Hey Everyone! I’m hosting a webinar courtesy of ERE.net and Jobvite on recruiter branding. You’re probably saying what is “recruiter branding”? For those of you that read my tweets and articles you have probably noticed that I like to make up my own terms and/or create new hybrid buzz words.
Recruiter branding is simply the identity that a recruiter creates in an effort to build a presence, gain credibility, and present a value proposition to the candidates and/or clients they work with.
It is abundantly clear that the “post and pray” and/or job board days have met its maker. It is also clear that recruiters can no longer hide behind the employment brand and rely on that to help them get their jobs done. The age of social media is upon us. Candidates are getting savvy. They will see a job posting and try to find out who the recruiter is behind the job before they research the company for tidbits about how they do business.That means that the recruiter’s brand not the employment brand could affect the candidate’s decision to submit an application to your company.
As such, your online identity and brand as a recruiter becomes extremely important to both your success and the success of the business.
If you are losing your way in this recruitment space or you want to improve by adding some new methods to your toolbox- this is a webinar you won’t want to miss.
Who’s better than you? You just got a snapshot of what I will be covering in the webinar. Want more…see the learning objectives for the webinar below and join meon Wednesday, 10/17 at 2pm.
In this webinar you will learn:
What is a “recruiter brand”?
Why is having a “recruiter brand” important?
What does it mean to build a “consistent and transparent brand”?
How various social media outlets can facilitate recruiter branding
Oh and I am counting on all of you to chat this up on Twitter and the back channel the day of the webinar via TweetChat, SeeSawMe or any other social media platform you utilize. The hashtag is #SoMerecruit. I look forward to speaking with you all virtually.
Learning as we know it in HR is rapidly changing. Gone are the days of physically traveling to a venue to sit in a chair and hear a presentation. Learning and training alike have gone virtual and there is no turning back.
There are few people you can speak to today that aren’t utilizing some form of virtual learning/e-learning. Imagine how many hours away from work, travel expense and the like you or your company would spend in getting you to real-life seminars if there were no webinars. Webinars have transformed the way that we learn and train. Suddenly, we have access whether for free or a nominal free to attend training seminars with key thought leaders from across the globe and learn something new in a lunchtime. It’s brilliant and I don’t know about you, but it is how I am keeping my finger on the pulse of the latest and greatest in HR these days.
Decreased budgets and time constraints are to blame for these novel technologies, but boy are we thankful. Another fairly new trend is the virtual conference concept. I have attended a few in the past, but I recently attended a virtual conference viaHR.com on “Social Media and Employee Communications”. It was for two days from about 10-3:30p.m. each day and chock full of great webcast sessions. There is a networking lounge where you can chat with others. There’s a virtual exhibit hall with vendors you know. You can even drop a business card and be contacted by a representative at the “virtual table”. In addition, they give you a survey at the end that asks you if you wish to be contacted by the speaker and guess what the speakers really reach out to you.
I have not been to too many national conferences, but this is a great way for professionals to get the conference feel of things without spending the $1,800-$2000 for entrance plus lodging and miscellaneous expenses that are inherent in some of the more notable conferences. Another virtual conference innovator isSHRM with the On Demand product. This product brings the national conference to businesses so they can provide access to the sessions to their employees.
Another great tool is podcasts. Whether it is via the radio or video you get anywhere from five minutes up to an hour of targeted learning a specific topic. It is a great way to learn about new tools or trends on the fly.
Last but not least, let us not forget about distance learning as it pertains to obtaining a degree. More than ever, colleges and universities are making their courses and degrees available online with the same world-class professors you get in an actual classroom. HR professionals and professionals in general can do anything from taking a prep course for their PHR to obtaining their master’s degree. There still remains some scrutiny of distance learning and whether it is comparable to being in a classroom. As someone who received all six of her certifications from Cornell’s online ILR school I can tell any naysayers that I worked my natural behind off. It was everything a classroom brings and then some-but truly rewarding.
For those that enjoy teaching there is a new service called Udemy and there are many others out there as well. However, you can create coursework and sell your classes for a price you set. Udemy will kick back a certain percentage of the profits from the class to the virtual teacher. This allows a person to teach what they alike across different disciplines and get paid while doing it.
What’s my point in all of this?
These innovations bring learning and training to HR professionals like never before. Here is where you receive the biggest bang for your buck:
1) Virtual Learning allows your employees to choose what they want to learn therefore making their training and learning personalized.
2) Less money and resources spent in sending a few “key” people to events. Instead you can send everyone to learn because it is virtual so all you have to provide is a computer and the internet and who doesn’t have those these days?
3) It is a way for the company to invest in the employees, but a way for employees to truly own their own development. Virtual Learning makes it fairly easy for anyone to keep up with the goings on in HR.
4)The scrutiny that comes with sitting in a classroom with others is diminished by personalized, targeted coaching and teaching that comes with distance learning. Now you can truly learn at your pace in and in your own way without feeling judged.
5)Bringing in the social! There aren’t too many webinars, webcasts, courses online etc. whereby you don’t make some connection with the speakers or teachers via social media. Virtual Learning plus social media brings greater accessibility to professionals and thought leaders than ever before.
I am not diminishing the positives of sitting in a chair in a classroom, because there are many positives to name. However, tight budgets, decreased resources, less time to dedicate to traveling to a venue make these innovations attractive and I don’t suspect we will see them going anywhere in the future. I look forward to more strides made in this area.
Knowledge is power, but virtual learning is brilliant! Keep learning everyone.
In case you didn’t know from the title today it is the one year blog anniversary for “The Aristocracy of HR”. I am astonished by how the time flew- I guess that’s what happens when you’re having fun. I am in a state of reflection over my journey to this point.
Let me start off by telling you all that this blogging thing was never my style. I saw blogs before last year and I said to myself “who the hell has time for this crap”. I certainly didn’t. It didn’t matter and although I have been revered for years by colleagues, friends and family for having the gift of excellent oral and written skills- I thought who really cares what I think.
Then September of 2011 came and someone from Toolbox from HR reached out to say they liked my tweets and I should consider blogging. I had to ponder on this prospect for awhile (with my conscience telling me I was crazy) but in the end I never back down from a challenge. As such, “The Aristocracy of HR” was born and my penname the “CzarinaofHR” was too. My first article was on HR Technology hence my Futurism of HR Technology series. My first article To Automate or Not Automate… That is the Question debuted and it was a hit; not celeb status but people took a liking to it. Suddenly, I realized there was something to this blogging thing.
I took a moment to think about who this CzarinaofHR was. Did she need to be an alter ego, was she going to be an animated character, or is she me in my finest form? After sometime and a few more successful articles. I realized it is much like the lyrics from Never Change off of Jay-Z’s The BluePrint album: ” I never change this Jay every day.” I’d like to think of it as “I never change I’m just J everyday”
The “CzarinaofHR” is no facade, no fictional character she is everything that I am as a person in business and in life. She and Janine Truitt are one in the same. I am an HR professional who loves HR and its contribution to the world of work and I also loathe it for not practicing what it preaches; we’re getting there, but I digress. It’s a fine line between love and hate my love affair with HR. What I share through this blog is HR and business as I know it.
Beyond the vanity of sharing my stories, I am moved by all of the people that I have connected with (virtually and IRL) via this blog and social media. I have learned so much and been made to feel sane in knowing that I am not alone in the everyday struggles we face as HR practitioners and as everyday people. There have been some hecklers along the way, but I appreciate them too, because they challenge me, my thinking and hold me accountable for what I am saying.
This year has been transformational in ways I couldn’t have imagined. I saw what worked and what didn’t and received many blessings along the way.
Here’s to one solid year of blogging… Enough talk…now let’s party!
I wanted to share the “Never Change” song from Jay-Z but couldn’t find a clean version, so I’m sharing “Change Clothes” which has nothing to do with the theme; but something to know is I love fashion and music and the video says it all. Plus, it’s my blog birthday so I can do what I want! : )
Even with the Labor Department’s announcement of over 163,000 jobs being added to payrolls in July, which is a very small step in the right direction, there is a high unemployment rate, and paradoxically, a qualified candidate shortage. Even with more than eight percent of the labor force being unemployed, and almost double that being underemployed, large companies still have trouble finding quality candidates for their open positions.
Of course, each industry has been affected differently by the recession and the unemployment rate is not uniform along them. But, overall, most large companies in the fields of technology, medicine, retail, entertainment, finance, and insurance are having difficulty finding qualified candidates to fill job openings. The lack of quality talent leads to job openings not being filled for an extensive period of time and therefore greater losses for the companies.
In order for companies to stay ahead of the competition, in their respective industries, innovation, especially in their hiring process, is necessary. Just like candidates looking for jobs must diversify their search, companies too have to adapt to the changes in the recruitment process and use unique approaches to find the ideal candidates.
The new age of hiring has been ushered in by the creation of several online staffing marketplaces. Technology and social networking have revolutionized the HR industry to help companies find quality talent cost and time effectively. Instead of spending time and money trying to find and recruit candidates, companies can enlist staffing marketplaces to do the job for them.
In the past, companies were burdened by the hassle of working with numerous recruiters and suppliers and used valuable time and resources to deal with large amounts of individual paperwork and billing invoices. Recently, there has been an influx of revolutionary HR technology that goes above and beyond the standard realm of staffing. With the introduction of cloud-based technology, companies are now able to streamline the talent acquisition process and allow large companies to deal with only one point of contact for all of their recruitment and hiring efforts. Some websites even offer the option of using them to manage interviews, invoices, project-wise spending reports, hiring history, and background checks.
Independent recruiters, now more than ever, have the ability to grow and promote their own business by using new online staffing solution websites. They can provide them with administrative assistance and ample databases of both employee and employer listings.
Technology has influenced the HR world so profoundly that it is nearly impossible for a company to function successfully without it. The integration of online staffing into the traditional recruitment process is changing the way the HR world operates, resulting in a more streamlined, efficient, and productive industry.
Who’s The Guest Aristocrat?
Rahul Jain is the CEO and Founder of Bitsoft which provides complete staff augmentation solutions to the clients for all their contract and permanent needs. SkillGalaxy, a service of Bitsoft International, is an online staffing marketplace that uses technology and social networking to help companies find and recruit quality candidates.
Contact Information:
Rahul Jain, President and CEO
630-355 8427
Bitsoft International, Inc
2272 W. 95th St.
Naperville, IL-60564, USA
Futurism – what a word. Chock-full of mystery, excitement, intrigue… It promises a world where technological advance triumphs over the status quo. In support of this ideal, humans engage in a relentless pursuit, constantly pushing the technology envelope – learning, inventing, exploring. Case-in-point, NASA’s Mars Exploration Program recently landed a rover named “Curiosity” on the crimson planet. Outfitted with the absolute latest technological innovations, Curiosity’s simple goal is to explore and learn. As fun as it would be to name your next great HR technology project “Curiosity”, most of us do not have this luxury. We can’t afford to pursue technology purely for interest’s sake. We need a more pragmatic approach grounded in clear business outcomes. Given this stated “governor”, what does the future hold for HR technology?
To date a lot of attention has been placed on automation and standardization – driving efficiency by streamlining processes using “best practice”. It has a distinct “Borg-like” feel to it: HR technology designed to pursue an “unemotional, mechanical perfection” controlling individual actions through standardized technology used the same by everyone. This is set to change dramatically. A number of trends are emerging that will transform HR Technology from a “systems-centric” focus to an “employee-centric” focus.
Prolific advances in Internet technologies, mobile devices and social applications are changing the way enterprises engage with and manage their workforce. Employee expectations for enterprise applications are being driven by experiences in the consumer world. Is the system easy to use? Is it engaging and interactive? Is it the trusted source I can use to get answers, connect with my peers and get my job done in a manner that is better than the alternatives? Ultimately, what is the value it presents in my busy day-to-day work?
The next-generation workforce application environment will be a truly unified environment from an employee-centric viewpoint. Applications and functionality will align around the employee’s day-to-day work and the enterprise’s business objectives, not be dictated by the individual tool/application. They will be agile. They will be personalized. They will first consider what the employee is trying to accomplish and then apply the technologies that best support that activity.
In this model, you will start to see a world characterized by:
Just-In-Time Experiences: Role-based hubs delivering just-in-time access to relevant information, system tools/processes, and experts dependent upon the particular job, location or project you will be working on that day.
Next Generation Work Processes: Ask an expert and embedded knowledge centers will be available as you complete work processes. Knowledge, processes, and experts will be continually updated through user-driven social contributions.
Making New Connections: Browse to find colleagues with expertise/interests aligned with a project you will be working on, learn about the person behind the name, start a conversation with someone you haven’t met before, build a personal network, recognize a peer for a job well done. Find previously unknown experts that will be currently available, on-shift and consult with them in real-time.
EasyToUseYetEngaging: Delivering interactive, relevant, and productive experiences without the complexity. A unique combination of the latest technologies creates a new kind of employee experience that isn’t only interactive and engaging but one that also drives adoption and increases productivity for the company.
As my dad likes to say – “The times they are a changing son.” He is right and I can’t wait! My own “Curiosity” is getting the best of me. Who knows – maybe we’ll also find out soon that there was life on Mars.
Who’s The Guest Aristocrat?
Cary Schuler is the Co-Founder and CEO of cfactor Works Inc. (@cfactorworks)
Entrepreneur passionate about leveraging technology to redefine the way companies and their employees interact. Since its founding in 1999, cfactor Works has rapidly expanded its operations, currently serving clients across North America. You can connect with him on Twitter @CarySchuler or on LinkedIn.
*The Aristocracy of HR” does not endorse the product/company listed above. This guest post is purely for informational purposes.
Hey #HR Aristocrats! This is more of a “coming attractions” preview than one of my usual blog posts.
There are lot of exciting things coming out of “The Aristocracy of HR” and I want you to hear it here. First, let’s talk about Technology and more importantly HR Technology.
Technology has been and will continue to be the primary and most important driver of innovation. It is changing the way we do business, the way we communicate, the way we see the world, and more importantly the world of work. It is a game changer and/or a change agent.
HR Technology is a niche within this vast world of technology, but an important player. The importance of this duo is HR too is a game changer/change agent or at least that is where I think HR needs to be to be an effective entity (separate conversation), but I digress. HR the commander and advocate of human capital married to Technology the overarching and supreme change agent is transformational.
As such, I am kicking off this series of guest posts from fellow HR Tech Enthusiasts which will end with a post from me on “The Futurism of HR Technology”. Sounds cool… right?
According to Merriam-Webster, Futurism has two meanings:
1) A movement in art, music, and literature begun in Italy about 1909 and marked especially by an effort to give formal expression to the dynamic energy and movement of mechanical processes
2) A point of view that finds meaning or fulfillment in the future rather than in the past or present
The first definition doesn’t begin to move me until you get to the part about “dynamic energy and movement of mechanical processes”–powerful! Then I move to the second definition and there you have it “meaning or fullfillment in the future rather than in the past or present”– uber powerful!
This series was created to explore not where we have been (maybe we can take a short glimpse) but where is the marriage of HR Tech is taking us.
“The Aristocracy of HR” is a society that I envision as having the HR’s best and brightest at the helm doing HR as it ought to be. As such it is only right that I take a moment to tell the world that the HR society as we know it is shifting. The best is yet to come and it is coming via “HR Technology”.
I hope you will tune in and help me celebrate my one year blog anniversary on Thursday, September 13th. More to come on new ventures and also some posts in between on what this past year has taught me as a new blogger.
Dosvidan’ya for now! That’s goodbye in Russian! ; )
