Fistful of Talent

Is Social Media the Ticket to Being a Credible HR Activist? + HR Bloggers Panel @ SHRM09, the Video Re-Cap!

Last week, Kris and I were on a panel at the SHRM09 conference talking about ourselves, which we like to do at every possible chance... you know what they say about bloggers being narcissistic... During that session, the question was asked very simply, why blog? What's in it for an HR pro who decides to blog? (Check out the video for that session at the bottom of the post... email subscribers click through to watch!)

First, I won't advocate for all HR or recruiting pros to jump in and start a blog. Sorry to be a snob about it, but it's just that there's a lot of noise in the blogosphere already and sometimes, I just don't want to hear another voice unless you have a very clear viewpoint and perspective. You know what I mean? But paying attention to the blogosphere and speaking the language of social media? I think that's important. Even if you aren't actively blogging, being involved in the community, paying attention to new and emerging technologies and the effect of said technology on your staff and the workplace is an issue that can be boiled down to... credibility. And don't you want to be a credible HR activist?

For me? I began thinking that maybe I had figured something out with all this blogging and social media stuff when I started getting questions from my very senior most leadership about how to use Facebook and LinkedIn. The questions have ranged from how to post links to Facebook profiles so all of their friends see the link, to how can we use social networks to better position some of our senior staff as subject matter experts, to can we engage former staff and their professional contacts and networks digitally?

Mind you, most of my work falls in the recruiting space on a day to day basis - I'm interviewing people, I'm checking references, I'm making job offers... and yet my leadership team started coming to me with questions about social media. Interesting, right? And to take it a step further, I really realized that our HR team may have figured something out when our company's first foray into the world of social media began with a Facebook page dedicated to careers with our company. And it wasn't driven by marketing, it wasn't driven by technical staff - it was the stereotypical fuddy-duddy 'ole HR team who drove it. Think about the kind of message that sends about our credibility as an HR function.

You're reading this blog, so you probably get it already. But there are others you should be emailing this post to. Really. So spread the love and tell a friend... because there are many, many reasons for an HR pro to get involved in the blogosphere and social media. Think about its impact to employee engagement, employment branding, candidate sourcing and knowledge acquisition/professional development... but then there's also very simply the issue of managing these tools in the workplace. If a line manager comes to an HR pro with a concern about their employee "tweeting" too much and you don't know what Twitter is... then that's kind of a problem. As HR pros, we can be better, we can do better... so let's get ahead of the curve, folks.  Ready to dive in with social media?

Editor's Note- Jessica Lee is a Sr. Employment Manager for APCO Worldwide, a global PR firm in D.C. Like most upscale HR pros, she spends half of her time on recruiting, the other half on ER, Training and OD.  When she's not hammering a candidate to determine Motivational Fit, she's thinking about the future of HR, and wondering how she can avoid using the job boards to fill the next spot in her organization...

Can You Have a "Best In Class" Culture with 82% Turnover?

If you don't follow me over at the HR Capitalist, that's OK.  I can always buy time at FOT from the powers that be to tempt you to read my stuff here.  Here's a story I've been tracking for awhile at the HRC, and it always seems to come back up every 3-4 months.  There's some fresh meat at the end for the carnivores in the crowd.

The topic is the performance management company SuccessFactors, who has always made the decision to push their culture as a "we eat the dog food" type of selling point.  Makes sense - they manage performance and push employees via their culture statement and internal performance management processes - why wouldn't they be your choice to buy performance management solutions from?

Last week, I ran this letter to the editor at Workforce where an apparent former employee took SuccessFactors and CEO Lars Dalgaard to task for the culture at SuccessFactors.

Take a look at the letter linked - it's a nasty one.  If you've been in the people business long enough, you know that you can't please everyone all the time. 

With that in mind, here was the question I ran last week at the HRC - Is it better to:

A. Openly promote the culture you seek (I'm talking external promotion) and risk the violent reaction of those former employees who feel like you never lived up to your promises/claims, or

B. Be more reserved in your promotion both internally and externally, with the risk of lowering the chances that all your employees clearly understand what you desire your culture to be about.

While SuccessFactors has clearly chosen Option A, what's interesting to me is that almost every other performance management solution provider takes the Option B route.  They're just much more conservative than SuccessFactors, which is not to say that they don't have great cultures and good stuff going on.

Instead, what it may mean is they've seen too much ex-employee reaction to the marketing of the SuccessFactors culture.  Here's a comment from over at the Capitalist from reader "DC", who was kind enough to go out to GlassDoor and see what ex-employees are saying about SuccessFactors.  Here's what DC reported back:

Interesting follow up post Kris. I noticed on your previous post on this subject that one of you commenters wondered if SuccessFactors had similar complaints logged on glassdoor.com. That was the first time I had ever heard of glassdoor, so I checked it out. For a company that claims to have a no jerks rule embedded in their code, Successfactors employees seem to paint a different picture. I’m sure most companies have some disgruntled employees, however even current employees of this company seem to say that the exception to the no jerks rule is the CEO. I don’t know the guy, but the comments about him and the way he runs the business are certainly at odds with their company’s creed. Look at some of this stuff – the one that stood out the most was the first one below from a former HR person at the company.

“I used to have to give this "company pitch" enthusiastically and didn't know whether to break out laughing or cry at my deceit. Someone at the company had better honestly address the extremely high and disturbing turn over at SFSF. During 2007, the turnover was 82%.”

“Management's behavior gives you the sense they feel you should feel blessed to work there, which makes employees feel like disposable commodities. CEO is not afraid to publicly blast or insult people on email, etc.”

“Bad behavior eventually catches up with people & companies. Look at Wall Street. Lars Dalgaard lacks integrity. Stop promoting the (No Jerk ) rule. If you are going to promote something of value then walk the walk instead of spewing out sound bites of Self-Righteousness.”

“In my time there, I never had a performance review done on me (yes that is the main product they sell), didn't get to participate in the 360 career development surveys for my management team (despite all of the "bible thumping" from the CEO over this) and was precluded from having career development discussions by my manager and his manager.”

“The CEO is volatile, the "no a-hole" rule is not followed, there is intense favoritism, the politics are rampant, the morale is very low, and there are constant fire drills (initiated by Lars) to accomplish things which are in direct conflict with what Lars says are the goals of the company.”

“I don't believe that Lars Dalgaard even takes the "No AH" rule (No Jerk Rule) seriously so why should the employees.”

“Ironically, for a company that provides solutions for HCM, it does not do a good job of Performance Management of its employees.”

Wow.  Thanks for the research DC.  I'll leave it here for today - If the 82% turnover figure is right, I'd abandon the external promotion until I got some things fixed, either on the selection or culture (i.e. retention) front.

What say you?

New HR Systems & Tools! Nice, But Don't Get Distracted By Shiny Objects...

Sometimes, I feel like an un-fancy HR gal. It sounds weird, maybe... but my HR experiences have always been kind of "bootstrap," to use the term my pal, Kris Dunn, likes. Whether it's the recruiting budgets, HRIS or applicant tracking systems I've used... we've figured out how to execute and be an effective HR team and provide outstanding HR service, even if we're having to scrap together systems and processes. Largely, this has been because I've always been surrounded by HR pros and had HR leaders who were about getting things done. Bells and whistles and the biggest, baddest latest system or HR trend... those have always taken a back seat to simply doing good work, giving sound advice and just being a good HR partner.

But the more I become networked and entrenched in the HR and recruiting community... the more I start thinking that perhaps I'm not as "with it" as some HR pros out there. First, there's this big, deep vendor and HR-related service provider community out there with all sorts of new fangled shiny objects to show off, which are all promised to solve my organization's people-related challenges, whether it's recruitment, performance management, onboarding, etc.  Add in the "thought leaders" and academics with new fangled concepts and ideas and theories about people in the workplace and what will attract, motivate and retain them. And of course, they all have their jargon to describe a theory or concept or idea or practice. And honestly? Sometimes I don't know what any of it really means. For example:

• Talent acquisition versus recruiting. I'm not sure what the difference is, if anything.
• Talent management... I don't really know what that term means... and I'm not sure when we started using the term "talent" so frequently!
• Onboarding versus orientation... is there truly a difference?
• Total rewards and total compensation... am I referring to the same thing here when I use either term? And are incentives different from rewards, which are different from recognition? Am I messing up all the terms here?
• Applicant versus candidate... some days I forget the difference and use them interchangeably. Can someone from the OFCCP please let me know?

Seemingly everyone has something to teach and show me, and I am initially inclined to soak it all in. I like learning, I love technology... but I can't help but to stop and question sometimes... are you just packaging something I already do as a new fangled theory or idea, but just in a different way? Or are you over-analyzing a people related challenge and making it more complex than it really is? And is what you're trying to sell me on really all that necessary to be a great HR pro, or to provide great HR service? I mean, to have a smooth running HR function, do you need to be using all those fancy, glittering objects?

In some places, I've had an HRIS. I've worked off of spreadsheets, used DOS-based systems and some slicker web-based HRIS. I've worked with paper performance evaluation forms and online performance management systems. I've worked with a very scrappy ATS, no ATS, a robust ATS... but regardless of what tools my organization had, how we labeled a function, or service, or theory, or process, we executed, and our work at the end of the day was fundamentally about people.  We found ways to still get the job done in such a way where we have proven our value to the organization and have been seen as true business partners.

And that in and of itself just serves to remind me that there will always be shiny new toys that come out, especially when you consider and fold in social media into the mix. Someone is always going to be coming out with a new solution or theory to improve how we do things - and I don't mean to minimize any of that... because I love new services, products and ideas and seeing how they might work in my own sphere... but not partaking in them? Or not knowing about the latest new fangled tool or term? It doesn't make you any less of a HR pro, nor does it make your HR team any less of a rockstar function.

And for every new fangled tool or theory that does come out? It's easy to get distracted by shiny new objects, but let's keep our eyes on the prize. What's your goal? What are you trying to achieve? What's the strategy you're going to employ?  Answer those questions and then figure out the tools and tactics that will support it.  Maybe you'll need the latest and greatest thing being offered, maybe you won't.

Editor's Note - Jessica Lee is a senior employment manager for APCO Worldwide, a global PR firm in D.C, and the Editor of FOT. Like most upscale HR pros, she spends half of her time on recruiting, the other half on ER, Training and OD.  When she's not hammering a candidate to determine Motivational Fit, she's thinking about the future of HR, and wondering how many HR Managers nationally could pull off appearing in a Justin Timberlake video...Just like other upscale HR Pros I know and respect...

What Led To The Recruiting Industry's Current Grapefruit Diet . . . And Why The Detox Is Good For All of Us

I had a rather interesting conversation with Industry Icon, Doug Beabout, the other day.  He let me know that approximately 1/2 of our industry has vaporized over the last 12 months, with many more recruiters to leave by the end of the year.  As he comically put it, "A large majority of our industry will now go back to whatever in the world they were doing before the recession started."  However, he was also sure to let me know that while the current recession has been particularly painful, the massive influx of recruiters (during a boom) and coinciding mass exodus (during a bust) is actually a quite predictable phenomenon.

So I reflected on this for a while and have concluded that the 'normalization' or 'purging of the excess' is good for the Recruitosphere.  Don't get me wrong - I hate to see anyone lose their job or have a contract come to an end.  However, if you've recruited beyond a few years, you probably know what I mean when I say there were truly some characters that parachuted onto to our scene before flopping out shortly thereafter.  "Jokers to the left of me, Clowns to the right . . . Here I am, Stuck in the middle with you."  [Compliments to the band, Stealers Wheel strumming in the background way back in 1972.]

See, during boom-times, companies hire and hire and hire.  They get fat, just like the average American's credit card bill before the bottom fell out of the market and we realized that operating in the red doesn't make good financial sense.  And as the company gets fatter, so does the Recruiting Department.  "Thought Leaders" start suggesting that you don't need to lean out -- nope, you need more division of responsibilities.  You don't need better recruiters -- nope, you need people good at doing individual functions, just like Henry Ford popularized with the Assembly line in 1908.  "Hey, you don't need better full-cycle recruiters -- nope, you need dedicated sourcers and researchers and candidate contractors and candidate developers and professional appointment setters."  That's right, somewhere we were told we needed people good at doing only one thing all day long - "If they hate speaking to candidates, no problem - just place them at station 7."  Then, when we last expect it, we're offered all types of services, tools, technologies, training and additional contractors to increase the efficiency of each resource and/or station of the assembly line.  "Yeah, we understand your total staffing expense just ballooned up 300% Mr. Talent Acquisition Leader, but if you want to get the most out of your newfound investments, you're going to have to spend another 50% on this Recruit-O-Meter Flux Capacitor."

Well, sorry.  That ship has sailed.  We never needed the assembly line, and we didn't need the coinciding bloat, either.  It's as if we just ate that triple cheeseburger super-sized with a large fries and 100 oz. Coke, at which point we sloth down into the couch because we're too stuffed to move . . . wondering why we just did that to ourselves.

So this is what I'm getting at:  We needed then what we still need today - Peter Drucker's notion of "knowledge workers" who specialize in tacit interactions; intelligent people who can handle multiple moving balls in the air, yet have an instinctive ability to understand human psychology . . . and sell all at the same time.  Isn't it funny that every once in a while, the very industry that focuses on people (who have the 'talent') needs the old, "It's the people, Stupid!" wake-up call?

So that's why our current Recruitosphere detox has been a good thing.  It might be like eating a lemon, or going on a grapefruit diet . . . but the weight-loss is necessary and needed for us to maintain our health, not to mention our sanity.

Editor's Note - Josh Letourneau is the owner of LG and Associates, a Strategic Sourcing, Executive Search, and Human Capital Intelligence firm based in Atlanta.  Prior to founding LG & Associates, Josh worked as a Sales & Marketing professional in the software biz and was a hard-charging Sergeant in the Marines.  In his spare time, Josh enjoys shooting at other sourcing and search professionals as available in random paintball games.

Mushrooms, Grapes & Michael Scott - The Good, Bad & Ugly of Goal Management

It's no secret that I love analogies.  Most of us have heard the one about employees being like mushrooms, I'm sure. "Keep 'em in the dark and feed them bull...umm...fertilizer." This comparison got me thinking about conventional talent management practices that all too often reinforce this notion that the employee is disconnected from the company - kept in the dark.

"People-centric goal alignment" is one of those practices.  You'd think that goal alignment in and of itself would foster teamwork, not disconnectedness.  You might be thinking, if they have goal management "how can they have employees that are in the dark?"  Well, that's easy.  Organizations employing people-centric goal alignment are using a model where employees' goals are tied to their managers' goals.  Often, beyond that point, employees have no clue how their work impacts the organization. And what's worse, they may have their goals connected to a manager like The Office's Michael Scott, as opposed to those of Dunder Mifflin, the company.  Something tells me Michael's goals might not exactly do much to inspire performance.

People-centric goal management is riddled with issues aside from employees not having a holistic view of the organization's goals beyond their manager.  Goals in this model are a complicated web, so while it's easy to set goals on the front end, it's pretty difficult month over month, year over year to track them. When there's little visibility into goals beyond that of Michael Scott manager, there's probably no understanding of why or how work impacts the bottom line. And let's face it, if Michael is your manager, he or she is likely to be fired at some point.  So what happens then to your goals when the person they are connected to leaves?  It can get messy.  This is definitely not the most strategic or straightforward way to drive employee performance.

In keeping with the mushroom analogy above, the "organization-centric" approach to goal management is more like cultivating grapes.  All of the employees are on the vine, connected and contributing to produce an overall, common goal - like great wine.  This model of goal management has employee goals tied directly to overall departmental and organizational goals.  This creates a clear understanding of how they connect to the "vine" and how, as a team, they work together to create something great.  So, if Michael Scott is walked out the door at a company where individual goals are tied to organizational goals, it isn't a huge problem, and personal goals aren't impacted.  Everyone can see the whole vine, and it's easier to ensure all employees are pulling in the same direction.  Each employee is accountable, and on the whole, there are more opportunities for them to flourish.

Personally, I've always been much more partial to grapes, so it's easy to extend that preference to goal management styles.  I'd rather be a grape basking in the sun than a cold mushroom in the dark any day.  And I think smart organizations would rather have happy grapes than miserable mushrooms, because at the end of the day, grapes are going to produce a stronger business result.  When results matter more than ever, organizations with grapes are going to be winners.

Editor's Note - Don't Feed the Vendors is a new series at FOT.  The goal of the DFTV series?  We get hammered by third parties who want to write at FOT, so we give them a challenge.  Write something cool and significant we can learn from/talk about in the FOT style, and you can roll with the FOT crew.  Try to sell our readership your product and/or provide a whitepaper, and we'll openly mock your company in public for not understanding the DNA of our readership.  Many inquire, few follow through once they learn they can't post a workup of their latest "research".  For those that make the cut, we'll offer up associate FOT membership as part of the Don't Feed the Vendors stable.

Sean Conrad of Halogen Software is one of the ones that made the cut.  Show him some love in the comments for being up to the challenge and not writing something that should be read on PBS. 

Maximizing Your Recruiting Time Online With Google Reader...

I spend a lot of time online.  At least 40 hours per week and that's probably a low estimate.  I spend so much time online I intentionally have an archaic cell phone so I am unable to surf when I'm outside the house.  When I go on vacation, the laptops and the crappy cell phones are forbidden, and it's almost like detox for the first 24 hours.

But, when I am online, I try to maximize my time, whether I'm researching or sourcing.  And you should too.  I would love to skip around and stop here and there and read and try out new strings and more, but focus is key to getting our jobs done and not falling down the proverbial rabbit hole.  So, I am a big advocate of using a Reader.  I'm partial to Google  And I've written about this a bit before here.

Once you get your Reader started, you need to organize it, just don't slap your blogs, strings and more into it.  Take the time to set up some folders.  Mine are set up to cover general business blogs, recruiting, hr, sourcing, search strings, tweet feeds and more.  When I add blogs or Google Alerts, I file them right away so everything's tidy and ready to go.  Most of my folder titles are self-explanatory, but let me talk about a couple.  I do have search strings in my Reader.  There are sourcing jobs in my career that have been particularly challenging, and I still have those strings that "worked" and I check 'em out every once in a while.   Some may be wondering what my "tweet feeds" are.  I create these feeds with the help of search.twitter.com, for some of my prolific Twitter friends.  This way I can check their tweets out whenever and, with a quick scan, see if there's great articles I missed them tweeting about that I need to follow up on.

With my Reader set up this way, I can make time every day to check on all my topics or, what I usually do is focus in on a particular area, scan the article titles and move on from there.  If I were someone with limited funds and time in the recruiting arena, I would definitely set up a Reader and make use of Google Alerts to track my search strings - it would give me back a nice chunk of time in each day to explore other sourcing strategies or better yet, focus on additional projects.

Need suggestions on blogs to read regularly? I think that's a separate article, or catch me on the Tweet Side and I'll share some with you.

Editor's Note - Kelly Dingee is a Technical Writer/Sourcing Researcher for AIRS. Prior to joining AIRS, her experience includes sourcing for Thales Communications, Inc., and Internet recruitment for Acterna (now known as JDSU). Follow her on Twitter and get the lowdown on what's going on each day in sourcing - she's a Twitter machine...

The Recruiting "Community Solution": If You Build It, They Will Come (And They'll Be Engaged, Too!)

Today's mantra of recruiting success is quite a familiar one: If you build it, they will come.  ("People will come, Ray.")

I recall much the same said of career sites only a few years ago. . . and the same of job board resume databases . . . and before that, the same of career fairs.  Today, the intoxicating lure of another elegant solution is again at hand; the panacea of recruiting conversation in 2009 -- the "community".  As we walk trade show floors and read the cascades of blogs and press releases, we see the word and its many references continually resurface.  Naturally, just like last time, the market begins to believe, "[This time] If we build it, they will [really] come."

So, let's assume we build it . . . and let's assume they come.  They join our community; our social network of Rock-Star XYZ Programmers.  As they've done with the other 17 sub-communities they are a part of, they answer a few short profile questions, contribute to a couple discussions, perhaps even upload a photo of their pet and their favorite song.  We, as recruiters, then consider the individual behind the profile to be "engaged".

But are they?  How can we measure engagement?  Sure, there are scores of metrics, but very little in the way of an accepted standard.  Just ask Robert Scoble, or Brian Oberkirch, who likens measuring engagement to "nailing down a shadow."  Does our definition of engagement have anything to do with the community's receptiveness to listen regarding our opportunity?  Further, is it the community itself, or rather the individuals within the community, that are engaged?

My theory is that the juggernauts such as Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter (although not completely apples-to-apples) are the real time-biscuits of the average social-media zombie (circa 2009).  That means that there isn't much time or energy left for many sub-communities, such as our recruiting community.  Furthermore, we must ask ourselves whether engagement itself has a lifespan, as modern-day recruiting theory suggests multiple states of interest depending on a candidate's personal situation (i.e. cold-cold, cold-warm, warm-cold, warm-warm states of candidate interest, etc.) 

Despite the rush of individuals to professional networking sites, the lifespan of someone's 'engagement' is typically quite ephemeral because candidates, by their very nature, don't stay in the job-searching cocoon forever.  (Well, some do . . . such as the 10% of the market that is always in flux, 'actively seeking' a new opportunity.  However, this segment is certainly the exception and not the norm.)

Many suggest that social networking's new CGM (Consumer Generated Media) tools increase the probability that our talent pool will be more engaged.  However, does providing someone the ability to upload a widget or start a discussion engage them any further than if we were to pick up the phone and personally call them?  Or can the community itself become a crutch? (in the sense that we begin to hear subtle whispers in our ears that web conversation is the same as live conversation).

Here's an example: Let's say a recruiter lets their community know they're throwing a mixer at a local restaurant later that week.  At the mixer, the recruiter physically meets the candidate and buys them a drink - was it the social network that led to a deeper relationship?  Or was it the act of kindness and in-person touch of the recruiter?  I'd say the latter.  Sure, the community enabled another brand touch-point, but the same could have been achieved through an email or text message.

We, in the recruiting world, are quite new to thinking of 'Recruiting as Marketing'.  And doesn't it have a nice ring to it?  For some reason, 'Recruiting as Sales' conjures up questionable scenarios and cacophonic sounds in our minds.  Marketing, soft-selling, and the notion of communities made up of engaged, loving candidates just seems more palletable than 'Recruiting as Sales.'  However, the more we sip each flavor of Kool-aid, the more we realize that true recruiting is neither marketing nor sales.  At the end of the day, it's both.

Editor's Note - Josh Letourneau is the owner of LG and Associates, a Strategic Sourcing, Executive Search, and Human Capital Intelligence firm based in Atlanta.  Prior to founding LG & Associates, Josh worked as a Sales & Marketing professional in the software biz and was a hard-charging Sergeant in the Marines.  In his spare time, Josh enjoys shooting at other sourcing and search professionals as available in random paintball games...

Personal Social Media Policy - Drawing a Virtual Line In The Sand...

This post has been inspired by @TheSourceress (aka Katharine Robinson of Ecosearch).  I've been Tweet Friends with Katharine for several months now and find so much of what she does in recruiting and sourcing AND social media to really be, shall we say, "spot on".  She got my attention last week with her personal Social Networking Policy.

We should all have one.  You have to draw your "line in the sand", because as much as I enjoy my work friends, they don't need to know all the nitty gritty details of the trials and triumphs my family and friends experience.  Unless you're really interested in supporting non-profit community theater - then we can talk.  There are a few that get the "Mom" stuff that is a constant in my life.  So, while certainly I want to be findable and build a network, there needs to be some common sense employed.  And frankly, my non-work friends have been quite vocal that they really don't need to see my @sourcerkelly feed from Twitter on Facebook. So here's my own personal policy:

--LinkedIn (Plaxo, Xing, Naymz, you get the idea) - I connect with virtually everyone (because even neighbors and the swimming teacher need jobs!) but I tend to not include my email on my profile.  If you're in recruiting, you should be able to figure it out just by taking a closer look at the AIRS Sourcing Report.  I'm not big on spam and took my email out months ago when I realized it wa being pulled and used for that purpose.

--Twitter (& Plurk) - I am very open to contact on Twitter, but know that I use it for information gathering and exchange.  It's my virtual watercooler.  So, if you aren't doing one or the other on a variety of topics I enjoy like research, recruiting, hr, accounting, engineering, military, diversity, social media, etc., AND you're just telling that you drank bug juice, I might not follow you.  If you're a recruiting professional and you don't provide a bit of info about yourself, I might not follow you.  Why?  Because Twitter is an excellent place to network! If I can't get a feel for who you are, why would we connect?  And this is important - if you only go by your first name, have no followers but follow thousands, I most definitely will block you.  

--Facebook - I do have a line in the sand here that's pretty definitive.  I know Facebook is a great place to find people.  I show people how to do it all the time.  It's amazing what we draw out of it for our clients and the potential the site has.  But, for me, here's where I need to "know" you. Either we're tight with our work, have built a solid relationship through other online media, are friends or related.  Just hitting me up because we're in the DC Metro area or the HR Profession isn't going to cut it.  

The concept of a personal Social Media Policy is important to keep in mind as you source.  We know there's this fountain of people active in these environments and are tempted to dig in with abandon.  But be conscious that they may have their own unwritten Social Media Policy. It's in your best interest to figure out how to contact them and establish rapport so as not to freak them out or invade their virtual space!

Twitter As A Second Language...

I had the delightful experience of getting to speak to the Staffing Alliance of Maryland Employers (aka ProjectSAME) in mid-February.  I've taken in some of their programs many times over the last 15 years that I've been involved in HR in the Montgomery County corridor- it's a great group.  Never overlook the local groups - especially here in D.C., we had attendees from all kinds of companies, and I have to admit I even got a chill knowing the NSA was present.  (That is so cool...)

We chatted social media - one of my favorite things in the world to talk about - and one of my favorite moments of the day was when I started in on Twitter.  Over the years as a sourcer, I have had moments when I'm describing what I do, or how to source, and I've seen non-sourcing counterparts literally have their eyes roll back in their heads because it was just too much info at once.  I have always figured it was some kind of karma for the number of times I did the same with the engineering managers I use to work with.

But, as I'm talking about Twitter and stressing how it can be used to build brand, peer community, talent community, and of course to find people, I realize my group is looking at me funny.  And no, I didn't spill anything and I wore my smart blue shirt as one of my Tweeple suggested.  At first I thought it was because I had said something about getting all of your information across in 140 characters.  But I started to realize I was using words like Tweet, Twittered, Tweeple, Follow, DM, "@ replies" and more, and that's what threw everyone!  After being enmeshed in Twitterville for more than a year, I did have a second language!

So if you're new to Twitter and need to get the lingo, I thought I'd track down some links for you.  Mashable is one of my favorite sites for keeping up on social media, not just Twitter.  Back in November, 2008, they created a nice list of Twitter specific terms that you can quickly view here.  Mashable also references Twittonary, another great site that allows you to type in any Twitter related site or scan their subsections to get apprised of all the various terms related to Twitter.  And, bonus, you can follow Twittonary on Twitter!

Want to get even further into Twitter? Check out this FanWiki. And remember, the next time you're chatting up a twitter newbie (aka "twebie"), give them reference materials, they're going to need a whole new language for the land of tweets.

Editor's Note - Kelly Dingee is a Technical Writer/Sourcing Researcher for AIRS. Prior to joining AIRS, her experience includes sourcing for Thales Communications, Inc., and Internet recruitment for Acterna (now known as JDSU). Follow her on Twitter and get the lowdown on what's going on each day in sourcing - she's a Twitter machine...

4 Ways to Measure ROI + Metrics of Social Media Recruiting...

We're all trying to step up our game with social media, whether it's recruiting, knowledge transfer/management or otherwise. Here's my struggle though: to get buy in for social recruiting, some of you probably need some metrics to build a business case and show the ROI, right? Because maybe some of your old-school recruiting or HR cohorts see you on Facebook and Twitter during work hours and can't help but to think you're just having fun (or wasting time?), yes? Understandable. So, how do we measure social recruiting to make the case for it?

Why Social Media to Recruit?

First, let's simplify things and get on the same page with 3 reasons to use social media for recruiting:

1. Find and source candidates
2. Gather intelligence and build relationships with potential/actual candidates or communities
3. Build/support your employment brand

There are lots of resources out there to get you started on the "how" and "what." I liked the two lists of five social media tools for recruiting and HR pros to use in 2009 (giving you ten!) by Jennifer McClure as a starting point if you're new to this realm. Our friend, the Social Media Headhunter, Jim Durbin, also has a good case study on how to use social media in recruiting over on ERE.net.

Measurements + Metrics.

Next, let's think about possible metrics and measurement tools. Across different industries, methods to measure social media are growing with some interactive marketing agencies even filing patents for methods they've developed... and that's promising with some parallels to social recruiting. But even now, I think that there are some basic measurements we can use:

1. Influence. Well hot damn! You have 800 friends on Twitter. So what? Your influence, and not popularity, is what's important and should be captured. The greater your influence in social media as a recruiter, the bigger your reach and audience and the better your company's employment brand - but you have to be able to explain why influence is important to your chain - and once you've done that... Twitter influence is starting to be measured using tools like this one or Twinfluence or Twitter Grader. Facebook business pages can also be measured with some beta tools like Facebook Grader.
2. Traffic. Influence will impact traffic, no doubt. But the goal with traffic is to specifically get eyeballs to your careers website and possibly, specific job postings (which translates into them applying for jobs, hopefully). Measure both and consider tools to track referrals in the sense of website referrals... If sharing links to job postings, a blog or your careers portal via Twitter, you may be using a URL shortener. Measure click-through stats via BudURL and Traceurl. If you have a blog separate from your corporate website, use any variety of tools from SiteMeter (basic) to Google Analytics (moderate) comScore (steroids) to track where the traffic is going after your blog. (Hat tip and thanks to Ben Gotkin of RSM McGladrey for sharing some ideas with me on his metrics for their careers blog...)
3. Chatter. Related to both influence and traffic, you may want to measure the chatter taking place about your organization but specifically about your career opportunities, the interview/selection process and what it's like to work there. What are people saying about you? How often are you getting link love, re-tweeted? To measure and assess the chatter, you'll use some of the influence tools above, but you'll also need to monitor social media and periodically audit the chatter. Monitor sites like Vault and Glassdoor. And try setting up Google Alerts or use other search tools using those boolean search strings you're so good at putting together!
4. Intelligence + candidate experience. This is maybe the toughest one and will be a qualitative measurement for the most part - because level of intelligence gained/quality of a candidate's experience has much to do with intangibles and relationships - hard to measure. Whether it's with candidates generally, candidates who become employees, or hiring managers, use focus groups or online surveys and consider asking questions related to/in support of measuring these areas (and then track it over time):

• Recruiters - has their level of knowledge about a candidate community or industry deepened? Is being part of social media improving their ability to source/find/make good matches (because they "get" the community better)?
• Company's presence in social media - is it trusted? Are you part of the conversation and community or is what you do in social media just transactional? How "personal" and engaging are you online?

Of course, all these measurements aside, the proof will be in the pudding with percentage of hires you make using social media which will have to go up over time if you're to continue social recruiting. And, when the numbers don't support the latest and greatest network or site, then change your technique or move on... but don't be hasty and keep in mind that when you source using social networks, you have the bonus of also establishing a presence/enhancing your employment brand and the fruits of deepening or establishing relationships through conversations.

This isn't the social recruiting metrics bible; it's just the starting point. A lot of the thoughts behind these measurements are courtesy of some of my in-house social media gurus who use social media for communications/public relations campaigns. Check out a social media measurement pro my gurus referred me to - Katie Paine - who has great ideas on measuring social media including this top 10 must-do items for your social media measurement to-do list.

And yes, there's still the issue of social media's perceived time-suck. Try using a tool like Wakoopa to initially measure the actual time/usage of Facebook, Twitter and other tools/programs. You may be able to figure out social recruiting costs based on hours spent using social media...although I'd caution about getting hung up in the hours and minutes because recall the reasons we're using social media to recruit: to build relationships, to impact your employment brand - and the time you put into those? Priceless, wouldn't you say?

Jump in the conversation though - how else are you measuring social media for recruiting? What have we missed?

Editor's Note- Jessica Lee is an Employment Manager for APCO Worldwide, a global PR firm in D.C. Like most upscale HR pros, she spends half of her time on recruiting, the other half on ER, Training and OD.  When she's not hammering a candidate to determine Motivational Fit, she's thinking about the future of HR, and wondering how she can avoid using the job boards to fill the next spot in her organization...