Buzz or BS? Don’t Believe the Hype About These 3 Recruiting Trends

Last week’s post, “3 Hot Recruiting Trends We Should Shut Up About, Already” created a ton of comments and conversation about some of the “trends” that real recruiters and real candidates really could care less about.  The feedback was pretty uniform: most “best practices” and “recruiting challenges” are just a market play by consultants and thought leaders designed to sell products, services or to peddle influence.  The post also received a ton of suggestions of other “hot topics” which recruiting practitioners are tired of hearing or talking about; here are three of those suggestions that, no matter what your take, are more played out than Miley’s career, podcasting or the perpetual quest for a “seat at the table.”  So, shut up about these 3 “recruiting trends” which aren’t actually trends at all. Unless, of course, you happen to sell into talent organizations.

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Behind the Buzzwords: 20 HR Technology Vendor Definitions

seo_for_recruitingWhen your vendor talks about SEO for Recruiting, what they really mean is that SEO for Recruiting is one of those terms that sounds really cool, even though they have no idea what the hell SEO for Recruiting actually means.

Which is ironic, because they’re using excellent keyword density. They always do.  At least according to this research that’s conveniently protected by a firewall.

Here’s how to decode some of the highest ranking, highest volume, but mostly meaningless messaging used by HR Technology vendors. Because you don’t want to be collateral damage when it comes to product marketing.

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Shut Up, Already: Stop Talking About These 3 Recruiting “Trends”

I read a ton of blogs, participate in a lot of Twitter chats (or as I call them, “pithy parties”) and listen in on a lot of presentations about trends in talent acquisition and HR technology.  But what’s trendy among the industry “influencers” who need your company’s cash to keep the lights on don’t necessarily jibe with the stuff that really matters to candidates and employers.

Here are three hot topics that drive a ton of talk but very little value unless you’re a consultant with a specific agenda in mind:  Read More

Smoking Hashtags

TGIF, right? Yeah, that used to be more exciting before they pulled Family Matters, Step by Step and Boy Meets World from the best programming block this side of Thursday nights on NBC circa 1996, but now, Fridays just mean having to see #FollowFriday (or #FF, if you f-ing like) proliferate throughout my social stream.

I’ve always hated these because they’re not only pandering, but was a trend started by Mashable, the landing spot for all douche canoes floating on social streams. I understand it even less considering that Twitter, in particular, has a pretty good algorithm displaying people you should follow that really defeats the point of this weekly onslaught of hashtag abuse.

Which got me thinking a little about the purpose of hashtags.

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How To Stalk (or Source) Someone on Twitter

Twitter can’t be beat when it comes to business development.  Sure, it’s good for engagement, and great for sharing content.  That’s what it’s really designed for, after all.  But the nice thing about effective engagement and relevant content on Twitter is that you can build up a very targeted, highly segmented base of followers which essentially make them warm leads.

If you want to know how to proactively source talent with Twitter’s advanced search function, Jen Picard recently published a great guide for recruiters worth reading.  For just-in-time recruiting, I’d also recommend FollowerWonk, a free tool offering many of the same functions but with some nice sorting and ranking tools.  Getting true value from Twitter, however, is entirely correlated (in my experience) not to who you find or engage, but who your followers are.

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