SeattleRecruiting.com

Recruiting Toolbox Joins The Fray

John Vlastelica has joined the recruiting blogging world, writing Recruiting Toolbox here in Seattle.

John is a:

Seattle-area recruiting guy who worked in wireless when that industry was exploding, then e-commerce before and through the dot com craziness. Ex-corporate recruiting leader turned entrepreneur, consultant, trainer who now helps companies improve their internal recruitment capabilities.

Hire him.  He knows good people.

Blogs Help Your Business: Some Examples

I'm always glad to see more evidence of people using blogs to make money, or make their job better.  In this case, we have a two-fer.

FIrst, Carl Chapman, a restaurant recruiter who picked up blogging earlier in the year, has been reporting the results.  Check out the tongue-in-cheek questioning from the Animal.  And though the questioning is put forth as fun, the topic is serious.  Carl makes money with his recruiting blog.

Second, we have a recruiter who reads blogs to get a better sense of what his candidates are thinking and doing.  While some lawyers might get scared of doing it, The Voice of IT reads candidate blogs to get a better sense of candidate fit:

Yes indeedy do; more and more professionals of all stripes are writing blogs. Of course there are those firms that frown on or even forbid it (please see my earlier blog on Penelope Trunk and her comments on Generation Y and everyone’s god given right to blog.) but for the rest of us it can be the window into our brain (or lack thereof) and our soul. I know that it was for my candidate.

I strongly encourage you budding Bloggers (I.T. pros that is) to blog. Yes, there are lonely nights wondering “If I blog yet no one comments did I really blog at all” but, the fact is The Tree Really Did Fall in the Forest.. It’s just a matter of time before someone sees it there and that a recruiter/employer finds it.

 

It's my contention, and it's the reason that I write local recruiting blogs, that local, line recruiters are the ones who can get the best benefit out of blogs.  Whether you are a third party firm looking to increase billings, or an internal recruiter looking to fill positions, blogs can help you do your job better.

Become A Recruiter Blogger

Are you curious about blogging as a recruiter?  I can tell you that as a line recruiter, you can make more money.  As an executive, you can secure your career and get nationally known.  But there is a catch.

You have to have a passion for this, blogging, thing.  You have to get the strange looks from people who think you're one of those people. You have to meet other bloggers in the flesh and wonder aloud at thefact that somehow you've created friendships without ever knowing whatsomeone looks like.

All of this takes time - which is why corporate blogs have for the most part really failed to take off while small businesses and independents have used blogs to generate revenue, market for free, and expand their social networks to several times the size of siloed corporate employees.  There are ways to use this medium toget your message out - but companies have to either invest the time inlearning new online rules, or pay someone to show them how to do so.

Right now - there just aren't that many of us out there who think the Cluetrain Manifesto is something that should be printed out and nailedto the doors of our collective corporate masters.

If you don't understand this post, it's because you haven't been reading enough blogs.  Many, many executives are still distrustful.  The slides you see that tell you that executives don't read blogs?  I don't trust them.  I've spoken to too many that say they don't read blogs, but when pressed, give me names of sites that I know are blogs, but they think are just well-written websites.

Social media, podcasts, Second Life - they're all the rage.  SEM budgets are supposed to double in the next six years, but blogs are still a medium where you can simultaneously control a message and watch it grow with people as smart or smarter than you.  You can direct the message to make yourself better.

I'm fond of saying that blogs make you smarter.  It's not that bloggers are inherently more intelligent, but the skills you practice in becoming a good blogger; data aggregation, filtering, and republishing.  Presenation, web design, and argument.  Usability, social networking and SEO.  These are the skills of the knowledge worker. 

So what are you waiting for? 

Cheezhead's Not The Only Rapper In The Group

I recorded this with my new Hue Webcam, but it took to long to upload to YouTube, and plus, Franki said it was a bad idea, so all you get is the lyrics.

It ain't no lie, my recruiters workin' like a piston
Firing away like an employment engine
Where'd you put the names?
Applicant - track - system
Don't need no secretary got a virtual assistant.

What's the secret sauce?
Why it's my secret source,
Shally Steckerl's secret sourcer training course.

If your jobseekers are swimming in a fog,
Lookin' for that information
GIVE IT TO EM IN A BLOG

Need a special skill
Find that boy whose passive
Take that bitter pill
Pay that search fee massive

Launch my new website
On that 2.0 trajectory
Now these crazy fools spend their day
Trying to hector me
Try to get into a groove, in a flow, in a jam.
So I delete your comments, cause YOU"RE JUST LIKE SPAM

Secrets of the job hunt, jibber jobber jab,
Jason Davis, ERE and the ultra cheezy Fab
Animal and Amitai
Dennis aint no poser.
David Perry, Rothberg and that DAVE MENDOZA

That's my rap, them's my words, that's my game.
Big D-Hammer, don't forget the name.

Adding A New Author

It's difficult to keep track of all the sites I write, so I'm bringing on some help.  In the next few weeks, Laura O'Brien will start writing for SeattleRecruiting.com, focusing more on Seattle stories than I've been able to do.  Thank you to those that have remained subscribed.  I promise better material and more updates are on the way.

-Jim

The Wine Recruiter

Well this is just plain cool - I found a wine recruiter, which I didn't even know there were.

Wine Talent is an executive search firm focused on the wine industry, run by Amy Gardner.  I don't understand what positions she is looking for, but these are the technical ones (and she works on all wine industry jobs).

">I began with technical recruitment of winemakers, enologists and viticulturists. My clients were asking for additional help in other areas of the winery. After careful consideration, at the start of the 2006 summer season WineTalent will now be assisting with recruitment of all professionals in the winery.

Amy has been blogging since 2006, and I can only hope her blogging has brought her success and wealth!

Hendrix College

Hendrix College in Arkansas, a fine institution at which I presented last year, has started their own college intern blog.

They need to add more content, but they seem to be doing well in terms of getting interns hired.

Seattle Jobs Widget

Speaking of Rob Neelbauer, Rob enabled a Seattle Jobs widget for SeattleRecruiting.  I'm going to work on installing it, and we'll work on the marketing of it soon enough.

It's hard to say - blogs with jobs seemed like a really good idea, but I haven't seen anyone particularly impressed with it as of late.  Cheezhead had a good piece on it the other day.  He thought it was a good idea, but didn't get to upgrade to roquefort from cheezy poofs, but just because we haven't yet figured it out, doesn't mean that it will always be this way.

I [Joel] agree it’s too early in the game to declare victory or defeat for blogs as viable job advertising options. Results are mixed, with those having dedicated manpower to making things work being the shining examples of what could be. Most blogs won’t dedicate such resources to a job board, so it’s really up to the solution providers to make things work on any grand scale.

I recently covered the reality of selling job postings, but for my own case study have begun seeing job postings on my own blog in the past few weeks where none were seen for months. Hardly a windfall but some growth is better than none.

If you think about it, sites like Cheezhead are national in scope.  It's hard for advertisers to put the majority of their jobs on them.  SEO jobs, digital media, and high-level recruiting jobs all make sense - that's Joel's audience.  Sites like SeattleRecruiting, however are all local.  It makes more sense to have a local job board.  Of course - then we run into the problem of competition with local job boards, but considering the difference in cost between, say this job board and SeattleRecruiter.

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Top 50 Recruiting Blogs From Job Matchbox

Rob Neelbauer of Job Matchbox.com recently came up with a algorithm for ranking recruiting weblogs.

StlRecruiting, the first of my local recruiting sites, ranks high up on that list, so I'm going to say it's an act of genius.

A big congrats goes out to Jason Alba of Jibber Jobber, an occasional guest poster on this blog, and someone who has taken the unfortunate act of being layed off and turned it into a valuable service for jobseekers.  Jason ranks nunber 3 on that list.

Actually, the "value" of a site should be measured by its intended impact.  For most recruiters, the value of  site should be measured by the number of new hires it brings in.

But it's still nice to be recognized, and in terms of marketing, it's a pretty fair way to measure influence.   Good job, Rob.

Yo Do-ah The Good Comment, You Getta The Good Post

We offer hear that leaving comments is a good way to generate traffic.  Well, the truth is that good comments, or relevant comments from someone obviously involved in your community are a good way to get traffic.  Spam comments are deleted, and sometimes mocked.

But Sean Rehder is no spammer, and he runs a blog called Talent Ecology.  Unfortunately, I had not noticed that he links to one of my other blogs, or I would have added him long ago - but Sean runs Talent Logistics, a company that helps companies with their CRM in relation to talent management.

Our applications focus on lead identification, contact management, building of candidate relationships and gathering competitive intelligence. With the end goal being the ability to hire talent, engage vendors, and creating predictable talent pipelines.

Welcome to the blogosphere, Sean.  Thanks for commenting.

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