e-recruitment strategy

ERE Day two thoughts and conclusions

Hi all

Back on the ground in the UK, having finally caught up on things.

Have been busy blogging to all of the Dutch sites - as David pointed out in his blog, lots of local coverage and enthusiasm. Have heard many tales of vendors setting up appointments, of delegates meeting new and interesting colleagues. For my part, I am thrilled to have played a part in the event and that ERE has pulled together such an outstanding conference – it seemed almost unanimous with delegates that they are looking forward to next year (and although the straw poll was for Barcelona, I am leaning towards returning to Amsterdam)

Todd has done a good wrap up, as have some of the Dutch sites – so for my part just a few final random thoughts about Day Two.

Firstly, though, many of the reviewers missed out on covering the Electronic Arts presentation from Matthew Jefferey. I found it an outstanding way to finish Day One – high energy (which is needed when you follow Jason Goldberg) and terrific content. Matthew has been building out a business approach to recruitment, with CRM and sales tools to really get to grips with finding and staying in touch with highly skilled and hard to find candidates. Something to think about for sure.

Themes of Day Two
(again, the main session links are up on the ERE site)

1. Search – Rachel of Time Warner has built an in-house search capability that should be the envy of many search companies
2. Asia Pacific – an outstanding contribution from Kevin Wheeler
3. Pipelines & Sourcing Strategies – Stephen Carr of T-Mobile comparing US and UK/Europe methods of success and value of those methods
4. Building an infrastructure – Elizabeth shared her experiences and opened up with the her planned structures for assessing likely workforce needs and the implications for rolling out recruitment teams. We hope she comes back next year to tell us all how it has turned out
5. Performance Based Selection – Fiona and Shona delighted the audience with their Scottish Accent and tongue in cheek presentation style - including interviewing the entire audience!
6. Demographics in Europe (that was me subbing in for Gery Coemans)
7. We concluded with a great panel discussion around search, represented by John Kilvington, the use of dedicated executive job boards - Rosalyn of goldjobs.com, and the executive newsletter/community approach of The Ladders by Marc Cendella.

In closing, we asked the delegates for their Take Aways.

1. Communication and co-operation between Hiring community and lines of business was key for successful recruitment
2. Technology may be evolving, but it is still only a tool
3. Outside of the US, employee referral programmes are only in their infancy, while Alumni Hiring initiatives (boomerang hiring) are almost non-existent.
4. Focussing on skills/competencies requires dedication of HR and line alike
5. Getting hiring right moves the business forward, which enhances retention and future hiring.
6. Search is still needed, as are job boards, as part of an overall blended sourcing strategy
7. Print is not completely dead - it just looks like it

And, the potentially scary thought (thanks Kevin) – while many many companies look to Asia (which from European perspective includes India) to be the solution to future hiring initiatives, the cold reality is: Asia doesn’t need us!

Technorati Tags: Candidate attraction, e-recruitment, ERE

Kangarooster Launch

Easy to miss at the ERE Global Expo this week with the presentations of Keith Robinson and Marc Drees was the marketing effort for the soft launch of Kangarooster. Press release, Guide to Amsterdam and Amsterdam maps were provided to all delegates, as well as branding in the reception area with Pop Up stands. Lots of interesting conversations as Matching, not Searching was a real theme throughout the day.

Al

Technorati Tags: Candidate attraction, e-recruitment, ERE, online matching

Bill Vick and Extreme Recruiting

Over the years, I have engaged in a variety of communications with Bill Vick. He has recently relaunched his Blog under the banner of Extreme Recruiting with a neat concept. He is conducting 'one minute' interviews with the big hitters in US recruitment, puts them up as podcasts. Neat, but others are doing podcasts. The neat trick, you can add a Widget to your blog or website which enables your readers to have quick and immediate access to the last 10 interview from within your site. Being only moderately technically challenged, I have figured it out today. Sorry Bill, it took a while.

Check it out.

Alan

1:00 AM RECOLLECTIONS FROM AMSTERDAM

Hi all,

Having a great time in Amsterdam Chairing the Global ERE Expo 2006. Amazing delegates (well over 100) and fantastic speaker line-up.

And, before anybody starts ‘yelling’ at me for not hyperlinking everybody I reference in the article (I had this happen to me when I wrote about starting to use ecto as my desktop blogging tool), please go the Expo site where all of the speakers and vendors/sponsors/exhibitors are linked. Also, have a look at David’s Hire Calling and Todd’s World of Talent sites for pictures and a blow by blow description of the first day.

I would just like to highlight a few points (that I used in my day one summary).

Challenges facing Global/Local recruiters

• Demographic time bomb – there just are not enough bodies to fill all of the talent requirements.
• Multiple stakeholders – internal and external
• Changing the habits of a lifetime – recruiter, hiring manager and candidate
• Sourcing vs Recruiting
• How to simplify complex tasks
• Need to build business cases for technology, marketing, change

Key messages/Themes

• Collaboration between global strategists and local recruiters
• Business growth requires better retention and leads to better recruitment
• Demographics is also an opportunity – cross border recruitment
• Everything is about the candidate experience, or lack thereof
• We need a better Value Proposition to differentiate the recruitment offering

• Brand – attraction (external) and retention (internal)
• Personal Experience

• Matching, not Searching (this is a recurrent theme - and the future of recruitment!)

• Targeted ‘content’ or messaging to candidates
• Relevancy of the content/job proposition

• Take on consumer based communications

• Respect and relationship building

• Standardisation and structure

• Tools – selecting and rolling out
• Processes
• Taxonomy

• Do research before, during and after all activities
• Measure the results

Alan’s conclusions from Day One:

1. All speakers and delegates share one common trait: Passion for excellence in recruitment
2. Do not throw away what has worked in the past, while embracing the future
3. The future of ‘Web 2.0’ technology is; Power To The People

Can't wait for today to start - another great line-up awaits in 6 short hours

Technorati Tags: Candidate attraction, e-recruitment, ERE, jobster, online matching

SEO importance to online recruiting

Read my colleague Drew Spencer's blog on the news about Google AdWords Landing Page Quality Rankings.

Drew quotes Matthew Martone's post which relates the news to our industry on the importance of optimized career sites.

My old friend, Mike Taylor, also commented earlier this week on the same topic. Mike has been working in the SEO field (not just recruitment) for years now, and long predicted that SEO in recruitment was going to have increasing importance.

To quote Drew: "If you are one of those people (and most of you are) that thinks that SEO isn't important to your online recruiting strategy...think again."

Watch this space in the coming weeks, as EuroRSCG Engage (web site under redevelopment) brings to market a recruitment product with automatic SEO capabilities for every job vacancy that you post to your own career site.

Technorati Tags: Candidate attraction, e-recruitment, online matching, SEO

The Jason and Kevin roadshow storms Europe

Hi there

Just had an excellent lunch, as usual as Jobster held one of its intro to Jobster events in London today. Jason Goldberg was in fine form and Kevin Hatfield presented some new features to the product offering. About 50-60 people in the room, many of whom already 'get it' such as Mike Taylor and Peter Gold.

Look out for him tonight at the UK Recruiter Network evening and next week at ERE Global Expo in Amsterdam.

And keep your eye on their space. The candidate experience, targeted sourcing, new interfaces for candidate and recruiter alike are all coming down the road.

ERE expands its offering

David Manaster of ERE has made an astute acquisition: The Fordyce Letter has an outstanding reputation in the US with 3rd party recruiters - many call it the Bible for recruitment.

The move shows once again that David is building a real recruitment information focussed business- covering the end to end aspects of recruitment, not just the 'e' side, nor only the corporate focussed elements.

I think one of the proofs of the pudding will be seen next week in Amsterdam at the Global ERE Expo 2006 - which I have the great honour of Chairing. We have an outstanding line up of speakers from world class companies as well as over 100 delegates from around the globe attending.

The closing session that we have created is a fitting climax: Executive Recruitment Strategies – Viewed From 3 Sides -- An Interactive Panel Discussion

We have Marc Cendella, the President/CEO of The Ladders.com, Rosalyn Rahme, founder of Goldjobs,com and John Kilvington, founder and chairman of Kilvington Saville. Last night we had an electric 30 minute conference call preparing for the event. This will be a cracking session, and I urge anyone attending not to dip out at coffee on the second day. The delegates will benefit from over 100 years of experience in searching for and successfully recruiting executives around the world - using both the newest tools and ideas combined with the sort of lessons and techniques that the Fordyce Letter has long espoused. Don't miss it!

It's about the Candidate......

Well, here I go again on this soapbox.

Been having a lot of conversations the past few weeks with vendors, agencies and end users about managed services in recruitment. And, as strange as it may seem, no one is talking about service to the Candidate!

Jorrit Blok has a terrific stream on the importance of the human side, not the technology. This is quite a unique view from a man who is building some of the best technology for recruitment that I have seen.

We believe that the new generation of technology that Engage is bringing to the market, much of which has been built in Holland by Jorrit, Kangarooster, and Knollenstein Technologies and the every growing Jobster offerings are going to finally bring the emphasis back on the candidate, on sourcing and on matching based on skills and competencies.

Hang on, the ride is going to get very interesting now!

Al

Technorati Tags: e-recruitment, Candidate attraction, jobster

The Kangarooster secret is out of the bag

I am really excited. Today, kangarooster takes off the covers with the launch of its blog. In 10 days time, the company will be a key sponsor of ERE Global Expo in Amsterdam - an event that Keith Robinson and I have spent the last year pulling together with the folks at ERE . We have a terrific line-up, so come along.

Back to business. Kangarooster is the first of a kind job board and career site technology platform, focussed on matching!, not searching. Rather than steal the thunder - check it out with the blog and come to ERE. There will be a press release coming out soon as well.

Al

Technorati Tags: e-recruitment, online matching, ERE