Why Job Boards Still Work (And Always Have)
Posted on September 24, 2013 2 Comments
Having spent time at Monster in the content and social marketing game, I’m probably a bit biased, but with that caveat, I still believe in job boards. And anyone who thinks they’re dead and deliberately ignores them as part of a holistic recruiting strategy is significantly more hindered in attracting top talent than those “old-school” HR professionals who perceive social media the same way the Puritans perceived witches.
For all the talk that “job boards are dead” and the perception that social media or smart phones or structured data will somehow change recruiting ignores the obvious fact that these technologies are, more or less, content delivery mechanisms.
Hitting the Deck: The Problem with Powerpoint
Posted on September 18, 2013 1 Comment
It’s a widely cited fact, and to me, an unbelievable one: most Americans cite their biggest fear, by a wide margin, as speaking in public. Beyond the incredible insularity and egocentrism of this perspective (because Raiders fans, Bill O’Reilly and clowns do not, apparently, crack the top 10, and I find these infinitely more terrifying). But apparently, this is what gets our collective psyches in a tizzy – the thought of having to stand before a crowd and give a presentation. In a 2012 Gallup poll, the fear of public speaking is apparently at its greatest in a business-related setting, particularly when a superior is present (maybe because people don’t realize that HR is, in fact, spying on their Facebook accounts).
A quick Google search reveals a cottage industry sprung up around overcoming this seemingly insurmountable obstacle of verbal communication, from self-help books to hypnotherapy to ready-to-purchase templates for speeches on every subject imaginable – not to mention SlideShare, the ultimate low-impact source for hitting the decks. Apparently, Valium just doesn’t cut it these days.
Why Big Data is A Big Deal for Recruiting & Hiring
Posted on September 12, 2013 1 Comment
Big Data is a big deal these days. And for good reason. “Recruiting is becoming a science”, to use LinkedIn Talent Management VP Dan Shapiro’s words, as more and more companies are highly investing in the latest technologies. While we’re all interested in what the future holds for the use of Big Data in recruiting, here are my thoughts about its role in the hiring process and the greatest challenges it presents for recruiters.
Resumes in Real Time: Dynamic Data & Digital Dirt
Posted on September 3, 2013 1 Comment
You’ve probably heard that recruiters hate reading resumes, or are too inundated with them for candidates to really stand out, but that’s not necessarily true. Recruiters hate looking at resumes of unqualified applicants. Any talent acquisition professional doing a search for a hard-to-fill role requiring direct sourcing will tell you that, in fact, finding the perfect resume – or its proximity – is one of the most thrilling parts of the job.
Problem is, it doesn’t happen very often. As far as most line recruiters are concerned, if you don’t look good on paper, you don’t look good for a job, no matter how good a job you’d actually do.
In the Key Of Me (Circa 2006): My First Ever Blog Post
Posted on July 31, 2013 1 Comment
I was doing some digging on the Way Back Machine recently and came across this, my first ever corporate blog post, with the depressing dateline of Thursday, December 16, 2006. That means I’ve actually somehow been doing this closing in on 7 years now, which is simultaneously scary and depressing – much like this post, my first realization that creative writing and corporate America weren’t mutually exclusive concepts.
Because literally hundreds of posts later, my writing style hasn’t demonstratively improved (even if the content itself has increased in sophistication and relevancy). In fact, it’s just become sanitized as B2B blogging has moved from bleeding edge to absolutely ubiquitous – a trend I’ve had to follow, by necessity.
But this existential essay I wrote when I was 24 proves the maxim that not only is youth wasted on the young, but tone, voice and style are all wasted on content marketing. Hope you enjoy this walk down memory lane from way back in the day, when I actually used to look like the guy in the picture on the right.
This post originally appeared on the Kenexa blog, but it’s not there anymore, much like my hairline in aforementioned photo.