is completely unscientific at this stage but still enlightening, might do some further work on it.

Update: I’m calling this practice “social media squatting”

ShareThis

1. Short introduction on how to use Google to find candidates
2. Quick overview of some key social media and Web 2.0 terms
3. Email marketing campaign tool

The first two probably make sense to most readers but the third might surprise a few of you.

Email marketing

While blogs and RSS are where the digital natives hang out, many people have not moved away from email as a major communication method. There are two variations of the service, first is designed for internal recruiters and the other for agency recruiters. For internal recruiters the tool can be used to create newsletters to stay engaged with their talent pool, advertise specific career fairs to a specific audience and promote specific jobs to the talent pool. For agency recruiters the focus is on specific jobs to their mail list.

Why is this tool different from regular email?

• Preview the email as you build it
• Custom templates to match your corporate guidelines for jobs, newsletters, graduate events, what ever; you are in control
• Control over sender information
• Scheduled delivery options
• Track who forwards your email and how many times
• Detailed reporting covering who opened your emails, who clicked on which links, and who unsubscribed

ShareThis

Anyway I am sure you all won’t get bored, there is always the US election coverage to follow.

ShareThis

Some of the topics I will be covering are:

• Key trends in recruitment
• Where candidates can be hiding
• How to engage with candidates and get them to want to work for your organisation
• How to use free tools to identify potential applicants
• To which aspects of social media you should be paying attention

Availability, soon I hope.

The price will be around US$25 I think, is that too high or too low?

ShareThis

In Australia Oracle has been working hard to engage with bloggers and social media, with several employees having blogs, such as The Red Room, interacting on Twitter and Facebook. What interests me more is Oracle Australia has one of the very few internal recruiters in Australia, David Talamelli, who blog. I have caught up with David for coffee, interacted on Twitter and on our blogs and very impressed with the things he is doing so I felt it would be good to sit down with him and learn a bit more. 

Without anymore introduction below is my short interview with David, I hope you enjoy it.

How long have you been a recruiter?

I have been in IT Recruitment since 1999 my initial focus has been on recruiting in Australia over the past few years this has expanded to the APAC region.

Tell us about your work experience?

My first role was working in an Agency Environment with a company called GAP IT, this was a very sales focused role and I was responsible for meeting my monthly sales targets, I was in this role from 1999-2002. In 2002 I moved into an onsite role at Hewlett Packard where I was responsible for sourcing and managing HP’s Contract Workforce. The recruitment at HP was a combination of high volume recruitment and sourcing for specialist roles. In early 2006 I joined Oracle’s growing APAC Recruitment Team as it expanded its presence in the region. I am coming up to 3 years in Oracle and am quite proud of some of the successes we have been able to achieve.

How about your education, formal, informal?

I graduated from Laurentian University (Canada) in 1996 with a Bachelor Degree (honours) in Psychology. Since that time I have also completed a Graduate Degree in HR Management at Monash University. I have attended many Recruitment Training Events and Seminars - the two presenters who I have found most beneficial/influential are 1) David Carman from CarmanWhite Training and 2) Shally Steckerl who is a Web 2.0 Recruiting Specialist from the US. I also enjoyed hearing from Kevin Wheeler when he was in AU recently.

How long have you been blogging?

I set up http://oraclerecruiter.blogspot.com in January this year and had posted a few posts here and there, but I really started blogging regularly about 6 months ago.

Who or what was your inspiration to start blogging?

I am always open to new ideas to recruit/identify people and actually tried blogging in 2007 to help me in filling a role I had to recruit for. At the time I did not get the response I was looking for via the blog, but it did get me thinking about blogging for my role. I set up this blog in January this year and after talking to my management a few months later they really sparked an interest in me in getting this going. At first it was hard to see the return or value in blogging but I am now seeing it become an important part of our sourcing strategy.

What approvals did you have to go through internally to Oracle before starting the blog?

Oracle has a Blogging Policy that all employees must abide by. I had to ensure that I worked within these guidelines. My management has been very supportive and helpful with regards to my blog.

Given Oracle is a large publically listed company did they provide you media training before starting the blog?

No, I have not had any media training, however our PR/Marketing Team are always there for assistance when I need to run something past them or make sure that my commentary is correct.

Does Oracle have guidelines on what you can or cannot blog about?

Yes we do, there are a number of items that we are not able to disclose information about.

Do you feel blogging has helped with your role at Oracle?

At first, I was not sure if blogging was assisting me in my role, as the viewers and subscribers was relatively low (I was thinking is anyone actually reading this?). However over the past 6 months I have seen my daily blog viewers and subscribers increase dramatically. I find blogging a great forum to reach out to and connect to people and give them an overview of some of the interesting things that we are doing. I think people reading my blog get value in the blog entries I write but it also gives people the opportunity and avenue to explore roles with us that they otherwise may not be aware of.

What would be your one greatest success story from your blogging?

I get people from around the world contacting me to comment on my blog, or send me their resume, or just getting touch with me from my blog. I think the biggest success is that this gives me an opportunity to reach a large audience and share with them my thoughts, ideas which people are enjoying. From a recruitment perspective - I recently advertised and searched for a number of developers in Australia for a project I was recruiting for. The blog address was listed on our advertising and as candidates clicked on the blog link there was a story about the roles and the project in full detail. This gave candidates a full overview of what was expected and helped streamline the process for me as when I connected with these candidates they already had a good idea of what we were doing. I think this separated and differentiated us from the rest of the companies advertising.

What do you feel is the biggest challenge about writing a blog?

At first I thought I would not have enough to talk about, however after 6 months I have found that this is not the case at all. Blogging also took up a considerable amount of my time in the initial stages as I was getting the layout correct, the coding right, still getting my creative thoughts flowing, etc…. However now that it is up and running it has become a much more time-effective tool.

If someone was thinking about starting a recruitment related blog, what advice would you want to give them?

If someone is going to start a recruitment blog, I would recommend that they do it for the right reasons, I think a blog is a means to help you interact with your audience not to sell to them. Recruiters can tend to focus only on filling the role(s) they are recruiting for, however a blog is a long term investment and it is not necessarily just there to collect resumes. Use it as a means to talk to people and be honest in your communication - you should treat your online relationships with people the same way you treat people in person.

What other blogs do you read and why do you recommend them?

Most of the blogs I read are either Recruitment or Oracle focused. I have 9 Blogs listed on my Blog they are: ERE.net, IT Brief, iTNews Australia, The Red Room, Michael Specht - discussions on HR, enterprise …, PR 2.0 (Brian Solis Blog), Shally Steckerl’s Blog, Six Figures Blog

What other social media tools do you use?

I am listed on many of the social media tools available however there are so many social media tools/websites available I mainly use Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and my Blog.

Any final comments or words of wisdom?

I think with blogging just like anything else, you only get out of blogging what you put in. It is a lot of work to set up and get running and to maintain but it is also very rewarding as well.

ShareThis

Some of the interesting features of the system:

Organizations then have the option of a completely exclusive and secure experience, with no connectivity to the Second Life mainland, or a connected experience that enables employees to traverse the two domains without having to log on or off.

 A set of tightly integrated web-based applications and the ability to seamlessly upload and integrate real world content – e.g., PowerPoint – brings enterprise-level efficiency and flexibility into a virtual world.

But I have to agree with Silicon Alley Insider *yawn*, even the YouTube video demo is fairly meaningless the interaction did not need this new immersive workspace to finalise a presentation.

Now at least the annoucement by Nortel (disclosure I use to work there) in August of their web.alive project had some useful features.

“People are no longer satisfied with existing collaboration tools or with static web sites supported only by a telephone contact center as the main point of interaction. They want to discuss potential purchases with others, exchange ideas, make business proposals, and fluidly interact with others in real-time,” said Arn Hyndman, web.alive chief architect. “Additionally, web.alive will offer security not available with other virtual environments today because it is integrated with corporate enterprise systems and software.”

The intergration with enterprise security systems is key for using these virtual worlds for business transactions. Why? Because this integration the provides the identity foundation that trust and repuation can be built.

But will these virtual world applications revolutionise corporate collaboration, not in their current state.

ShareThis

Nope, none of these alone will get you the best candidates. Sorry.

If the economies do completely collapse there are a couple of outcomes; unemployment will rise as companies go under and people in secure jobs will be less likely to want to move. At the same time companies will need to do more with less and work hard to keep good talent.

So where should you focus?

1. Quality of hire. Some people looking for jobs will be B grade, from layoffs, while some will be A grade. Given companies will be operating on thin margins you cannot afford to recruit the wrong person, ever! 
2. Time to hire. While there will be more candidates to choose from, as with quality the time to hire will still be critical. 
3. ROI, ROI, ROI. Every single recruiting activity must provide a positive return on investment. You can no long afford to just engage agencies to find candidates, it must be justified and most likely a last resort.
4. Use your talent pool. Following on from the previous point companies that leverage the data in their talent management systems will reduce the time to hire and cost to hire. 
5. Look for innovative and cost effective advertising. Post 10 job ads on the biggest job board for $1,000 might seem easy but is it the best use of the $1,000? Maybe providing micro-sponsorship to an industry event will get you in front of better candidates.
6. Branding. Everyone is talking about it, but it is true. If people want to come ane work for your organisation you are half way there to hiring them. The best people want to work for the best organisations, no matter what the economy is doing.
7. Referrals. Time and time again referrals provide the highest quality hire at the lowest cost.
8. Social media. While it will not save you, social media will help. Look at social media to help improve your brand, and engage with top talent.
9. Social networking. As with social media it will not save you but it will help you find candidates and improve your brand. Not to mention the ROI is very high.
10. Learn to use search engines to find candidates.

You might look at the list and think, so what’s new? Well not a lot. It is just how you apply the processes which differs.

Checkout medical jobs at Health Jobs USA.

ShareThis

To the first point. This is not new companies have always used downturns to shed deadwood, not sure why this was even raised by Michael Arrington. 

The second point is far more interesting and will have major impacts on employers for years to come. In a world where anyone can publish, and does, how you manage this process is critical.

But in the age of everyone-is-a-publisher it takes just a second after someone is walked out the door for them to post about it on Twitter or their blog, and it spreads from there.

Blog posts, tweets, video content all remain in search engine caches for a very long time, if not forever! Which means if you are thinking of cutting back here are some tips for doing so in a social media world, some of these are just plain common sense.

1. Do it quickly, ok this is always the case but even more so now. Use the old carpenter’s rule “measure twice, cut once” the last thing you want to people having multiple chances of publishing about the process.
2. Remember the jobs you are cutting have people in them. Treat them that way.
3. But also remember humans do not make rational logical decisions based on information given to them. They will instead pattern match with either their own experience, or collective experience expressed as stories. This usually means they will react poorly initially.
4. Provide employees some advice about being careful if vent online, make sure if they do it will not lead to nasty legal battles down the track.
5. Expect things to be blogged, tweeted, and generally discussed. 
6. Monitor the internet to see what is being said. Allow people to vent but if needed gently correct the messages if they are blatantly wrong.
7. Don’t get into a online publishing war over the smallest of things published, sometimes ignoring it is the best option. The more times search engines find a topic the higher they rank it in the results. Also bloggers tend to react quickly and harshly don’t give them additional fuel to write about.
8. Communicate with the employees who are leaving, but do so honestly and openly, limit the corporate bullsh#t.
9. Communicate with the employees who are staying, again do so honestly and openly, limit the corporate bullsh#t.
10. Setup a Facebook alumni group (if you don’t have one), automatically invite all of the employees who are leaving. Remember some will be boomerangs.
11. Setup an internal wiki to allow the people leaving to document their knowledge in a central location. This way you might collect some of the knowledge that is leaving before it leaves.
12. Communicate to your customers, suppliers, media, analysts and blogosphere what is going on and why.
13. Make sure you are not applying double standards with your executive team as this will certainly get people talking. 
14. Make sure the rest of the organisations is also cutting back on expenses. If you keep people flying first class while laying off employees this will also get people talking.
15. Highlight the other cost cutting measures that the organisation is taking to show layoffs aren’t the only thing.
16. It is a great time to have the CEO start an blog, this will show them as a real person a factor that should not be overlooked during this period of change.
17. Finally make sure you pay severance packages fairly and on time.

ShareThis

The basic premise in the book is that markets are conversations. Their members communicate in language that is natural, open, and honest, sometimes even direct. Basically you can’t fake it.

Most corporations, on the other hand, only know how to engage in a corporate monotone of mission statements, product strategies and , marketing brochures.

However everything is now changing. People are connecting, and working together. The Internet is enabling these conversations and there is nothing corporations can do to stop it.

With the book are 95 theses that summarise everything into a nice simple message. Yesterday I was re-reading them and wanted to share them with you all. So I created a quick slideshow, enjoy!

ShareThis

The first thing to realise is “web 2.0″ has been built on a number of fundamental principles, and that to succeed you need to understand them all. The principles are summarised below, however it would take a blog post (or more) on each to fully break them down when it comes to recruiting.

1. Transparency
2. Conversation
3. Wisdom of Crowds
4. Data is Key
5. Speed
6. Reuse
7. Rich User Experience

With the above principles out of the way, on to social media in recruiting.

Hang on, before that don’t we need a strategy?

Yes!!

Building a social media strategy in to your organisation recruitment strategy is not something that can be done overnight, or by a select few within the organisation. The strategy needs to take into account many different factors, such as organisational history, culture, values, industry, funding, and above all commitment. Just putting a “Share on Facebook” link at the bottom of a job ad IS NOT A SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY!! Likewise creating just a Facebook group IS NOT A SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY!!These are not the easiest things to work through, in the meantime here some generalised areas where you could apply social media in recruiting:

• Sponsor some blogs to help prospective candidates understand what it is like to work at your company, or what the recruitment process is like
• Create a Facebook group for your graduate recruits
• Having a YouTube channel for videos about your organisation, not just corporate sanctioned ones
• Using social networks to source candidates
• Use social networks to develop relationships with potential candidates
• Have your employees & managers run online career fairs, talk about life in the company, court potential talent using social media
• Setup an internal tagging site to allow anyone in the company to “tag” people who might be potential future employees
• Teach manager how to use RSS, alerts to find out when people are discussing your company and products, as they could be potential candidates
• Publish exit interview answer (personal details removed) on the internal intranet so everyone can see why people are leaving
• Embrace the principles of “web 2.0″ and rework your end to end recruitment process, ok this is not just social media but it would help with the candidate experience

I could go on and on, however I serious encourage you not to undertake any of these without fully understanding the broader impact of what you are doing. While yes would should start small, but social media has a funny way of getting out of control so if you are not ready for the results you might have some difficult discussions with marketing. 

If you want a social media strategy for recruiting give me a call, sorry for the shameless plug but I am getting sick of so called “experts” in social media putting their hand up to help organisations when it comes to recruitment, branding and talent acquisition or retention. Only to have the opportunities being wasted.

ShareThis

Some of the interesting points:

• Use of administrative applications are obiovusly mature, however the results are showing an initial movement from in?house to software?as-a?service (SaaS) solutions. Now is this driving vendors or are vendors driving this move, not sure.
• Talent management applications are very important and that these applications are helping organisations deliver higher financial performance.
• The Employee Self Service and Manager Self Service trend is still deliverying value and reducing the size of HR departments and improving transaction cycle times.
• Web 2.0/Enterprise 2.0 is still the arena of early adopters, with the biggest area of usage being recruiting and branding. The survey shows that organisations using these tools had double the sales growth of organisations that did not. This reminds me I really need to push/define my Enterprise 2.0 services more.
• A final theme change management is the one key differentiator towards achieving a successful HR technology project. Which is good news as this is another key services of Inspecht.

Some points emerged in the results that I want to cover further.

those taking an integrated talent management approach strongly outpace organizations with a best of breed approach on operating income growth nearly three times (13.1% vs. 4.8%)!

Now it is important to understand the definition of integrated; “If two or more of the talent management applications are from the same vendor as the underlying HR management system, they were designated as having an “integrated” talent management approach.”

This little nugget seems to go directly against previous research reports that we shoud be moving towards a Core HRIS vendor and a Core Talant Management vendor. Could it be ouch for folks like Taleo who are heavily pushing their Unified Talent Management approach? Or one could say the Cedar’s history as an ERP implementation consulting firm might bias the results? I don’t think so.

Why?

Today’s talent management tools from best of breed vendors tend to focus mainly of recruitment, preformance management and sometimes compensations management. What they miss is learning management, which is key for developing one’s internal talent pool. Could this missing link be the key to why organisations who have a fully integrated environment are returning greater financial results?

Another result showed that organisations with comptency management achieved significant sales growth. Comptencies form the core of being able to manage your employees, aka talent. With separate systems it is very hard to have a consistent comptency framework so most organisations either do it very poorly or not at all.

Some further reading and analysis of the full report is in order.

ShareThis

Over the last couple of weeks I have been reading The Wal-Mart Effect, and highly recommend it to anyone interested in the globalisation of business. Overall the book is an eye opener to the way one of the largest corporations in the history of mankind operates.

Throughout the book Charles Fishman highlights several examples of where through Wal-Mart’s drive to have the lowest prices all the time is, in my mind, actually causing harm to not just America but countries all over the globe.

An example, health insurance in the state of Georgia as of writing over 10,000 children of Wal-mart employees we enrolled in the state insurance program for poor children who had parents who worked for Wal-Mart. the next highest employer in the state was 734. Now ignoring the size differences Wal-Mart had 1 child for every 4 employees while the next employer was 1 in 22.

There are stories after stories in the book of the impact that this massive company is having on people’s lives not just in America but all over the globe. While the drive to have the lowest prices all the time is smart for business at one level. When you get to the size of Wal-Mart it can have a devastating effect on organisations and people. Dare I say it possibly driving some into poverty, and not just in western countries they could in fact be keeping some people in poverty by pressuring manufactures to keep their prices down.

ShareThis