Who wants to hire me? November 14, 2008

Today marks my last day at Climber.com. It was a good run. I’m thankful for the experience as I learned a TON of information about Search Engine Optimization and how it works, working for a start-up and seeing the pains and pleasures and lastly meeting and learning from the people that I worked with for almost 8 months.

So, now I’m on the market. Should I stay in the Recruitment Communications industry, my ideal position would be within an internal recruiting department to deploy what I’ve been studying, learning, researching and recommending for the past 6 years.

 

I’ve been busy during my off-time doing consulting work for organizations and would love to keep doing this so to not let this knowledge go to waste. If you are interested in hiring me as a consultant, see the information below.

Recruitment Communications Consulting Services:

• Building Social Media into a Recruitment Strategy
• Navigating Interactive Sources/Media Buying
• Strategy Development for Ramp ups
• Improving Employee Communications-development and deployment
• Employment Branding

Feel free to call me to discuss anything you might have for me!

~Kristin Gissaro

904-738-9533

kristingissaro@gmail.com

Are you optimizing your Job Postings? October 8, 2008

It’s funny to me how over the years I’ve noticed when something in the industry becomes a buzzword or hot topic, there seems to be a whole lot of talking and not a lot of doing. For example, Employment Branding took about 5 years for the majority of organizations to get on board with the concept. Then there is the idea of creating or updating Careers Pages…that is still a work in progress, 3 years later.

2008’s buzzword seems to be “Search Engine Optimization“. At my day job at Climber.com, I talk to a lot of recruiters who are ‘kinda-familiar” with SEO, “don’t understand it completely”, “not sure why its necessary” and sure “don’t know how to deploy it”. Yes, some are utilizing SEO vendors to optimize their Career’s page and/or jobs, but the majority are not.

Optimize, optimization, optimal, optimistic. All of these words resemble the same action: to make something better or to desire better.

So why optimize your jobs?

1. The main reason is: To help your jobs, your careers page and/or your recruiting profile all receive a better chance of being found in organic search results, which of course will increase candidate flow and traffic to your jobs and/or careers site.

The other reasons are below:

2. Most job seekers’ first stop for conducting job searches are on search engines, like Google, MSN, or Yahoo. Their next stop, if they are a savvy job seeker, may be Job Board Aggregators like Indeed, Simplyhired and juju. After that it’s usually on to the major job boards. Since the general population is used to ‘googling’ things, (brand name-turned-verb, wonder when it will hit the dictionary?) I’m not surprised at the fact that the word ‘job’ was searched 1.14 billion times during the last month. Most job seekers aren’t typing in just ‘job’ but more specific phrases like, “Accounting Jobs”, which by the way was searched 13.4 million times in the last month.

3. It’s a great way to build Employment Branding Efforts. If you are a small to medium sized organization (aka no name) who has to compete with the larger brand name types for the same talent, then you can’t afford to skip over this buzzword.

4. Passive job seekers typically will ‘google’ a company to see more information about them. But what comes up in the first page or so of search results is key. You want to make sure your Career’s site is right up there with the main url for your page. This gives job seekers a one search, one click trip to your careers page where they can be sold into working for your company.

5. It’s a perfect strategy for keeping your talent pipeline full, ESPECIALLY for organizations who are continually recruiting for the same positions like Salespeople, Customer Service and Nurses. SEO offers a consistent and ongoing way to be in front of the people who are searching for you.

If you’re going to post anything online about the jobs you recruit for, albeit job posting, employment branding video, social networking profile, etc…what good is it if you just post it and hope people find it? You have to make sure it is optimized or it will fall in the big black Internet hole.

Bulletin-Board-type recruitment is loooong gone. It’s now up to you to get your name, your jobs and your brand out there and in front of the right people. So I ask, are you optimizing? If you say no, I want to know, what’s holding you back?

My blog was featured on the top 25! August 25, 2008

My sincere thanks go to the folks at Fistful of Talent for ranking my blog in their top 25 industry blogs. Even better, this list was picked up by US News World & Report! What a nice surprise to wake up to, especially after dealing with Fay! I am honored to be recognized by this site as it is one of the best resources to utilize in our industry. If you’re not reading their blog, sign up now. They put a lot of hard work and effort into bringing out the best content from some of the industry’s most respected individuals.

New Page: Recruitment Video Showcase August 8, 2008

With so much talk about Recruitment 2.0 and 3.0 strategies, I think companies have skipped right over an essential piece that belongs in their recruitment toolbox, The Recruitment Video. Don’t disregard this important piece of communication.

To re-market this tool, I’ve created a page specifically for showcasing Recruitment Videos. Check it out and enjoy!

Recruitment Text Messaging…hmmm June 26, 2008

Think about back to the days of why companies posted their ads in the newspaper. It’s because most everyone read the newspaper. Presently, think about why companies post their jobs online? Because most everyone use the Internet daily. So why use Mobile Media for recruitment? Because almost everyone owns a “mobile” phone.

Let’s face it. In today’s world, we feel naked and helpless without our cell phone. You wouldn’t think twice about going on a road trip without it. I don’t go to the grocery store without it. What if I needed to call home and ask if we were out of paper towels? As people become more dependent and rely on mobile communications in their everyday life, it only makes sense to incorporate this into your recruiting strategy.

There are really two ways of incorporating text messaging into a recruitment strategy. The first is by utilizing a Text and Tag method and the second is by offering automatic Text Alerts.

What about UN-employment Branding? June 20, 2008

Branding is an age old concept.

Coca-Cola’s first ad ran in 1895 stating, “Drink Coke”, Eastman Kodak’s first ad appeared in 1893 and Ford’s first branding campaign was introduced in 1907 with, “Watch the Ford’s go by.”

Our society is used to being sold. And over 100 years later, companies started branding themselves to job seekers.

Especially this day in age, if there is no sales statement, you can bet your product won’t be bought. Whether it is sold by word of mouth advertising or more traditional methods like TV, Radio or Internet, the need for a sales pitch is probably more important to the consumer than it is to the seller.

Any advertising professional will tell you that a good sales pitch is meant to convey what the product is, how it can help you and how it can change your life. When the economy takes a hold of our everyday life, advertising campaigns usually reflect the current situation. For example, car commercials have been rolling around the market stating that their machines are better on gas, especially during this time of economic hardship and high gas prices. Good for them. They took advantage of the situation.

Second Installment to “The Recruiter’s Guide to Navigating Social Media” June 5, 2008

Now that you have your web of social media networks down and you know which ones will provide the most value, it is time to start connecting and communicating.

1. Take one hour per day to log in to your networks and connect. Your time should be spent on connecting with individuals who can provide you some sort of return for your time investment.

2. If they themselves are qualified for your position, send them a position overview and invite them to check out your posting on your career site. 

3. Ask these qualified candidates to refer their friends in the industry who may be qualified to either join your network on that site or to provide you with their contact information so you can then send the job directly to these people.

4. Build your network with only people who provide quality to you. Don’t waste your time on growing your network with bodies. Build your network with quality, not quantity. 

5. Utilize your profile on each of these sites to communicate your employment branding messaging. Keep it up to date, post any press releases or company events to give candidates a real view into the organization. 

More to come! 

The Beginning Recruiter’s Guide to Navigating Social Media May 22, 2008

In developing my guide to navigating through social media, I thought I would offer a couple of tips today to get you started.

First you have to get organized. 

When utilizing social media for recruitment and retention, it is easy to get lost amidst a plethera of networks. Navigating through this ‘web’ of resources can be daunting. Where do you start? If you look at a spider’s web, there is no end and no beginning. However, there is a center and a perimeter with different levels within. Applying this thought process to navigating through Social Media can help organize and develop your strategy. Utilizing this tool can also help you manage what sites you are on, hold your Username and Password for each as well as keep you focused on which to use the most.

Here’s the Process:

1. Print out a spider’s web. I’m serious. 

2. Put yourself in the middle, you’re the spider.

3. In the first level closest to you, write in the sites you utilize the most currently and are most familiar with. (If you have to use two levels, that’s ok)

4. On the next level, write in the sites you’ve signed up for but don’t use that often.

5. On the outer levels, write in the sites you’ve heard of but are not signed up on or are that familiar with. 

6. Now that you have your web of networks, go through each one and answer the following questions:

     a) Am I able to search and add people according to their industry/job title?

     b) Am I able to interact with these people via eMail, messaging, etc.?

     c) Am I able to post a picture or add information about my company?

7. If you answered no to any of these questions, get rid of that network on your web. 

8. Start using this web to go through each of your sites and create boilerplate information to utilize on each of these so there is consistent employment branding messaging. 

9. Link one social network to another. For example, on LinkedIn you can copy the code to put a “button” or icon on another site showing people that you are also on LinkedIn.

10 Most social networking sites allow you to import all of your contacts that you have in your email contact list. Do this on each. 

10. a) In one week’s time, take note of the sites that you utilize the most, have the most interaction with and are comfortable with. These should be your top three. (more than three and you can’t dedicate the right amount of time)

10. b) In one week, if you haven’t utilized one of the sites or had any activity, you may want to delete this site from your web. First, ask yourself these questions.

     1) Do people know I am on here?

     2) Have I invested the time to connect with people?

     3) Do I have the time to invest in this site? Does it require too much time?

     4) Does it provide any value to my recruitment initiative?

This should get you started. The next post will be how to maximize the use of your time and energy spent on these sites.

Here’s a link to spider web drawing that can help you get started.

Happy Web Making!

 

Xtremerecruiting.tv Interview May 19, 2008

I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Bill Vick on Xtremerecruiting.tv about the role that social media plays in the recruitment industry. Enjoy and let me know what you think!

Relationship Recruiting May 8, 2008

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Bill Vick from XtremeRecruiting.tv about Recruitment, Technology and Demographics. After the interview, I started thinking about how much social media plays a role in our everyday lives. Here I am blogging, not knowing if anyone will read it, but nonetheless, I’m on here, on a social media site.

A typical day for me starts out logging on to ERE.net, LinkedIn, Facebook and RecruitingBlogs. For example, today I’ve already connected with a former colleague, a client, three friends from high school that I haven’t spoken to since graduation day, four prospects, an industry guru and my sister. It occurred to me that in the hour I spent moseying through my collection of social networks, I’ve already been more productive than I would have been without belonging to those networks.

I think this term, “relationship recruiting”, sums up the way recruiters are able to network with individuals in the marketplace in an informal and raw atmosphere. Now, I know that many recruiters are already on social networks with the goal of recruiting individuals. But I also know that there are a lot more not utilizing these valuable tools. For the ones that do use social media to recruit or practice “relationship recruiting”, I wonder how well it is working for them.

This has inspired me to develop a program titled: The Recruiter’s Guide to Navigating Social Media. I’m half way done, so if you want to see it, email me and I’ll forward it to you.

Kristingissaro@gmail.com