Apr 21, 2008
Okay, call me old-fashioned, a stickler if you like, but I happen to think publishing in the recruiting space comes with some social and corporate responsbilities. Don’t you?
While Jobster still has employees on the payroll it would serve their brand — not to mention Recruitopians and the community at large – if someone took a moment to monitor who is submitting what on Recruiting.com. Today, Filipino Hot Babes, tomorrow what – incest, donkey-love?
Anyone who has a blog knows that there is some horrible stuff that seaps through the sewage pipes. Suppressing the spammers is a tiresome job but it comes with the territory. Sure, it starts with something innocuous but quickly spirals down from exotic teapots to erotic sex-pots, and from chai in Calcutta to tarts in Thailand.
Who is monitoring Recruiting.com’s content, Jobster’s brand?
For what it’s worth, my advice to the now faceless Recruiting.com suits: Keep it clean. Remember, no brand was served well by treating its audience with contempt any more than the cause of Web 2.0 and the values on which Jobster was supposedly built is served by turning over the space to new levels of wrecklessness.
Apr 5, 2008
I learned yesterday that John Sumser will be vacating the Editor’s desk at Recruiting.com. His going — timed for early May — will mark the closing of another chapter in this seminal site’s interesting history, perhaps the closing of the book.
At this point I have to ask: “Who cares?” John’s throw-away remark at the end of the Recruiting Animals’ Morning After Show referencing his exit suggests he may feel the same way. Who knows? For sure, for those who look within the Recruitosphere’s publishing clique for amusement it will be amusing in the coming weeks, no doubt.
To my own pathethic contribution…hmmm. Recruiting.com has been an interesting place for me to experiment with a number of ideas some of which fizzled out, some of which sputtered along and some of which remain open-ended.
Moving forward, I shall simply plug my Bunsen into the new mixture of gas and hot air on RecruitingBlogs.com, the combustible bloggy-ning thing where I now spend my early mornings. Like you perhaps?
Ah, Recruitopia…doesn’t it just make you sick?
Apr 3, 2008
Mommy! Mommy! Come quickly, Daddy’s blogging again!
Is Twitter naff?
Now, c’mon kids, how hard was that?
Mar 17, 2008
Well, it would be bad sport for me not to at least recognize paidContent.org’s headline having been one of the early adopters of Jobster-related content for a little SEO lift.
With the company’s likely implosion at hand, better to make hay while the sun shines, don’t ya fink?
But then again, hold on — I’m in stealth mode! Am I really ready to start drawing attention to myself?
And what about my beloved Recruiting.com, Jobster’s love-child? We don’t want to tick off the new sugar-daddy, do we?
Feb 15, 2008
Here are the slides from my presentation for the Human Capital Institute and the first in their Talent Acquisition Learning Track which is sponsored by Trovix.
I am answering some of the questions from attendees here, in the comments. Feel free to chip in.
Don’t miss Jim Durbin and his webcast Talent Scouting and Social Networking: The New Employee Referral Program on Tuesday, February 19th, also for HCI. Register here…
Jan 3, 2008
And another in the series, Food for Thought
I remember many years ago when subliminal advertising was being used for the first time, at least that we knew of, there was a hullabaloo about it in the U.K. when I was growing up. The concern was this Kremlin-inspired technique was nothing more than a cynical attempt to take over the minds of Coronation Street’s already gullible audience. Right, as if.
Around the same time there was a stink because James Bond [himself!] was kowtowing to big business buying into their latest subliminal ploy, product placement. James Bond as our poster boy for fast cars and hard liquor was consistent with the image of the cold-war lady-killer but pushing product? No, no — it was un-British.
I guess at some point someone should have pointed out that any form of advertising that works below our normal levels of consciousness runs the risk of being viewed by the unwitting as suspect. It hardly matters if the message comes and goes in the blink of an eye or is unobtrusive in other ways, the intent is the same — to influence the subject’s behavior whether they become aware of it or not. Outrageous, huh? The lengths we’ll go to…I mean, really!
Anyway, somewhere between the idea of being able to control feeble minds and getting blotto in the back of a Bentley I made the juvenile decision to enter into the glamorous world of advertising. It was either that or become an MI6 operative, working undercover.
Ahem…
Read the rest here »
Jan 1, 2008
I thought Lou Adler’s recent post Why You Must Eliminate Job Descriptions was interesting, didn’t you? You did read it, right?
I know I shouldn’t generalize but I can’t help myself in pointing out that readers of online recruiting stuff fall into one of three categories:
- The first are those who scan the content, hardly pay attention to it and leave feeling that they have just made an earnest attempt to improve their effectiveness as recruiters. In so doing, they believe they actually have;
- The second are those who read the content and decide as a result to act on it — invariably doing nothing;
- Third are those who mean to read their favorite gurus, get distracted and never come back, missing something that might help them become more successful — like understanding why we get distracted in the first place.
Read the rest here »
Dec 31, 2007
I enjoyed listening to John Sumser in the Recruiters Lounge this week, stumping for the Recruiting Roadshow. I think the Recruiting Roadshow is a brilliant idea and all for a good cause. It will be interesting to watch how things roll out in 2008. I hope that I have been helpful in some small way getting the thing in motion.
On the same day Jim Stroud posted his interview with Sumser, Shally Steckerl posted his reflections on his year doing the conference thing, linking to one of the posts I wrote on the subject: From the Frontlines to the Home Front: A Different Kind of Conference!
The lessons learned form all this? Well, altogether too many for a quick missive but the most important lesson was maybe this:
Those of “us” who are bound by the niceties of political association, cliquey affiliation, fat-cat business, product to push, thought-bleedership, social status, blogebrity or whatever — those of us who collectively make up the industry’s self-appointed infrastructure — need to get out more. There is nothing quite like seeing 98% of a Roadshow audience — representative of the local recruiting community — bemused by talk of the social networks, blogging and search engine stuff to put things in perspective. Video resumes? Give me a break! Skype? Isn’t that a skin disease?
In a hard, hard world where people still run help-wanted classifieds and equate sourcing with Monster page views some of us could do a lot worse than get to know the people who we are supposed to be serving, then actually serve them — why not?
Lesson learned? Hit the road, Jack — or whatever your name is!
Dec 27, 2007
Read my take for the coming year just published by ZoomInfo…
Amitai offers a different take, predicting that early adopters of social media for recruiting will remain in the minority. Too few frontline recruiters will risk the perils of transparency in corporate environments that need to mitigate risk and innovation and apply bottom-line metrics instead. As the economics of recruiting come under closer scrutiny with a softening economy and an inability to quantify the ROI on social media, there will be a slowdown in the rate of adoption by recruiters.
Read the rest here »
Dec 24, 2007
Well, its Christmas Eve. It seems everyone is at home googling this and googling that.
A larger number of visitors than usual are flocking to this ever so ‘umble blog today. To read my learned works? Nah, its that Kingsbury fellow!
Being a contrarian has historically been a mixed career move. On one hand, it may get a statue put up in your honor. On the other hand, it will likely be erected on the spot where you were hanged, drawn, and quartered before a cheering crowd of thousands.
Bah, humbug!
