Category: Recruitment

TruLondon 4 and Finding the Pain

I enjoyed attending TruLondon 4 this week. My employer, Jobsite, is the platinum sponsor of these events, which are put together by the illustrious Bill Boorman.

This isn’t a typical ‘dry’ conference. Instead, it is run as an Unconference. The different ‘tracks’ are predicated around audience participation instead of one person lecturing the others. After all, everyone has their different area of expertise to bring to the table. Names badges are banned! (Although some sidestepped this issue with cunningly customised T-shirts…)

I led a track on ‘Future Recruiting Technology’. This touched on elements ranging from technology which is emerging now to just where things could be going further into the future. I was particularly interested in finding out where the ‘pain’ was in terms of both candidates and recruiters. After all, all the technology in the world is not going to achieve anything unless it is meeting the actual needs of those using it! I am also keen on the point that if technology doesn’t feel like magic, it is doing it wrong. This is important as we move further towards the domain of semantic search: We don’t want users to realise it is happening because it is so accurate and targeted. If they become aware of the wizard behind the curtain, more work needs to be done.

Equally, the whole recruitment process still needs fixing. There is still this culture clash where candidates get annoyed with recruiters not responding to them (a form of passive rejection). Also, fake or incomplete job adverts. At the same time, recruiters need to protect their interests by hiding who the true employer is, so that competitors don’t go wading in. Or do they? How can we reconcile the two? As was commented during the conference, “Stop talking about Recruitment 4.0 until we fix Recruitment 1.0!”

I was really happy at being involved in two video panel discussions, hosted by DeeDee Doke. DeeDee is the editor of Recruiter and does a stunning job as an interviewer of making people feel at ease. That is a wonderful skill to have.

‘Future of Job Boards’:

Watch live streaming video from jobsitetrulondon at livestream.com

‘Attracting Passive Candidates’

Finally, I was nabbed outside by Keith Robinson who asked me to talk a bit about my Systems Architect role at Jobsite. This is always tricky as we are working on a lot of cool stuff and not all of it we are ready to reveal to the public yet (it’s that cool!). I love the brick wall background on this.

The video interviews were a great experience, as was sharing knowledge with old and new faces in and around the recruitment industry. Roll on the next one! (Oh, and losing a bit more weight for the camera, hah!)

Social Media in Recruitment Conference 2010

I was happy to attend the Social Media in Recruitment Conference 2010. As a declaration of interest, I should point out that this was representing Jobsite who were the Gold Sponsor.

I am excited by the potential of social media and communities but this is always tempered with a degree of practicality. This really comes from having grown up since this has developed from scratch so getting a good view of what works and what definitely does NOT work.

First of all, much credit to the organisers as this was a very deftly run event. It was held at the British Library Conference Centre which was very comfortable with a perfect audio-visual setup and excellent catering. You know when an event is well-run when at no point do you really need to think about how it is being run.

So, let’s turn to the different presentations that were given over the day (Note that I did not see all of them due to other networking that came up!)

  • Ariel Eckstein: Strategies for using LinkedIn as part of your online recruitment plans.
    Ariel is an MD within LinkedIn so understandably this presentation only paid lip-service to other ways of recruiting by social media. LinkedIn see themself as catering exclusively to the professional state (Although lots of job boards used to have this view once before becoming more generalist). It was interesting to see the professional services that LinkedIn offer although I felt that the whole thing felt more like a sales pitch than anything else. It is LinkedIn’s API that personally interests me and their plans for this were not really touched on.
  • Andy Headworth: Key strategies for using Twitter effectively in recruitment.
    Twitter and its potential is of particular interest to me. Far too much talk about Twitter is ‘pie in the sky’ and not backed up with any numbers but Andy impressed me with an excellent and balanced presentation. Not only was a case study demonstrated but he freely admitted its flaws (first stage deployment which did not feature engagement) and published the statistics behind it. I will be keeping a keen eye on Andy and what he is up to in the future as a result.
  • Lisa Scales: How online communities can play a part in your attraction strategies.
    A subject close to my heart and I do really like Lisa. There was some good use of slides and a good introduction detailing how humans have ALWAYS been social (required for survival!) and how social media is really just bringing this back to the Internet as some businesses did lose their way. That said, I felt in general the focus and pacing of this presentation did lose its way a little (nervousness?). I would also have much appreciated some firm examples of good (and bad!) community management rather than just a few slides detailing the principles. Lisa clearly loves this subject and I feel could really excel in presenting on it.
  • Elkie Holland: 2009 Social Media Success Stories.
    I really loved this presentation. Why? Elkie appeared genuinely excited with social media and the work that she has done with it. A lot of presentations can be very dry but as the whole point of social media is to be, well, social its nice to see someone enthusing! I would strongly recommend taking a look at what she has been up to.
  • Lucian Tarnowski: Social Media strategies for ‘Generation Y’ job seekers.
    Lucian was an excellent speaker. He particularly stood out as he was the first presenter of the day to actually step out from behind the lectern and command the stage. ‘Generation Y’ can be a bit buzzword-y but this presentation seemed to sidestep that and be genuinely interesting. I particularly liked the phrasing of it being ‘Generation Why’ (e.g. “Why haven’t I been promoted, I’ve been here six weeks!’). Essentially, the generation are used to being successful from Day 1 and so hitting failure in the job market following graduation can take some getting used to. So how to go about capturing them from social media and bridge the gap? Lucian’s company, BraveNewTalent is predicated around that. That said, there was a little heckling during questions about ROI…
  • Peter Gold: How to maximise the use of Facebook pages.
    Two speakers in a row to actually make use of the stage! A practical presentation which featured some good advice. For example, ensuring that the landing page is particularly relevant! Certainly the Facebook pages which have custom graphics and layouts do stand out and will promote much better engagement.
  • Adrian Marlowe (Lawspeed): The legal issues surrounding Social Media and employment.
    This was another presentation that I was particularly looking forward to. After all, a lot does get said about legal concerns with social media. Employees have been sacked as a result of videos and comments posted on web sites. Sometimes these situations have gone to tribunals and they have won! Lots of good pointers but one aspect I particularly remember was concerning checking out job applicants on, say, Facebook. Even though it may be something relevant that stops you progressing further (say, hate speech) the fact that you may have seen sensitive personal information (for example, sexual preference) could be held against you!

    • Overall, this was a good conference. Certainly the organisation was excellent. So too were some of the presentations as described above: It was great to see case studies emerging and actual numbers! I would like to have seen stronger showings on community building though: This is one aspect where real case studies are needed.

    What were your thoughts on the day?

    See also: #SMIR tweets on Twitter.