Chris Hoyt on using social media to recruit

At last weeks Social Recruiting conference in California, our founder Chris Russell had a chance to interview AT&T’s Director of Talent Attraction. Check out this 5 minute podcast and pay close attention to the last 2 questions about using social media to recruit. You can check out Chris at recruiterguy.net.

Download MP3 >>

Do you know the way to san jose?

We’re hopping on a plane tomorrow to attend monday’s Social Recruiting Conference at Google HQs in Mountain View California. The conference is being put on by ERE Media and promises to be an exciting event about the world of social media recruiting.

The event is sold out but you’ll be able to watch a lot of it on the internet via live stream. Watch it here.

This blog was one of the first ever resources for learning about how to use social media to recruit. The dawn of this kind of conference is further proof that social media is a viable recruiting/branding tool.

And remember folks, its not about posting jobs…its about communicating with your candidates.

San Jose here we come.

Quick update on podcast stats

We sat in on the ADM (Association of Downloadable Media) webinar last week entitled “The Podcast Consumer Revealed-2009“. It was a terrific look at whats happening in the podcast space. Three numbers in particular caught our eyes ears. This infomation is especially relevant to those who podcast and those who listen.

43% of Americans have ‘heard’ of podcasting.

22% of Americans have listened to a podcast online.

27 million Americans have listened to a podcast in the past month.

These numbers represent strong growth for the iPod crowd and their ear buds. ADM also announced that podcast listeners are online 7 hours more than the average consumer.

So if you podcast, they will listen.

Give us a call now to start podcasting your jobs. 203-572-2053.

The entire presentation is available for replay by clicking here.

For information about the Association for Downloadable Media visit them at http://www.downloadablemedia.org.

What is podcasting?

Podcasting is simply internet radio (or video) on demand. But we like what 6 year old Emily has to say about it.

So c’mon, lets podcast your jobs. Give us a call at 203-572-2053.

Recruiters should take cue from Obama’s social media strategy

Attention recruiters! Take a look at how the Obama Administration is using social media to communicate with people.

Recruiters and employers everywhere should be establishing their own communication points on these sites in order to communicate with prospective candidates. And we do mean communicate. Social media after all is a two-way street.

Podcast audience up 22% over last year

Podcasting continues to make strides among users according to a new report by Edison Research.

Edison’s study, “The Infinite Dial 2009” (pdf) details how we listen and watch online radio/video offerings, including podcasts.

There were two particular finding from our point of view;

1. Portable Media Players. More than four in ten people (42%) own an iPod, iPhone, or other kind of portable media/mp3 player, and among the 12 – 44 year-old crowd, that percentage jumps to above 50 percent. The “key radio demographic” of 35-to 54-year-olds are becoming more frequent online radio listeners.

2. Podcast Audience. Forty-three percent of Americans are aware of podcasts, up from 37% last year. Twenty-two percent of Americans have ever listened to a podcast (up from 18% in 2008), and approximately 27 million (or 11%) have listened to one in the past month (up from 9% last year).

Twitter recruiting tips

Recruiters are getting ga-ga over twitter when it comes to recruiting. We just came across an article about how one company, Organic, is using twitter to lessen their reliance on job boards.

They started by: “We held a “Twitter Twaining” with our recruiters, introducing them to capabilities of the network, along with helpful accompanying apps and instruction on how to search for key talent. They ran with it, and in a short time, Twitter has become the anchor of Organic’s job-posting strategy.”

Postings on job boards now account for only one-quarter of their efforts. Of course it helps when 30% of their employees on on Twitter, but most giant conglomerates dont have the courage to encourage this kind of activity.

Here are their best twitter recruiting tips:

1. Create a branded company Twitter profile. Assign a key person — or automate tweets — to post jobs as they become available.

2. Don’t be a Twitter wallflower. Engage in conversation.

3. Create a protocol for your job Tweets. Consider searchability by using hash marks (#) around key words. Include a trackable URL.

4. Help your search by using a third-party tool such as TweetBeep.

5. Encourage your staff to retweet job openings by providing an incentive such as a referral bonus for candidates sourced through tweeting. (we love this one)

6. Don’t be a one-track tweeter. Be varied and creative in your approach. To keep it real and not boring or spamlike.

Click here to read entire post.

Social recruiting conference

We just heard about a social recruiting conference taking place at Google in June. Not many details yet. According to the website, SocialRecruiting.com – June 15th. Looks like ERE has some involvement.

http://twitter.com/socrecruiting

Podcast audience increasing

eMarketer is reporting today that the audience for podcasts will grow from 9% to 17% by 2013. They define this as:

“As a percentage of Internet users, podcast downloaders will grow from 9% in 2008 to 17% in 2013.”

“eMarketer projects that growth will continue at least through 2013, when there will be 37.6 million people downloading podcasts on a monthly basis, more than double the 2008 figure of 17.4 million.”

Check out the article.

Plaxo & SimplyHired get into social media recruiting

First Linkedin got a job board and now Plaxo, the social network contact management site has one too. This one is powered by SimplyHired. Its an interesting move to tap into one’s “social network” through your contacts on Plaxo.

Here’s the meat of the recent press release:

Plaxo members will now be able to use their social connections and Simply Hired’s comprehensive database of 5 million listings to find their dream job or to efficiently find great candidates for their own postings. Simply Hired is powering a new job portal for members and visitors to Plaxo at http://jobs.plaxo.com/.

“In the current macroeconomic climate, we felt Plaxo could and should do more to help our members connect with relevant career opportunities,” said Ben Golub, CEO of Plaxo. “So we partnered with the largest job search engine, Simply Hired, to help us create an innovative offering that brings a strong social dimension to both finding and filling a job.”

Plaxo members in the United States will now see a new Jobs section on Plaxo.com, where hiring managers and recruiters can post new job listings, and where job seekers can browse or search postings from across the Simply Hired network. In a unique twist, jobs posted on Plaxo are turbo-charged with the “social power” of the poster’s extended network. They can be shared, re-shared, and commented upon, like any other shared content on Plaxo. In addition, Plaxo members will start to occasionally see highly targeted job listings in their Pulse stream, based on the professional info on their profiles.