Not yet on the web 2.0 wagon? Having difficulty deciding where to focus your brand efforts in the world of social media? Perhaps you’re still struggling to understand what Web 2.0 is or how it relates to your talent acquisition process. You’re not alone. Employers globally are wrestling with the dynamic advances in what candidates do online, where they do it, and how to leverage those activities and destinations into improved candidate flow.

In our year-end webcast in Recruitment Advertising and Communications, we heard from a nationally recognized Internet Strategist on understanding these new media choices, and the role they can play in your employment brand activities. We also discussed how to align your choices with your overall talent brand strategies.

Kevin Hawkins is the National Internet Strategist with NAS Recruitment Communications. (You can sign up for their insightful e-newsletter here.) He has over a 10 years worth of experience developing online strategies and solutions. His areas of expertise include Career Site development, User Experience optimization, and online candidate acquisition strategies for both active and passive job seekers in traditional and Web 2.0 environments. In addition to exploring the Candidate User Experience, his work includes the continual identification of online recruitment best practices and trends. A strong foundation in the technological aspects of the Web Experience allows him to explore solution development from both a technical, as well as strategic, perspective.

Today Kevin presented a doozy of a webcast- explaining the concepts and delivery of web 2.0, and shared some great case studies of superb usage of the same.  My takeaways from the webcast?

• That the main principles of Web 2.0 are:  content creation, dialogue and personalization.  (I’ve never heard it summarized so well.)
• That Recruiting 2.0 is about “head farming” not “head hunting.”
• Every organization worth its salt should have a “quick apply” feature on their career site as an alternative to the 12-step 2 hour long full application.
• If you are having hard time convincing leadership to a) open up the firewalls, or b) develop a social networking strategy- check out your competition.
• In Kevin’s words, “don’t polish the apple.”  Do something TODAY.  Start now.

If your aim is to be a master of social utilities, you should strive to mimic Accenture.  If your goal is to be an expert in campus marketing and talent acquisition, you have no better model than Carrie Dacey, where she leads the US Recruitment Marketing team.

Accenture has implemented some really courageous and innovative social networking methods.  And here’s a hint:  it isn’t all just about LinkedIn.  (No offense to LinkedIn, of course.)

• Video Blogs from real employees about real work.  Nothing says “realistic job preview” from hearing it directly from the source.  Our newest generation is not amused or tricked by actors reading scripts or corporate schills.
• Reading more your style?  Then surf on over to the at least one dozen different active blogs, again from real employees about their actual work and what it’s like to do it.
• Accenture has a virtual presence in Second Life.  Now, I never managed to even get out of the tutorial in SL, but that doesn’t mean others don’t play there.  (Apparently the top online user has spent a total of 726 hours online in SecondLife.  That’s over 30 NON-STOP days.  Or over 90 working days.)  Talk about a captive audience.  Enough has been said about the trials and tribulations of recruitment marketing by minds far more powerful than mine, so I won’t digress too much further.  But I must raise this final point:  if you aren’t there, who is?
• Yup, Accenture has a corporate Facebook page, too.  Actually, it has more than one.

Get the point yet?  These sites- and I am guessing their strategy- is about much more than “Apply Here for Job Now”.  Sure, that’s one of the overall aims, but it isn’t the end-all be-all.

Their social networking strategy also isn’t an endgame- rather, they already have a terrific talent mindset and want others that share in that vision, and this is how they figured out to find them.  Oh, and by the way, those blogs aren’t edited. 

In a previous post, I offered the opinion that passionate recruiters are crucial to a successful company. Dan Black is one of these rockstars. I spent the beginning of June this year traveling coast to coast for an HCI Innovation Tour on campus recruiting, and Dan was part of our panel in NYC. It was superb event, and I’ll share more about it in posts to come.

Dan is the Director of Campus Recruiting at Ernst & Young, and like many great recruiters, he didn’t set out from college with a career in talent acquisition in mind. In fact, he’s an accountant! But now he leads the college recruiting efforts for a global organization and is a shining example of a corporation that “gets it right.” I’ll use their gigantic Facebook profile to demonstrate how this is true.

Aside from the obvious typical recruitment pitches you’ll see here, (read: brand, logo, career website link, recruiting collateral) the surfer will also find an extensive network of alums, interns, and interested candidates, a mechanism to share UNEDITED thoughts on EY, great resources on real career opportunities, and info about EY’s view on social responsibility, among others.

Anyone that says young people don’t want employers to be on FB- the proof is in the pudding. Check out how many fans they have. So, does your org have a Facebook profile?

Presented by Meredith Morris, Senior Research Analyst at Monster Intelligence, and Liz Friedman, Group Marketing Manager at Microsoft.

For the first part of the webcast, Meredith presented data from MonsterTrak’s 2008 Annual Entry-Level Job Outlook Survey.  Key takeaways:

• That although the number of companies planning on hiring recent college grads is decreasing, organizations that are planning to hire new grads are going to hire more than last year.  Meredith said there are several factors that influence this- she mentioned lower salaries for entry-level employees, increased technology skills in younger workers, and quality of talent as some possible few.
• There is a disconnect between employers and college job seekers on what the purpose of the interview is.  Job Seekers think the interview is designed to allow employers to assess their experience, while companies say they are looking to evaluate the candidate’s behaviors.

I am thinking…

Is your organization strategically planning on hiring new grads this year?  Is the total number up or down from last year?

How should we systemically address this soft versus hard skills evaluation issue to set expectations appropriately?

The second part of the webcast was a case study from Microsoft on creating a candidate value proposition, and Liz shared some great information with us.  I was most impressed by the “pillars” of their CVP- People, Opportunity and Impact.  What a cross-generational appealing message.  She also shared some examples of how MSFT is getting the “word” out about why candidates would want to work there using some really cool niche sites:

• Improving the Candidate Experience
• Valuing Diversity at Microsoft
• Thinking outside of the box- campus-style