Amitai Givertz’s Recruitomatic Blog

Avatar

A Contrarian View of Life in the Recruitosphere

Do You Swear to BS, the Whole BS, and Nothing but the BS, So Help You Blog?

Some books are simply indispensable. One such classic is How to Lie with Statistics by Darrell Huff. I have had one of the over million copies sold on my desk since I first acquired a tatty secondhand paperback  in 1978. Of course, that’s when content was king and influence was measured in royalties, reprints and guest appearances on the Russell Harty Show.

I was reminded of what a useful reference that book is when I happened on Social Media Saturday: Who Are The HR Bloggers? posted by Laurie Ruettimann on her blog,  The Cylindrical Girl.

Social Media Saturday: Who Are The HR Bloggers? features an infographic that visualizes a survey of HR bloggers, presumably those listed in the day’s prior post  Ultimate HR/Career Blog List for 2011: V3.0.

Credit goes to Ms. Ruettimann’s lucky intern, comrades in marketing at Starr Tincup, for an otherwise delightfully decorative piece. And full props to Ms. Ruettimann for filing both posts under General Nonsense, even if it is, as seems to be the case, her popular site’s default category.

Read the rest here »

Meaning and Data in the Social Web | HRExaminer

In the hopes that it may give pause for thought, a selection of notes taken from phone conversations with John Sumser. The social web was our topic de jour.

1. Data? What data?

It can be difficult to make sense of the data that gets reported under “Social Media.” Harder still, accepting it could be useless in the context of traditional HR metrics, or under any circumstances, come to think it. Teasing intelligence from a new data set can leave one befuddled. Correlating things like “authority,” “increased awareness” “mentions,” and “sentiment” to the traditional metrics like time-to-fill and cost-per-hire may not only be a challenge of Rubik proportions, but ultimately an exercise in futility.

Read the rest here »

Reflective HR: Why Split Hairs When the Difference Will Do?

Recruitopian Footnotes [April 7, 2011]

  1. Can you tell the difference between a) a donkey and a horse; and b) a candidate and an applicant? Calling all readers, Sharlyn Lauby — The HR Bartender — needs you!
  2. Are recruiters idiots? Candidates say, “Yes,” applicants say, “No.” Suzanne Lucas — Evil HR Lady — says, “Maybe.” And what say you?
  3. If 84% of employees are looking to change jobs I think we can safely say that employers’ retention policies may need updating, don’t you? “Fire the manager with the lowest retention” and other let-me-eat-my-arm morsels – in a beautifully bound eBook — courtesy of Ben Eubanks — upstartHR. Whatever…

“Small Worlds” Thinking: Breakin’ Down the Talent Pools by Josh Letourneau | Fistful of Talent

Need some Recruiting & Sourcing Juice to get you going these days? Feel like you’re connecting with lots of people in the Talent Pool, but they’re not yielding the information you’d like (referrals, intel, leads, “word on the street”, etc.)? Perhaps it’s time to step back and think about the structure of the Talent Pool itself . . .

Read the rest here »

Social Media Reconsidered (Again) by John Sumser | HRExaminer

When I got home from the TRULondon conference (more about that later), I discovered that my son had terminated his Facebook account. I was surprised by the level of concern I felt. Cut off from the constant flow of information bits about his life, I felt worry and sense of loss.

Ray’s patterned release of status updates gave me the feeling of being clued in. The dribs and drabs of online small talk were a convenient substitute for real connectedness. The mere threat of losing that connection created a palpable fear in my heart.

Right there, after my parental instinct to fix something, was a series of surprising insights.

Read the rest here ».

Continue