Jobs in Pods Blog

Bill Vick of Xtremerecruiting is doing some cool interviews with industry execs. This one should be of particular interest to our readers. It features Shannon Seery of Bernard Hodes and she dishes the dirt on social media recruiting.

(We tried to post the video here but had some technical problems)

Yesterday we discovered an ad on Facebook that piqued our interest. McDonalds has a new recruitment campaign. Here’s a quick screen shot. See the page.

It’s a rather long fan page with a story about an employee and a call to action to “Search Careers Now“. There is no wall to make comments so this page is clearly designed to drive traffic to McDonalds.com to apply. They currently have over 1,000 fans. Check out some other facebook recruiting tips.

NOTE: it is very likely that this page was created by their ad agency and they paid to sponsor it throughout Facebook.

LinkedIn, the “business social network” with over 20 million members is now offering profiles for companies.

For employers this is good news as it makes your company more transparent and gives job hunters a unique peek inside whats happening at your company. The new profile page shows;

• all the employees at your firm who are part of LinkedIn
• recent promotions and changes
• most popular (on LinkedIn)
• key company contact info/stats
• related blogosphere coverage

Its still in Beta right now but we hear they will be adding even more features such as letting you adding content (i.e. videos, etc) in the coming weeks. Just as job hunters must create a digital trail online so too must companies.

Here’s a video about the new features.

Social media blogger Shel Israel has a great post on the effects of social media on HR. We couldn’t have said it better ourself.

Social Media can put a whole lot more humanity into that which we call Human Resources. On both sides, people can use it to show who they are, which, in the end, may be more valuable than just show what they’ve done and what skills the job entails. Instead of filling slots, recruiters can start having conversations with team members. All sorts of relevent information can be shared. For example, video tours of neighborhoods where employee families live, including local parks, schools, summer arts festivals.

Ultimately, social media can not only restore the humanity to human resources. It can make the entire recruiting-hiring process a more accurate matchup at lower cost. Why would any company not move in this direction?

Why indeed.

Missed yesterday’s Social Media Recruiting Show? Listen to it here. We had a terrific conversation with Dennis Smith of Wirelessjobs.com about the ins and outs of recruiting blogs.

Here’s the first show.

My Odeo Channel (odeo/20f1aba306d40866)

On the 2nd installment of the Social Media Recruiting Radio Show Ben Yoskovitz and I will be talking about recruiting blogs with Dennis Smith of WirelessJobs.com. We’ll get the inside scoop on one of the most successful recruitment blogs on the web and take your calls.

Listen online at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/SocialMediaRecruiting

Got a question for Dennis? Email them to chris [at] jobs in pods dot com or call in during the show at (347) 945-5971.

There are now 2 new reasons to put your recruitment videos on Youtube.

1. YouTube has announced that they have launched an API that allows website owners to broadcast video content free of charge, through their own sites – a move essentially putting the company in the free hosting bracket.  

Companies will be able to make their players “branded” as their own, and through the use of skins, appear proprietary. According to the Google website, YouTube’s API enables users to “upload new videos, edit video metadata such as comments and favorites and modify user settings”. In addition, the client application “can request a list of videos that match specific search criteria, get access to the most popular YouTube videos or retrieve and maintain YouTube user information such as playlists, subscriptions or contacts”. 

This means your corporate career site can now host the video on Youtube and expose the video to your audience and Youtube’s in one fell swoop.

2. Integration with TiVo.  This makes Youtube videos open to a wider audience.

TiVo Inc., largely responsible for the creation and popularization of digital video recorders (DVRs), will be adding direct access to YouTube videos via TiVo later this year. TiVo users will be able to search, browse, and watch videos on their television sets through their broadband connected TiVo DVRs.

“TiVo’s strategy is to bridge the gap between Web video and television and make as much content available as possible for our subscribers,” Tara Maitra, vice president and general manager for content services for TiVo, told  the NY Times.

We have discovered 2 pieces of media which every recruiter MUST consume if they want to adopt and promote social media in their own company.

The first is a video from Jeremiah Owyang, Forrester Analyst.

Video: Len Devanna on Culture Changes how Corporations Adopt Social Media (3min)

In it Len Devanna, Web Strategist at EMC says the following on getting executive buy-in:

“How are your kids communicating? Are they talking online? Are they twittering? And that generally rings true, that this medium is real…its here to stay and the current generation coming up expects it from a company.”

The second item is a podcast from the Marketing Edge. Its even more revealing than the first.

The social mind of a corporate marketer

In it, Chris Barger, a Social Media Strategist for IBM/GM says this about the ROI of social media:

“This is a relationship building process, sales happen as part of a larger relationship and thats what blogging, podcasting and online social media was intended to do.”

Interviewer Albert Maruggi’s reaction to the above statement is priceless. There is no better explanation of what social media is and is not in this interview.

We’d like to welcome the newest Jobcaster to the Jobs in Pods team. Sarah Rourke is a UK podcaster who will be bringing her unique voice (and lovely accent) to the world of Jobcasting.

BIO: A trained broadcast journalist, Sarah Rourke has worked in both commercial and BBC radio, starting her broadcasting life in her native North of England before venturing to London to work in production at the BBC World Service. After leaving the BBC Sarah qualified as a coach and now combines her journalism and production experience with her coaching skills. She now runs her own company,Audio Pod Artist, which helps solopreneurs and businesses to get their voices into the heads of their prospective clients via podcasting and web audio.

There has been an explosion of articles in the mainstream press and blogosphere about utilizing social media to recruit. Here are some of the best.

Innovation: Corporations Embrace Social Networking (Foxnews)

Recruiting and social media (Powerpoint presentation from Organic)

Companies recruiting through social networks

Recruiting through social media

Social Media & its Impact on Online Recruitment- revolution or fad? (OnRec)

10 Social Media Tactics for Finding Talent