Ahh, the ERE Expo. There I was, a marketing manager at a staffing firm sitting amongst many corporate recruiting and HR managers. I listened to Kevin Wheeler talk about the future of recruitment via social networks…and a panel of early pioneers of recruitment blogging… and Dr. John Sullivan talk about the need for WOW on recruitment websites. The promise of cutting edge content being put into the blogosphere. Talks of transparency and community - authenticity. And yet, here it is. A Blog about the event. A seemingly great idea. A primer for an entire community of people who most need to learn of the latest publishing mechanisms. Blank. Empty. Devoid of content from anyone outside of the core group of event sponsors who are already comfortable with the medium.
So here on a blog, fom a guy who has to police my staffing firm’s less-than-stellar job ads, I’ll add my hypothesis. Recruiters aren’t comfortable blogging. Recruiters are not marketers. When it comes down to it, creating content that people want to read is as much of an art form as recruiting is. It takes creativity. commitment. time. Elements that are in short supply when you have to worry about filling the next rec.
I encourage everyone to try it. Make your first post on this blog. Give it a try. Nobody is going to bite. Tell everyone why this is so hard. Is it because you’ve got nothing to say. Are you not used to pouring a small part of yourself out in such a public forum? Are you afraid of getting Googled? I am. And I’m 32 years old. I’m not 50. Writing for such a large audience has my pulse racing. Yet, I’m going to make a presentation at my global marketing summit in a few days on why we should get into blogging to extend our brand.
Well, there it is. A little bit of blog content to make the site seem less one-way. More of a dialog. More transparent. More of what our websites need to be to reach the Web 2.0 generation. Join me.
ldonahoo said on April 19th, 2007 at 11:08 pm
Kris,
I would agree with your thoughts that recruiters are not comfortable blogging. I think many of us are still trying to understand what the word blog is. I join you on your crusade to get us comfortable with this new medium.
I work with young engineers and architects that will be talking with others if we do not give them an opportunity to talk with us.
I jump in with both feet knowing that there is a good message to tell and we as a company have been probably going about it all wrong.
I commit to reading other blogs for the next month so I can start one as well to help others.
Anyone else want to take this challenge??
Clive The Man Lockwood said on April 20th, 2007 at 3:44 am
Hi there,I am relatively new to recruiting and at the ripe old age of 50, and of course we must not discuss age,find the comments, thoughts and views of people in this industry very interesting.I think that as recruiters we need to be skilled in a variety of areas not least of which being able to present ourselves in and on a variety of mediums. I am quite happy to be shot at with my thoughts but I see communication as being the top skill, verbal and any and all other methods of getting you in contact with your intended prey. Being freindly, non threatening, honest and truthfull with any statements you make, and above all genuine, obvious you say, well the number of times I ask the question, when, confronted by a hostile or less than freindly candidate,what has led you to behave in this way, it has been the lack of some or all of those skills I question how people survive in the job. If they cannot market themselves effectively verbally then make the most of the massive medium that is the internet, it will not shrink, die become out of date,or suffer from lack of interest, get on now, don’t hesitate and let your imagination run riot, boring is as effective on the net as in any form so be different, look at other peoples hard word and use their ideas with some tweaking of course.
jwalker said on April 20th, 2007 at 9:52 am
Change is not always easy, but I feel strongly that in recruiting for the next few years to come it will be a very exciting time.
We all have an opportunity to lead our organizations in some form or fashion down this path. Why not embrace the challenge and be creative!
What a great time to be a recruiter, better than the old days of fax machines and file cabinets!
Heather said on April 20th, 2007 at 10:12 am
Kris, well said….good first blog post : ) I would agree with you that it could be challenging for a recruiter to blog and the first few posts can be hard and scary (mine were….I hovered over that “publish” button a good long time). Generally, the content kind of finds itself, but you do have to be willing to talk about things you wouldn’t normally think about talking about in a professional context. When I have talked about blogging in the past, I have encouraged people to be really critical about when/if blogging is right for them (hence my comment about not doing it if your culture isn’t supportive of it). It is absolutely not for everyone. If you are a req-owning recruiter, I would not recommend blogging as a tool to fill individual reqs. I do think that it could be useful in pipelining candidates and building a brand. But I will tell you that if I was recruiting on reqs right now, I am not sure I would be blogging at all. FInding the right person at your company to blog is key.
Another thing for people to possibly think about is how to get your employees blogging to their peers in the industry. Despite the fact that those people may not work in recruiting, they can act as ambassadors and do a great job of recruiting.
Brad said on April 21st, 2007 at 10:30 pm
Someone has already mentioned it but to be honest the word Blog doesnt mean a whole lot to me - really just a strange sounding word. Im based in Sydney, Australia and we seem to always be playing catch up to the American recruitment industry which i look at as a bonus, a window into the future you might say as to how things are going to look here in a couple of years time…
Jorge said on April 23rd, 2007 at 3:05 am
Zippy, good luck convincing the apac guys that blogs are a good idea’;-). Hope you are very well, miss you all.
Brad, yes it is a funny/alien word, though sometimes meaning is achieved by doing. In any case, if I can be of any assistance pop by the site. I am also based in Sydney