Recruiting Green Eggs and Ham

Don't you hate it when your bluff gets called. I get a lot of inspiration for blog posts from my day to day life, especially with my kids. You'll notice my posts are not the high brow statistical masterpieces, or comprehensive analysis of some new Recruitment tool. They are just my views. A while ago, I went through a series of posts, getting analogies from books I was reading with my children, posts like

Happy Feet: The success of Standing out

"Guess how much I love you?" - Gen Y v Gen X and Baby boomers.

Hairy Maclary and Zachary Quack, forging that relationship!

The Very Cranky Bear - A child's tale re Consulting and/or Customer Service

Be the Lucky Platypus

Of late, my kids have begun to enjoy the tempo and rhyming and tempo of Dr Seuss. I tweeted something the other day around Dr Seuss being my muse (or something along those lines) and I got called on it. The great Steve Levy called my bluff. "Roo", he Tweeted.. "special project for you - a blog post modeled after Green Eggs and Ham".

For those Gen Y's who don't own books and don't know what I am talking about.. see the video below.



I thought about modeling with the posting in rhyme. But after thinking about it, I really don't have the time.

So I had to think of the story and how it related to Recruiting... now that wasn't too hard. Pestering a client into giving you a go.. and then surprising them with what you did.

This to me is more Social media reluctance within companies. A cheeky little so and so who knows everything trying to tell the older, wiser "person" what they should do. Naturally, the older, wiser, person resists without understanding what the offering is.

You must Tweet this from my blog
You must read this to my dog
You can send them to you phone
you can read them all alone
You must have a Facebook fan page
Everyone else does it's all the rage.

I will not tweet this from your blog
I will not read this to my dog
I won't send it to my phone
I wont read it all alone.
I don't want a Facebook page
I don't want it, get back in your cage.

etc etc etc

But like any good corporate recruiter, Sam keeps on keeping on, keeps pitching, persisting.... until the grumpy old "wiser" person submits to the nagging and has a go just to shut up this nagging little voice.

"I do not like them,
Sam-I-am.

You do not like them.
So you say.
Try them! Try them!
And you may.
Try them and you may, I say.

Sam!
If you will let me be,
I will try them.
You will see."

Oh... (thinking this is good, fun and informative. What a great way to market to the "masses" I'll think about ROI later)

I can tweet it,
I can blog it,
I can link and search and flog it.

It's not just for Gen Y
Baby Boomers are not shy.
All the choices I can see
Recruitment 2.o is for me.

I can get a message out
I can market all about
I can get a 1000 fans
Social media just rocks Sam.


I'm a Corporate Recruiter...

I AM SAM

Fish where they are son!

I'm sitting at home now digesting the conference I just attended Inspecht and ATC's Recruitment Revolution, and while I will blog about this amazing day later on when I have fully disseminated all the information and translate my notes and scribbles, there is something bubbling to the top I just need to write about now.

This conference was all about Social Media Recruiting. A great topic and I could have spoken, listened and learned for much longer than the one day I got, I am a sucker for this stuff.

The final "debate" however became the straw which broke this camels back as far as blogging or not.

It was all about the relevance of job boards with social media gaining so much of a foothold in all our minds. We were lucky enough to have to strong/passionate speakers in the area. Stephen Collins from Acid Media and Jake Andrews from Seek.com.au (I"ll let you figure out who was arguing which point) Call it a "naughties" version of "video kills the radio star". An argument as old as Social media I believe, why? because there is no firm answer, just view points.

However, my thought, isn't overly intertwined with this. Let me put my cynic hat on. AND let me preface this by I am a HUGE Social Media fan/junkie call it what you will and I believe in the concept and business benefits. But.....

Is it for everybody?

There was a "flyer" inside the great little compendium they gave delegates which had the slogan "The hook may have changed but you still need the right bait" (with a picture of a laptop on a jetty) Pretty cool I thought. Whilst reading that, my Dad's voice appeared in my head (yes, it's been happening a lot of late, not sure what that means). I heard his voice telling me "you can have all the best equipment son, but you still won't catch anything if the fish aren't there. You have to know your spots, read the tide, read the signs, and signals and be prepared to move if you got all that wrong!" Let's face it, some days they just weren't there.

So, will Social Media spell the end of job boards.. NO! Did job boards spell the end of newspapers, no, did video actually kill the radio star (well not the DJ's and shock jocks)

Not everyone is findable online. Not even all Gen Y's (insert gasp here). I'm lucky, my talent pool is in IT world, so I have an expectation that my candidates would have some kind of online footprint to track down.

But what if I was looking for Forklift drivers? Landscape gardeners? Mechanics? Builders? Taxi drivers (OK bad example) etc.. Would I be confident I could locate talent in these areas online, utilising all the social media secrets I've just learned. No, not at all. I'd think I would have to go where they are (and Stephen got to this point). You have to move to where the fish are! He spoke about going to the local footy clubs, finding out where their wives hang out, using unions etc. Getting your message to where you audience can read it.

You can have the best Social media Recruitment strategy, have a great Facebook fan page, a twitter site and capability, LinkedIn presence, or even Myspace page (etc etc etc), the best value proposition, the best landing site.... but, if your fish aren't there, what's the point?

Keep the Social media concepts in your head though. Find your audience (where ever they hang out), listen to your audience, engage your audience, and add value to your audience. You don't need to rely on technology for that.

I LIED TO YOU

OK, so I lied... There I said it.




More of a lie of omission. I was reading over my blog, which has gone way longer that I actually expected it to, I mean who'd have thought that I'd still be doing this 18 months on. Anyway, I wrote an entry in February titled, "Why I blog" I wrote all the things I was feeling at the time, but re-reading it, I missed something out. Why I started it?

This will sound bad, but the honest answer is money. I had this great idea that if I wrote a blog, whacked some Google Adsense on the side of it, and I'd be sitting back having a full time job just counting the cash that would just roll in. Funnily enough... It didn't work. Checking my balance, after over 18 months and almost 90 posts now... I'm up to a grand total of AUD$5.67. Maybe I could build a personal brand which will launch my career internationally? Not really.

So what is in it for me then? Surely there has to be something? I'm not a coach, who by their very presence in Social Media is advertising their products and services (even if they say they aren't), I'm not a social media guru, but I've learned about a lot of new stuff I've had to try, I'm not part of an agency, which would use this as company branding to show the strength of their Recruiters and themselves. Somewhere where it could be possible to show a genuine return on the investment put into it. That said it is only time...

I figured it out, bottom line reason. Because it's only fair. A simple answer really, but the god honest truth (with the fact that I enjoy it, blogging and learning more about Recruitment has become my hobby too. Sad isn't it)

What do I mean? I really feel like I'm part of a community here and by here I mean in the social media realm. Communities like Recruitingblogs.com, ERE.net and the Australia/NZ site hosted by Paul Jacobs Recruitment 2.0 Asia Pacific. These places have become my professional life blood. People from all over the world contributing and learning from one another. Sure there are a constant few names that pop up in conversations, or writing blogs or contributing to conversations, forums etc. I'm now pretty comfortable saying I have friends all over the world now, that I have never met. I'd like to one day, but I feel like I know them.

These people are spending their time writing articles, contributing to conversations, that I am reading. FOR FREE! I honestly believe it is the least I can do to put a little back. If it adds value to anyone, then that's a bonus, but it's what happens in a community. Give and take you know.

There are some amazing people out there giving their time and expertise for free, all because they believe in the industry, are passionate about what they do and genuinely feel the need to basically help out. Check out those sites I mentioned before to see what I mean. If you're a Recruiter and you're not on these sites, then you are doing yourself and you company a disservice. Just like in Sales, you learn more by listening than talking, (you know the old 2 ears 1 mouth, use in that ratio) but to get the most out of things, you still have to contribute, open your mouth, get your hands on your keyboard and get into it.

Don't get me wrong, if I can find a way to seriously monetize my blog, then I'm all over it (I feel nervous that I will get lots more spam tweets now), until then, my day job still pays the bills and until child number 3 arrives, my blog, my twitter, my social media outlets is what keeps me up happily up at night.