Jason Blais: From the Recruiting Front Lines

Your key to career success!

Best Practices Roundtable Discussion

• Screening and Selection – Improving the quality of new hires.
• Leave Integration – Tracking leaves and integration of benefits.
• Compensation for Performance – Increases based on merit in the current market.

Join us for this informative session with seasoned HR professionals helping each other to
develop strategies in each of three challenging areas.  NHRA-NH takes its monthly program
meeting “On the Road” in October, traveling to the seacoast area; note location below.

The session is designed to provide insights and to have attendees work together in sharing
ideas and strategies in Screening and Selection, Leave Integration, and Compensation for
Performance.  Several seasoned HR professionals will provide an overview in each area
then the group will have a working discussion, and we will close the session with an open
forum on best practices.  This will certainly be one of the best meetings we have planned
this year and we invite not only HR practitioners to attend, but also their internal business
partners that would like to develop their skill competencies in each of these areas.

Bring your questions, challenges, ideas, and working strategies to share with each other in a
supportive manner.  You do not have to be a member of NHRA to attend, as our meetings
generally draw both members and non-members.  We look forward to your attendance.

Monday, October 19, 2009
Courtyard Marriott Portsmouth
1000 Market Street Portsmouth, NH
Registration: 5:30 p.m.
Dinner and Business Meeting: 6:00 p.m.
Program: 7:00 – 8:00 p.m.
Members & Students: $25
Non-Members: $35
To Register, contact Kathleen McDonnell – phone 603-801-8377 or go to:
http://www.humanresources.org/events_main/cfm

…SOCIAL MEDIA HAS LANDED IN MAINE!… And it was ushered in by the who’s who of the industry along with a couple hundred people hoping to catch a glimpse of the new being, and, if possible, learn more about it.

Hosted at the University of Southern Maine’s Portland Campus, SocialMediaFTW was a smashing success, selling out in advance, and packing the breakout sessions as people flocked to this conference to figure out how their business could benefit from social media engagement.  SocialMediaFTW (or #ftw09 the official twitter hashtag) was the brain child of Rich Brooks, Chrystie Corns, and Jaica Kinsman- three early adopters of social media in Maine, and all with tremendous professional experience.

I was called by Rich a couple months back, and asked to present a session on Using LinkedIn for Business.  I had a terrific time, and was glad to see a packed room.  In fact, I believe nearly all of the 12 different breakout sessions were at or near capacity. A true testament to the interest and engagement created by this new media.

Here are some of the quick thoughts I came away with from this event:

• 45 minutes per session wasn’t enough time to teach or learn about any single subject area.
• The variety of programs offered was excellent and covered a truly thorough view of social media for business.
• I LOVE presenting live at conferences much more than presenting via webinars!
• While the content helped build interest, some presenters were clearly trying only to generate leads for their businesses.
• Just because someone’s a genius in their field, they don’t automatically qualify as a great presenter.
• Of the presentations I saw, there was a good mix of basic and mid level education going on. (hard to do high level in this time frame with such a varied audience)
• There truly was something for everyone.
• The networking time was effective, and a great way to actually meet some of those folks I only knew through social networks!

In closing, I left the conference very excited and optimistic about the growing engagement of these new media outlets across all types of businesses here in Maine.  From my experience, the internet and these types of platforms are actually much more relevant and important in states where the population is spread out.  Maine, and NH and VT for that matter, are all laggard adopters of new technologies and trends, so I’m glad to see we’re finally jumping on to this ship, so we can all rise with the tide.
Want more on the conference?  Click here for the dialogue regarding #ftw09 on Twitter.

As I mentioned in my earlier post from the ere.net expo and the IAEWS Annual Member Congress, I will be writing 7 posts in 7 days related to those events.  This is the first of these seven.

One of the primary topics for discussion at the Annual Member Congress of the International Association of Employment Websites (IAEWS) was how social media growth is affecting the “job board” industry.  In fact, of the seven seminar topics presented, social media was an integral piece of four of them, and was touched upon in two others.  Just by virtue of the floor time devoted to this topic, it’s pretty clear this is a major issue, and one that many people in my industry are worried about.

Ultimately, the question comes down to this: Will social media platforms cause the demise of internet job boards. Put another way, are internet job boards dying?  I won’t keep you in suspense- the answer to those questions is a resounding NO.  And that’s not just my opinion as a director with an internet recruiting resource.  Honestly, that’s merely the conclusion I come to no matter how many ways I roll this around in my head.  Thinking critically, it just doesn’t make sense.

Shannon Seery Gude, VP-Digital for the Bernard Hodes Group provided the keynote presentation, and talked at length about effective online reputation management.  Gude provide many well-referenced stats on the growth of social media, but also shared excellent insight to why job boards are getting a bad rap.  It was her position that this industry doesn’t have enough of a voice online.  In this day and age, people learn by searching on Google and other search engines.  While many people post rants about the “death of job boards”, nearly everyone doing so has a vested interest in this position- such as 3rd party recruiters, resume distribution platforms, or recruitment ad agencies.  Gude’s advice?  Engage in this new media.  Generate content in social networks and in blogs, which are both highly indexed by search engines, and tell the positive stories and real world results being achieved through recruitment advertising on internet job boards.

A committee assembled by the IAEWS also provided a preview of a Future of the Industry report they are assembling.  As you’d expect, this report revealed the underlying fear that our industry is in danger.  It also illustrated just how much time, effort, and resources are being allocated in the job board sector to adapt to social media.

One of the most compelling presentations came from Chris Forman, CEO of AIRS.  If you get a chance to listen to this guy, or work with him, I’d suggest you take it.  He came across as smart, well read, thoughtful, and able to utilize his critical thinking skills to postulate plausible assumptions about the future of social media and recruiting.  As Forman points out, we can’t deny the growth of social media, nor can we ignore the power of social network platforms.  From his research, he shared this staggering statistic- in 2008, one in eight marriages were between people who met in social media.

That being said, Forman also believes that this growth provides great opportunities for job boards to increase market share, and develop better tools and services.  One of the most poignant comments he shared, was that HR tends to be a risk averse department, and this quality will help shield recruitment and job boards from social media intervention, giving us time to develop new ways to integrate.

Getting back to my initial statement, that social media won’t supplant job boards, nor will job boards simply cease to exist, many of the thoughts and concerns were aired during group sessions, where the members were asked to participate in a group dialogue.  When our group looked at how our industry, and our services are viewed, there seemed to be a wide variety of perceptions.  While most agreed that there was a perception that job boards were becoming outdated, it was widely agreed that at the end of the day, these services work.  And they don’t just work for the employers who pay to advertise, but they also work for the job seekers who use them to find work.  This is what any good service, product, or industry hopes to achieve- Pervasive Customer Satisfaction.

When you really begin to break it down, job seekers will always need to know where to look to find volumes of job opportunities.  While it’s great, and imperative, for companies to post jobs on their own site, it simply wouldn’t be plausible for job seekers to have to search for jobs company by company.  Additionally, not all businesses hire computer savvy individuals, and literally millions of job openings are still coming from very small businesses, and for jobs that are non-technical.  The employers are far less likely to invest the time and resources to create career centers on their own sites.  Likewise, most small businesses will NEVER have the time to search through social networks, seeking out one resume at a time.  While I am certain that this type of activity will grow for employers who employ full time recruiting departments, it simply doesn’t work for the more than 70% of employers who are considered small businesses.

So, as I mentioned, when you begin to look at the job search / job advertising relationship critically, and break down the behaviors, drivers, and demographics of the users, it’s very hard to come to any other conclusion.  Internet job boards have proven to be an excellent use of technology, that provide value to both job seekers and employers.  While all businesses and industries evolve over time, when something makes this much sense, and is this easy to use, it’s here to stay.

Title: SocialMediaFTW
Location: University of Southern Maine, Portland, ME
Link out: Click here
Description: I’m very excited to announce that I’ll be presenting at this workshop!

About Social Media FTW

Social Media FTW is the brain child of Rich Brooks, Chrystie Corns & Jaica Kinsman. As local organizers of the monthly Maine Tweetups and Social Media Breakfasts, the three saw a need for more social media education for small business owners, professional marketers and enterprise level executives. The Social Media FTW group aims to bring industry leading Social Media speakers, networking events and educational classes to Northern New England.

The Social Media FTW Conference will include sessions taught by industry leaders in social media, blogging, podcasting, branding, internet marketing and so much more. This half-day conference promises to deliver hands-on help for those who are new to Social Networking as well as higher level strategy sessions for those already involved in Social Marketing efforts. Register today to attend the Social Media FTW Conference.
Start Time: 12:30 PM
Date: 2009-09-23