Mike’s Predictions for 2012

Mike’s Predictions for 2012

Segment(s) of the TSC Impacted: All

So I am way late this year, but it’s time for me to try to predict what is going to happen in the recruiting world again!

Last year I think I did a little better than I did in the previous one, and I hope to continue my improvement with this year’s predictions. I am looking forward to hearing what you think will be coming too.

Moderate Job Growth
Last year I was on target with the end of year unemployment rate and this year I feel I can safely predict that it will continue to move lower overall throughout 2012. I think it will finish in the 7.3% to 7.9% range, with some markets doing much better and some still struggling.

Healthcare Employment Growth
Healthcare will continue to add jobs and will likely accelerate into the latter half of 2012 in anticipation of aspects of healthcare reforms that are coming in 2014.

That is not to say that the growth will be limited to the jobs that you traditionally think of in healthcare. Information technology jobs will also grow significantly in this industry along with other non-clinical roles.

The Election will have a Negative Impact
Unfortunately between uncertainty naturally generated by any election and governments inability to come to consensus for the better of the country only becoming worse in an election year, we will see businesses hold off on any robust growth and hiring that they possibly can.

I believe this “holding off” could account for a measurable impact on the unemployment rate which is part of what will lead to only moderate progress in reducing the unemployment rate.

Some businesses and industries will have to hire because of growth in demand, and those industries will definitely be easy to pick out on the various employment market reports.

Emerging Markets will begin to lead a Global Recovery
As mentioned in an earlier blog, I think that emerging markets will be where the global economy gets the fuel to start growing in a more significant way… emerging markets will eventually be overtaken by established ones again, but I believe that will be some time from now.

Mobile Recruiting Sites and Geo-Targeted Capability Continue to Converge
Within select industries, especially those with a “neighborhood presence” (retail, banking, dining, etc.) we will see the continued convergence of mobile recruiting sites and geo-targeted capabilities.

Within these industries, best practices will continue to develop and emerge. By the end of the year, I think we will see growing use of geo-targeted recruitment by forward thinking companies for roles outside of the “neighborhood presence” because any competitive advantage gain by those that are simply early adopters is fleeting… the true competitive advantage lies in moving away from the obvious and pedestrian use and moving to a less obvious, more subtle, more elegant but simple use.

And last but not least, the sun will rise on 12/22/2012
The world may be a little different, but it won’t come to a cataclysmic end the day before… of course if I am wrong that is the least of my worries!

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to send them my way! All the best to you until next month!

© 2012 Michael K. Peterson, All Rights Reserved

Social Media Snafus of 2011: A Study in HR Best Practices (Condensed)

This month I am fortunate to be able to share the condensed version of a great article from fellow blogger and HR Guy Kyle Lagunas from Software Advice… he takes a look at the social media snafus from 2011 from the HR perspective…  He has the full version and other equally great articles on his site, so I encourage you to check it out!

Social Media Snafus of 2011: A Study in HR Best Practices

The blogosphere was happy to report some epic failures in large organizations’ use of social media in 2011. As I read through these lists (there were many), I thought, Wow, I’m glad I’m not managing HR there. You see, when something goes wrong in the office, HR inevitably gets called in for damage control. This applies when an organization’s use of social media goes wrong, too. Digging a little deeper into the top social media blunders, I realized that these mishaps offer some great insights into social media best practices.

As organizations begin crafting formal social medial policies, there are certain situations and mishaps for which they should be prepared. Here are the three snafus that stood out to me as having some serious lessons to learn from an HR perspective:

 

1. Communications Disconnect at Qantas. When launching a Twitter campaign in November, Qantas–the premiere airline in Australia–had a serious breakdown in communications. Amid widespread disruptions in service (the entire fleet had been grounded in October) they attempted to create some positive energy by asking followers to describe their “dream luxury in-flight experience” using the hashtag #QantasLuxury. The problem? The campaign launched the day after Qantas and its unions stopped contract talks. Customers hijacked the campaign’s untimely campaign and used the hashtag to voice serious complaints.

 

When managing your social media presence, these kinds of breakdowns in communication can have serious consequences. As such, establishing clear channels for disimmenating need-to-know information to key players in your management team is a must. Qantas’ mishap is a case in point on the importance of making it easy to quickly distribute key communications, not to mention the value in maintaining a degree of transparency in less-than-ideal times.

2. Kutcher’s Quickfire Backfire. As many organizations are learning, not everyone is equipped to keep small blunders from turning into social media firestorms–even if your “organization” is the brand behind a celebrity figure. There needs to be a process for managing your online presence. CBS’ new “Two and a Half Men” star, Ashton Kutcher, sent out a particularly nightmarish tweet to 8.5 million followers in November  which seemingly supported Joe Paterno: “How do you fire Jo Pa? #insult #no class as a hawkeye fan I find it in poor taste.”

Kutcher pleaded ignorance, claiming that he wasn’t up on the alleged Penn State child abuse scandal. He offered an apology via Twitter but the damage was done. When building a social media strategy–be it for sourcing and recruiting talent or for branding and advertising–your plan should ensure your people have a course of action outlined for cleaning up small mishaps before they become big messes. In the end, Kutcher got the message and turned over management of his Twitter account to his PR team.

3. American Red Cross Turns it Around. Some debacles have a happy ending. An employee of The American Red Cross sent out an inappropriate tweet via the @RedCross account indicating that employees were getting “slizzered” on Dogfish Head beer. To the surprise of many (and the joy of a vested few), Wendy Harman, Social Media Director for the Red Cross, was able to turn this around with grace and good humor. The rogue tweet was down within the hour, and Harman responded with a tweet assuring that the Red Cross was sober, adding, “we’ve confiscated the keys.” Meanwhile, they retained the (very embarrassed) employee, and Dogfish Head took the opportunity to launch a fundraising campaign for the Red Cross.

Because of their quick and classy response, the Red Cross turned a PR nightmare into a lesson in humility, and has been earning kudos since. This indicates a strong sense of teamwork and unity in the organization. “We are an organization that deals with life-changing disasters and this wasn’t one of them,” Harman told Mashable. “It was just a little mistake.”

 

Last Year’s Blunders: A Boon for HR in 2012?

While it’s easy to look back on social media snafus and share a laugh, HR professionals have their work cut out for them in the next year. The blunders of 2011 present a great opportunity for HR to step up to the plate and spearhead the design, implementation and oversight of formal social media policies for their organizations.

About the Author: Kyle Lagunas is the HR Analyst at Software Advice, a company that reviews HR systems. On the surface, it’s his job to contribute to the ongoing conversation on all things HR. Beyond that, he makes sure his audience is keeping up with important trends and hot topics in the industry. Focused on offering a fresh take on points of interest in his market, he’s not your typical HR guy. If you’re interested in reading this article in full, you can find it on his blog.

End of Year Report Card: Mike’s Predictions for 2011

End of Year Report Card: Mike’s Predictions for 2011

Segment(s) of the TSC Impacted: All

This January I continued the tradition of trying to predict what was to be in the New Year.   Now it is time to take a look to see how I did.

Some aspects of my predictions that looked uncertain at the midyear report card have come to fruition, but the context in which they came about wasn’t what was expected.  Others did well and others not as much…

Recovery, recovery, recovery

Grade- C+

Prediction- This year, especially the latter half, we will be fully focused on the economic recovery that will finally become wide spread.

That is not to say that we will see strong growth in the employment sector and I would be surprised to see the national unemployment rate drop to anything below 8% or even 8.5%, but all of us will hopefully see that things have started to turn around.

Commentary- Recovery is the talk, but not in a good way as it is often used in along with “slow” and “uncertain” or unsteady.”  I was very close to the mark with the unemployment rate at 8.6%.  Since the main prediction was that recovery would be well underway I can’t give myself a great grade.

Mobile will become the hot thing in Recruiting

Grade- A+

Prediction-   People are going from the mobile experience being something of a novelty to an expectation.  Someone will be using their phone in their living room just feet from their PC, but will expect to be able to search jobs without waiting for the PC to boot up, update, etc.

Commentary- Mobile is so pervasive that some vendors are trying to fake their way into it (see last month’s blog post about Mobile Site Posers).

Geo-Targeted recruitment advertising will grow, but not be wide-spread

Grade- B

Prediction- Products like FourSquare, Google and Facebook equivalents as well as others will find their way onto the media/social media plans for a small number of companies. Many other companies will watch to see what can be done with this platform.

Commentary- My midyear prediction that it would probably not take hold more until the war for talent resumes seems to be holding true, while I can’t say that the number of companies that are really using this met even my modest expectations I didn’t think I was entirely off the mark either.

Social media will flatten out

Grade- A

Prediction- This is the year that we will see social media start to flatten out.  But that’s not to say it won’t continue to grow, it will just do so at a more modest pace.

Commentary- This seems to continue to be the case, with social media IPOs being more of the news than their traffic growth.  I found it very interesting to see the role social media has played in some critical events around the world.  While Google+ looked interesting at the midyear update, I am not sure how much impact it will have without Facebook really dropping the ball or a major innovative shift coming from Google.

Next month will be my predictions for 2012, which do not involve the end of the world!

If you have any questions, comments or anything you would like to add, feel free to send them my way!  All the best to you until next month!

© 2011 Michael K. Peterson, All Rights Reserved

Beware of the posers- mobile site deceptions

Beware of the posers- mobile site deceptions

Segment(s) of the TSC Impacted: Your Organizations Ability to Attract Candidates

Many of us know that the way we are interacting with the internet is changing rapidly, moving away from the time when we had a PC, tethered to a desk on a slow dial up connection to a fast means of accessing almost anything in the palm of our hands from almost anywhere.  People are changing the way they find jobs in the same way they are changing how they shop and how they post content to their social media platforms

Although I have been and continue to be an advocate for companies moving to mobile career sites and apps, I come to you this month with a warning that should not be a surprise.

Beware of the posers
Just like in the early days of job boards and social media, there are a number of companies that are out there trying to convince you that what they have is what you seek- a mobile career site.

Last year I wondered why ATS providers were not jumping into this to gain competitive advantage.

Through my networking and collaborations with some of you, I have become aware of some interesting developments and this year we saw some of the first ATS providers coming out with mobile sites and unfortunately a couple that are outright posers.

Sadly, these companies are not small start ups or fly by night companies, they are sizeable and well known and it’s a shame that at least some of the in their organizations are pitching something that is not the truth until pressed.  This month I will give you the basic questions to ask and the unfortunate half-truths that I am aware of…

The question
The first version of the question is actually quite simple and that is probably why it can be easy for a sales team to try to pull a quick one over on people.  The question is:

“Does your product provide a mobile career site?”

This is where the problem lies… in its simplicity.  I will take you through three instances where a potential customer could have come away with entirely the wrong impression and would have made the wrong decision, at least in regards to mobile recruiting, as a result.

Problem answer #1: Yes we have a mobile site
You may be thinking what is the problem?  Well in this case, I actually don’t think the vendor was being purposely misleading, but here is a synopsis of the rest of the answer:

“Recruiters can log in review candidates, post jobs, schedule interviews, etc.”

Notice there is no mention of candidates?  When asked a slightly different question, the vendor had a different answer:

“Does your product provide a mobile career site for job seekers…”

The answer? “No”

It’s nice that Recruiters can do stuff, but it’s far more important that job seekers be able to do stuff.  Plus, I don’t know about you, but as a Recruiter there is only so much I am willing to do from a smartphone.

Problem answer #2: Yes we have a mobile site
Again all seems well, and the vendor happily showed the potential customer his iPhone with a cool looking app.  The problem didn’t arise until one of the review team members said “Where do I look for a job?” and another asked “Why is there the ability to run payroll?”

The first problem answer was forgivable, this one is not.  There was not only no ability to search jobs, there was nothing to do with recruiting on the app either… this was an HR/Payroll app shame, shame, shame.

Problem answer #3: Yes we have a mobile site
So you get it by now and are wondering what happened.  Similar to the previous example, someone was proud to show off their iPhone and the team looked at it and seemed impressed until someone noticed that this was just the full website of the a client company.  When pressed, the vendor maintained that they had a mobile site and it looks great.  Continued pressing from the review team finally got the vendor to admit that they didn’t have a mobile site, but that “the site renders beautifully on an iPhone.”

That’s all great, but since the screen, even an iPhone is tiny, and 0.5 pitch is difficult for anyone to read I would say this vendor is a total poser… the sad thing was the person being pressed was the company’s President, not an over-eager sales person trying to get commission.

Conclusion
So beware when you meet with vendors about this new platform we all have to manage.

The key question is not whether or not they can provide a mobile site, but is actually a series or slightly more complicated questions.  Here are some of the questions I recommend asking:

Does your current product provide a mobile careers site that enables job seekers to have a mobile experience similar to those visiting our full version website, including searching for and viewing jobs?

What mobile platforms do you support?  iPhone, Android, iPad, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile?

Note: If they support iPhone and Android you are well covered, many iPhone apps work on an iPad; Windows Mobile market share is too small and BlackBerry is declining rapidly.  If you did want to add a third platform, add iPad since an iPad app can be much more robust than an iPhone app.

Do you support mobile websites or downloadable apps, or both?

What types of content can you support?  Is the site simply a job search interface or can we have text content, pictures and video to create a rich user experience?

How refined can the job search be?  Do users have only a couple options or several that deliver targeted results?

Does the mobile site at any time send the user to the full version site? If the answer is yes, then it is not a mobile site!

The important thing is to not go into this blind… just like anything else!

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to send them my way!

© 2011 Michael K. Peterson, All Rights Reserved

Midyear Report Card: Mike’s Predictions for 2011

Midyear Report Card: Mike’s Predictions for 2011

Segment(s) of the TSC Impacted: All

This January I continued the tradition of trying to predict what was to be in the new year.   As I did last year, I thought this would be a good moment to take pause and see how those predictions are coming along.

I think I did a little better with this year’s midyear report card than last, but some things remain uncertain.

Recovery, recovery, recovery

Grade- Who knows at this point!

Prediction- This year, especially the latter half, we will be fully focused on the economic recovery that will finally become wide spread.

That is not to say that we will see strong growth in the employment sector and I would be surprised to see the national unemployment rate drop to anything below 8% or even 8.5%, but all of us will hopefully see that things have started to turn around.

Commentary- Well, we are all talking about the recovery, but more in the way people waiting for a late bus talk about what happened.  So we have some pockets of recovery, but it’s really questionable if this is going to take hold throughout the nation anytime soon.   Just a month ago, I thought this would be a very different entry, but this economy is struggling to get to its feet more than any other post recession economy.  I still think we will have a national unemployment rate that is somewhere between 8.5% and 9% later this year, which is still better than it was.

Mobile will become the hot thing in Recruiting

Grade- A

Prediction-   People are going from the mobile experience being something of a novelty to an expectation.  Someone will be using their phone in their living room just feet from their PC, but will expect to be able to search jobs without waiting for the PC to boot up, update, etc.

Commentary- I think this was one prediction that has really started to take hold.  Talking about mobile is wide spread, more and more companies have mobile sites (including mine) and the first ATS/TMS to provide a mobile experience for candidates (not just Recruiters like many) is available on the market.

Geo-Targeted recruitment advertising will grow, but not be wide-spread

Grade- C

Prediction- Products like FourSquare, Google and Facebook equivalents as well as others will find their way onto the media/social media plans for a small number of companies. Many other companies will watch to see what can be done with this platform.

Commentary- The part about it not being wide spread is definitely true, and there are some companies that are using this, but not many.  This is something that may catch on next year for some, and many will likely table this until the war for talent fully returns.

Social media will flatten out

Grade- A

Prediction- This is the year that we will see social media start to flatten out.  But that’s not to say it won’t continue to grow, it will just do so at a more modest pace.

Commentary- We’ve seen the demise of MySpace (although I would have never predicted Timberlake buying it) and other platforms are starting to or continuing to flatten out.  LinkedIn showed some increases in traffic because of new services, but according to Quantcast, Facebook is growing, but  slowing and Twitter seems to be possibly starting a decline.  This does not spell the beginning of the end by any means, rather that it has reached a new level.  It will be interesting to see how Google+ impacts all of this.

If you have any questions, comments or anything you would like to add, feel free to send them my way!  All the best to you until next month!

© 2011 Michael K. Peterson, All Rights Reserved

Let’s make employee opinion surveys meaningful…

Let’s make employee opinion surveys meaningful…

Segment(s) of the TSC Impacted: Your organizations ability to source candidates and Your organizations ability to sell open positions

At most organizations employee opinion surveys (EOS) are viewed skeptically.  Employees roll their eyes, thinking that once again they are asking for my opinion and it will lead to nothing.   The managers, namely the ones that need the feedback most, hate this exercise because it only confirms what they don’t want to admit.  Human Resources beats their head against the wall because they have to administer this ritual only to be frustrated by the combination of suspected poor managers being confirmed as such with actual data and the lack of willingness by leadership to do anything about it.

I could point out the obvious things that we should be doing, anchoring portions of the manager’s annual bonus to their EOS score, recognizing those that are doing a great job or, the most obvious, simply doing something about those that perform poorly.

But I am not here to point out the obvious… I am here to share something different.

What if, we borrowed some concepts from the familiar practice of peer reviews on product and retail sites like Amazon.com?  What if we put the overall EOS score for each department on their job postings?

Resistance
I’ll be the first to admit that my own organization probably wouldn’t go as far as putting every departments overall score on the departments postings, but I think this is something to move toward.

Certainly the knee-jerk reaction would be “are you crazy?” from both leadership and Human Resources.  VPs and Directors would immediately know and be concerned about the impact on recruiting for poor performing departments… after all, who in their right mind would apply for a position where the department’s score is 1 out of 5 or even 2 out of 5?

The real problem
What is more disappointing is that we allow unsuspecting candidates to apply for those positions out of ignorance…  How upset would you be if you found out that a retail website was actually withholding or manipulating peer review scores on their products?  I suspect you would be pretty pissed.  If pervasive enough, there would likely be investigations and inquiries from the authorities and tremendous brand damage…  But here we are, essentially doing the same thing!

But once again, since we all live in the Information Age, anyone that thinks they control information simply by suppressing it is delusional at best and is doing more harm than good.

As we all should have learned by now from social media, just because we aren’t talking doesn’t mean that no one is talking.

The problem is the person doing the talking is generally a disgruntled employee that is really “motivated” and they are going to any number of sites to let everyone know what they think about your poor performing department.

Don’t believe me?  Go to Glassdoor.com and see what is listed about your company.  This is in addition to anything people are saying on social media and to their friends.

So once again, we have turned the conversation over to a wacko and we’re hoping that no one listens…

What’s worse is that you can’t win either way on these sites… any positive reviews are a best viewed with suspicion that the post was from someone who has other motivations (i.e. HR).

A better way
Now let’s imagine an alternative where your company takes the bold step of posting all their EOS scores.

Managers would suddenly pay attention to the scores, for different reasons, but they will be focused them.  They could be concerned about being able to recruit staff (and funny the bad ones probably need to recruit the most), they may be concerned about how their director of VP would react, but I suspect for most it will be that they simply don’t want to look bad in front of everyone.   What is nice is that the ones that need help will be more motivated to seek it.

Some employees that weren’t being honest before will be honest now.  Why?  Because even the semi-smart ones will realize that if I am slamming the boss just to slam them, they will have a hard time hiring new people to replace those that left, leaving more people for the remaining staff.

Employees will also see that the survey has value.  Instead of just being an exercise of checking off the EOS box for the next “Best Placeto Work” survey there is useful, actionable data and rewards and consequences for managers.

Human Resources will finally see that something constructive is being done with the survey information and perhaps this will be just the beginning of things that make EOS worth it.

Candidates will obviously gravitate to higher rated departments and will likely respect the organization for putting the scores on postings.  The company would also get a great boost in word of mouth type recognition among prospective candidates for being open and honest.

Retention would also improve because candidates will make more informed decisions.  Your company would also decrease the brand damage from good talent coming into bad departments and leaving to tell anyone that may consider your company how bad it is.

Information on sites like Glassdoor would still be posted and reviewed, but if your site has EOS data on it, many prospective candidates would not feel the need to check the site.  Those that do go to Glassdoor will realize that they can check the comments posted there against the EOS information to see if it matches or if there is inconsistency between the two, allowing them to make a more informed decision.

Ways to implement
I would be surprised if most companies posted EOS scores for all their departments, but there is a less threatening way to at least start adding some of the information.

I suggest that you start with posting EOS information about the best performing departments only.  You could work with Marketing or your Advertising Agency to create a special logo that indicates if a department is a “Top 10” department as rated by its employees, or the top department at a particular site, etc.

This allows the concept to get started as a recognition program.  Which will encounter significantly less resistance after all, how could leadership not support both lending credibility to the EOS and having a cheap (nearly free) way to recognize high performing departments?

This could set the stage to later expand the program in the future to include more and more scores until they become more widely used.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to send them my way!

© 2011 Michael K. Peterson, All Rights Reserved

Does .jobs matter?

Does .jobs matter?

Segment(s) of the TSC Impacted: Branding and candidate awareness, Your organizations ability to source candidates

Somewhat recently, there has been a lot of discussion about .jobs.  Much of the discussion that I have seen has little to do with whether or not this is a good idea or not.  Most of it centers on the controversy between SHRM, Employ Media who SHRM partnered with to manage the top level domain and ICANN, the organization that essentially manages major functions of the internet.

ICANN has brought action against Employ Media stating they are violating the .jobs charter and brings into question whether or not SHRM got in over their heads and/or partnered with the right people.

I think there is a larger more important question that may make all of this largely irrelevant- Does .jobs matter?

For those of you that aren’t familiar, .jobs is a top level domain (TLD) similar to the more popular .com, .edu and .gov.  ICANN released .jobs to SHRM with the thought that the leading HR organization would be able to manage the registration process more effectively than the existing process that has been in place for all other domains.  This process is where domain registration companies take registration requests and if it’s available the registration is yours.

On a side note that I have to point out, when you register a .jobs domain, you first go to Employ Media’s site, which then has… wait for it…links to the same domain registration companies that handle all the other registrations anyway, now that’s value add SHRM- thanks for adding needless layers and now legal complication to things!

Side bar over, back to the .jobs domain… The intended purpose for .jobs was to become a “shortcut” that people could use to get to career sites.  So a company like Ford could have the domain ford.jobs.

On the surface this sounds interesting, but I have to wonder, who’s been wanting this?

Employers?
As an employer, I don’t see this as a huge benefit… my career site is decent, we market it well using a wide variety of tools, etc.  It’s reasonably well designed and most people can find what they are looking for.

On the other hand, the .jobs domain is very inexpensive to register and you could simply have the .jobs URL point to your career site and you’re pretty well covered.  So there isn’t anything compelling against getting it.

Job seekers?
It’s pretty rare that candidates can’t find a companies website and/or the jobs on it… if they can’t the sites usually poorly constructed, or the jobs aren’t listed or the candidate is computer illiterate.  So some may be interested in the convenience of the .jobs domain, but I am not sure people would not seek positions on non-.jobs domains in the same manner I could eventually see job seekers not apply for jobs with companies that lack a mobile or social media presence.

Job boards?
Certainly the job board industry isn’t interested in it.  In fact, they are leading the charge against the .jobs domain because they see it as a threat.  Just imagine a day where job seekers can find jobs on corporate career sites or by using something like SEO, SEM, Indeed, SimplyHired, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn… if only these things were a reality … oh wait… that’s right, they are aren’t they?  Well job boards you keep chasing away the big scary .jobs domain while everyone else eats your lunch…

Conclusion

So I guess there isn’t anyone that is clamoring for this.  While there are a lot of companies that have their .jobs domain (including mine) I think they have it because it is cheap and simple.

And just because a lot of companies have .jobs domains doesn’t mean that it will become anything significant or strategically or tactically important.

What’s my opinion?  .jobs doesn’t matter, but it will be widely used for a time and then fade away.  I think it’s an idea whose time has long passed that is only being saved by its simplicity and very modest cost.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to send them my way!

© 2011 Michael K. Peterson, All Rights Reserved

SHRM 2011 Talent & Staffing Management Conference Recap

SHRM 2011 Talent & Staffing Management Conference Recap

Segment(s) of the TSC Impacted: All

Several members of my team and I attended the SHRM Talent & Staffing Management Conference that just took place here inSan Diego.  I wanted to share some of our thoughts and experience as well as what was presented as the state of talent acquisition.

Conference overview
This was my first time attending this conference as was the case for most of my team.  All of us felt the conference had good, solid, practical information that seemed to skew slightly more toward corporate talent acquisition professionals vs. our colleagues that work for placement firms or headhunters.

The personality of the conference was much lighter than International SHRM which I have attended several times in the past, including last year inSan Diego.  This made for a much better experience.

The information was much more focused and relevant for me being in talent acquisition and I didn’t struggle to find something that I could at least pass the time with as I do occasionally at International SHRM.  While International SHRM has made significant improvements in providing content for those of us talent acquisition, we are still somewhat overlooked.

By comparison to ERE, which I have also attended a few times, this conference was a little more main stream and less cutting edge.  For some organizations that is probably not a bad thing.  Why go to a conference like ERE that focuses more on the leading edge when your organization still runs ads in the paper and your team still wonders if social media is really going to take off?  That is not to say that this conference was lacking for good content and some leading edge processes, because it still had some of that.

I would say the overall theme was engagement of employees and of candidates, which seemed to be interwoven throughout many sessions, but let me share some of my experience more specifically.

Social media is still a big player
I attended a great session presented by Matt Kaiser, who is always on top of his game, about social media and it became very apparent that social media is maturing and perhaps flattening out a bit, but it is still growing, companies are becoming much more sophisticated with it and a lot of potential remains for it as a tool.

Many best practices will likely come from consumer brands that need to engage customers, investors, employees and candidates. One example provided was a video of Gatorade’s “Mission Control” which is where they monitor their social media presence, and I suspect the presence of the individuals that are endorsing their product.  The video can be found on YouTube by searching Gatorade Mission Control.  While it doesn’t provide a lot of meaningful content, it is interesting to see how very seriously they must be taking these channels to engage people.

Recruiting Veterans
You may know that OFCCP is focused on how companies are recruiting veterans for a variety of reasons including the issue of integrating veterans that will be coming back fromAfghanistan andIraq into the civilian labor market.  Aside from the obvious problem of trying to manage more people coming into the labor market, it is also the right thing to do for those that have sacrificed for us.

The session on Tactics for Attracting and Recruiting Veterans with Disabilities presented by Lisa Rosser from The Value of a Veteran was excellent in that it was clear, practical and made sense.   One tactic is one that is pretty obvious, yet overlooked.  Use similar messaging that the military itself uses to recruit people into the military as those themes will only resonate even more with people exiting the military.

Themes include being part of an elite group, challenging work, training opportunities, your work impacts others, and camaraderie within the team.

But she pointed out that we also most go beyond just themes and take the same approach to recruiting veterans we do to college recruiting with welcoming messaging specific for them, content focused on them and ways to engage them across all media.

Mobile
While I can’t recall any specific sessions about using mobile platforms in talent acquisition, right on the heels of social media being woven into many sessions, was mobile.

It was discussed in many of the sessions that I attended that were focused on other topics, including recruiting veterans.

My take is when something pervades topics that seem unrelated, that is something to become part of.

From the exhibit hall
I always take a couple passes through the exhibit hall to see what is going on in the market.  There were some interesting things that I came across as I walked through.

No major ATS/TMS vendors were at the event.  This surprised me somewhat, and it could be because they elected to go to ERE, which was also in San Diego just a couple weeks earlier, but not only were their no major players, there really weren’t that many mid level players either.  I suspect that this space is hurting from the recession and we may see further consolidation of vendors or outright failure of some smaller ones in the next year or so.

It also seemed like every other vendor was a testing vendor or background check vendor.  As I thumb through the exhibitor directory I see my observation was not far off, with 16 of the 52 falling into this category (or 30.7%).

Most striking from the exhibit hall was the lack of anything that seemed new…  Perhaps the vendor was at ERE, as I mentioned, the more leading edge conference of the two, but I also feel like it may be because our space has been struggling…  we always take a hit from a recession and certainly this one was a bigger one than most.  I see plenty of opportunity for some bright people to come to market with something that truly moves us in new directions within the next couple years.

Conclusion
Speaking to the other attendees, it seemed like all of us are getting busier and that the worst is behind us.

However there are significant challenges that are before us, including how to engage our employees and candidates better.  Certainly social media is one way to do so, but it will go beyond that to making sure our messaging, both internal and external, is authentic, resonates, and is on the mark with the audience regardless of the platform.

While we have some time because of the labor market to refine this, the next round of the war for talent will be upon us sooner than we realize.  Those that do not find a way to engage people will be at a huge disadvantage, which seemed to be the message between the lines of this conference.

As always, feel free to share your thoughts!  Until next month, all the best to you!

© 2011 Michael K. Peterson, All Rights Reserved

Mike’s Pedictions for 2011

Mike’s Predictions for 2011

Segment(s) of the TSC Impacted: All

Once again, it is the time of year that we all reflect on what the previous year meant and where we are heading in the next one.

Last year I did OK with my predictions, am I hope that this year will be better, so here are my thoughts on what might come to be in 2011.  I am looking forward to hearing what you think will be coming too.

Recovery, recovery, recovery
This year, especially the latter half, we will be fully focused on the economic recovery that will finally become wide spread.

That is not to say that we will see strong growth in the employment sector and I would be surprised to see the national unemployment rate drop to anything below 8% or even 8.5%, but all of us will hopefully see that things have started to turn around.

A handful of employment markets will return to unemployment levels that are close to pre-recession “normal” levels, but not many.

Mobile will become the hot thing in Recruiting
We’ve already seen some companies moving into mobile, and this year will only see a continued acceleration in this space with the growth of tablet computers and the introduction of the iPhone on Verizon.

Many companies don’t see the need to push their jobs to a mobile platform, but I think they are confusing geo-targeted advertising with a mobile site.

The need to make our career sites more mobile platform friendly has little to do with the fact that the platform is mobile and has more to do with shifting expectations of consumers/job seekers.

People are going from the mobile experience being something of a novelty to an expectation.  Someone will be using their phone in their living room just feet from their PC, but will expect to be able to search jobs without waiting for the PC to boot up, update, etc.

If you don’t believe me, let me ask you…  How many times a day do you check your personal email on your phone vs. a desktop?  As these devices become more and more capable, this will only grow.

Geo-Targeted recruitment advertising will grow, but not be wide-spread
Products like FourSquare, Google and Facebook equivalents as well as others will find their way onto the media/social media plans for a small number of companies. Many other companies will watch to see what can be done with this platform.

In my opinion, there are two groups of companies that it makes sense to really explore these platforms.  Companies with a workforce that is geographically sensitive and companies with facilities in cities that are extremely congested.

A workforce that is geographically sensitive mainly consists of people that predominantly work near their home.  The demographic of some of this group makes this approach particularly appealing because of their adoption of new on line trends.  I am speaking mainly about teens and those in college.

If you think about it, your friendly neighborhood teenager is not going to drive 15 miles to work at a fast food restaurant when they pass about 10 on the way and probably 4 before they get on the freeway.

College students are less sensitive, but their schedule makes finding a job close to campus a highly valued convenience.

Certainly this group is not limited to teens and college students.  Any group that relies on public transportation or is paid a wage that would not support a significant expenditure on gasoline would also be a group to consider reaching out to with these platforms.

The second group, those that live in extremely congested cities would also show promise.  This is a group that is more diverse vs. the somewhat narrow group of people that are geographically limited for reasons already described.

This group is interesting because it grows and shrinks because of gasoline prices and their impact on individuals, which makes nearly all of us potential members of this group.

The challenge in planning for this group is that the individual’s reaction to the price of gasoline depends on a variety of factors including disposable income, what vehicle they need to drive, how quickly they can change the vehicle they drive, availability and feasibility of public transportation, etc.

The reality is that gasoline prices will continue to trend upward over time without a major shift in consumption, so with each increase in the price of gasoline more people join this group.

What should a company do?  Companies have an opportunity to test geo-targeted advertising with a geographically sensitive group of jobs.  So if you have people that don’t have the need or ability to manage a commute, then I would start with them.  Perhaps you have customer service staff, support staff or retail locations.  When looking at your media plan to fill some of these roles, include some platforms like FourSquare.  This will give you a chance to try it out, learn some lessons and perhaps more importantly, be better prepared to quickly expand the campaign to take advantage of your location if gas prices spike or if another change in the market can be turned to your advantage.

Social media will flatten out
This is the year that we will see social media start to flatten out.  But that’s not to say it won’t continue to grow, it will just do so at a more modest pace.

According to Quantcast LinkedIn seems to be keeping relatively steady and Facebook is leveling off.  There is speculation that MySpace may not make it through the year and it is known that they are trying to find a buyer for themselves.  Only Twitter and FourSquare are both continuing to grow their visits at rates we have grown accustomed to for social media of the past.

What does this mean?  I don’t think it means it’s time to abandon our work on LinkedIn and Facebook.  Most of you are still using job boards and if I thought you should abandon anything it is sites like Careerbuilder and Monster.

Nor is it time to shift resources to focus on Twitter and FourSquare.

It merely means that the early platforms have started to reach maturity.  Let’s face it, if your grandmother is on Facebook that is a sign that the product has started to reach most of its potential market share.

This also means that we all need to shift our expectations.  With the exception of perhaps MySpace, I believe there is still value in keeping a strong presence on Facebook and LinkedIn, we just can’t expect the increases in traffic that we may have become used to.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to send them my way!  All the best to you until next month!

© 2011 Michael K. Peterson, All Rights Reserved

End of Year Report Card: Mike’s Predictions for 2010

End of Year Report Card: Mike’s Predictions for 2010

Segment(s) of the TSC Impacted: All

In January I shared my predictions for 2010 and I had overall good, but mixed marks at my mid mid-term report card.  Naturally since we are at the end of the year, it’s time for the final grade!

Smart companies will begin to brace for the recovery

Prediction- Smart companies will figure out who is mission critical to keep and who to let slip out the door.  More importantly they will figure out what is important to the people they want to keep and meet those needs with the hope of retaining them for the long-term.

Mid Year Grade- Incomplete
Final Grade- C

Commentary- There are a handful of companies really looking at this and certainly it seems that the coming retention problem we are all going to face sooner or later has slipped into the consciousness of the main stream.

However, consciousness is not action and action is not necessarily doing something that is effective.

Unemployment will stabilize and start to improve in some markets

Mid Year Grade- B
Final Grade- C

Prediction- I believe we will still see unemployment rise across the nation into the second quarter of the year.  A small handful of markets will actually start seeing unemployment flatten and then begin to decline within this same time frame.  By the fourth quarter I believe national unemployment will begin to show signs of improvement, however the improvement will be very modest.  The slow decline in the unemployment rate will likely continue well into 2011 and not accelerate enough to bring significant improvements nationally until the second half of 2011.

Commentary- We have seen some positive signs in the employment market that seem to indicate we are heading in the right direction.  However, it has continued to struggle and I can’t say we have seen anything consistent that would indicate to me that we’re six months or so from a more robust employment market.

Print will continue to experiment and shrink

Mid Year Grade- B
Final Grade- B

Prediction- Print advertising vendors will continue to experiment with different revenue models and different product offerings.  We will continue to see this most dramatically within the newspaper segment, with different publishing schedules, shifts to being partially or entirely on line, while some others will simply go out of business.

Commentary- As I said at my mid-year report card, I didn’t go out on a limb with this prediction; however, an interesting wrinkle is the shift toward tablet computers and e-readers.  The impact of Android based tablets are yet to be seen, but I can’t imagine that it will slow the growth of this market; it will only accelerate the transition.  I think there are two questions that now present themselves for print media.  The first is whether or not this shift is the final nail in the coffin for many print outlets that cannot or will not adapt.  The second is whether or not print media will actually use these platforms as a means to make something of a comeback.

Job Boards will continue to decline, but will a shift begin?

Mid Year Grade- C
Final Grade- A

Prediction- The decline of job boards will continue but I think this year or 2011 will be a pivotal year.  My gut feeling is that a job board will start to shift their pricing model to one that is more congruent with other newer vehicles that are available to us, specifically, a pay-per-click model.

Commentary- The decline of job boards has been well underway.  They will all, very predictably, run their Super Bowl ads and tout their spike in job seeker traffic, but won’t share the fact that the traffic is mostly from people re-starting their job search after a holiday break or are people who have already been looking.  I believe very little of the traffic will be that semi-passive mid to senior level person we are focused on finding.

The rise in Indeed.com’s status to number one in job seeker traffic, not by a little, but by a substantial margin is just further evidence of the decline.  SimplyHired is also growing and will probably occupy a solid top 3 spot by the end of 2011.

Monster’s consolidation with Yahoo Hot Jobs is yet another sign of decline as we are only left with two major boards.

What is sad is that a significant amount of the traffic that the traditional job boards talk about in their sales meetings with us is coming from Indeed and SimplyHired.

What I think will be interesting to watch is the impact that LinkUp has on the market.  After all, their product is what both employers and many job seekers really want, a search engine that reports back only true corporate jobs, not job board postings, headhunters or work at home scams, etc.  The question for LinkUp, can they get enough traffic to get employers to pay for premium placement?

Social media will become widely utilized by even conservative organizations

Mid Year Grade- A
Final Grade- A

Prediction- The power and potential of social media will overcome event the most conservative of bureaucracies.  With that, the competitive advantage that some have enjoyed by simply having a presence in social media (even just a mediocre presence) will begin to erode rapidly with new techniques and best practices quickly emerging among organizations that want to differentiate themselves in order to hold on to the competitive advantage that they can.

Commentary- This has only grown in scope even more since the middle of the year.  Social Media has become so widely adopted that I think Recruiting departments get the strange look for not being on at least one platform (vs. getting the strange look for being on one as was the case about a year or two ago).

One should not confuse having a presence on one or more social media platforms with being effective.  I think there is plenty of room for organizations to out play each other in this space and build sustainable competitive advantage.

One of the questions that remain is whether or not companies that are only somewhat invested in social media will begin to pull out because they don’t recognize the true nature and value of social media. Some companies will apply the same pedestrian metrics they apply to everything else they do in Recruitment and not recognize that social media is about relationship building, not just tracking source codes and reducing cost per hire and time to fill.

Twitter’s corporate/business product will be widely adopted

Mid Year Grade- D
Final Grade- D

Prediction- Some of you may or may not realize that Twitter is soon to release a subscription business product.  I believe this is something that larger organizations already using Twitter have been yearning for and some of those not using Twitter have been waiting for.  With the potential demand for this product, only the price point and execution could make this an unsuccessful venture for Twitter

Commentary- This prediction was off not too long after I made it, but new products in sponsored tweets and twitter job distribution vendors have become available and grown.  While we are waiting to see how to use sponsored tweets for our purposes, and the job distribution vendors that focus on Twitter still seem to have some distance to cover, this area still has lots of room to develop.

Mobile will begin to emerge on the radars of main stream recruiting departments

Mid Year Grade- A
Final Grade- A

Prediction- Some of us have had the use of mobile devices (cell phones) on our horizon for a little while.  I believe that this is the year that leading companies find a way to catch up with those on the bleeding edge.  For the rest of the recruiting world, mobile will begin to slip into the consciousness much like social media did a couple of years ago.

Commentary- This only continues to grow in nearly every respect.  Smart phones are only becoming more popular and capable; people are growing more and more dependent on these devices to the point that the novelty of being able to do something from your smart phone is being replaced with the expectation that you can do something from your smart phone.  So organizations that do not develop a mobile presence quickly will be looked at as behind the times.  Fortunately job seeker behavior has not quite changed yet, mainly because most people don’t have a copy of their resume on their smart phones, but that will change sooner rather than later since the capability exists now.

If you have any questions, comments or anything you would like to add, feel free to send them my way!  All the best to you until next month when I try my hand at predictions again for 2011!

© 2010 Michael K. Peterson, All Rights Reserved