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Cynthia Giles

Cynthia Giles

Strategy, Social Media, and the Dangers of the Shiny Object


Glitter 2

Commenting on a recent article by Jeremy Owyang, Albert Maruggi (founder of marketing firm Provident Partners) remarked:

Just spent a couple of days with health care marketers from a cross section of hospitals. I also had a session with a billion dollar plus business insurance company on their modest, and I mean modest social strategy.  My radar highlights significant hype fatigue, maybe even disappointment with the social space.

The problem may be adopting social media without a strategy.  Maruggi’s comment includes a link that leads to a few other links, which lead to posts that are (a) short, and (b) worth reading:

These posts are all written from the marketing point of view, so as you troll through them, remember that a big part of recruiting is marketing the employer brand.  But consider this also:  marketing the company as an employer is NOT the same as marketing the company’s products and services.  In fact, there can sometimes be a very big difference.

So while it might be a strategic mistake from the product marketing perspective to chase every “shiny object” (in this case, new social media platforms and technologies), it might not be a mistake from the recruiting perspective.  From the product marketing view, strategic focus may be on effectiveness with the largest possible audience—while recruiters may need to reach very specific groups of people.  The super-techie, super-social-media types might actually be impressed to see recruiters turn up in some edgy online locations, so if those are the folks you need, it’s a different situation.

Back at home base, Jeremy Owyang’s post was about three essential qualities for corporate media posts.  He says, look for people who:

  • Fulfill meaningful business objectives (“These individuals will be able to use brand monitoring tools, have analytical abilities, and be able to benchmark their efforts that tie back to business metrics–not social media metrics.”)
  • Bridge both internal stakeholders and customers (“This quality requires the professional to be able to relate to internal teams that may not understand the social culture, be empathetic, be able to communicate and train them . . . “)
  • Show credibility with the technology (Beyond expertise with current technology, they need to be “capable of learning new technologies, evaluating, and then applying for business needs.”)

Summary?  Whether it’s technology or people—keep strategic concerns in mind when making social media choices.


(Thanks to jayniebell for the great glitter.)

The Global War for Talent

Take China, for example. The new hotels we are opening will create over 30,000 jobs there. The job market there is extremely fast-paced, and quality candidates have a range of opportunities. We are competing with major multi-national companies for qualified and experienced staff across different skill sets, including HR, finance, sales, marketing and engineering.

That quote is from a “Hot Topic” article on the InterContinental Hotels Group website, written by Tracy Robbins, Executive Vice President of Human Resources for IHG.   I think for some folks—and particularly for some Americans—there’s a moment of disorientation upon reading that paragraph.  For one thing, the downturn in hiring (to say nothing of the increase in downsizing) has dominated the news about employment for so long that it takes an active imagination to contemplate hot labor markets.  But according to Robbins, “the number of workers with transferable skills is steadily increasing and people are willing to change jobs more often.  In short, we’re in a seller’s market–a market where talent matters, and talent wins.”

Wow.  And double-wow for the people who got ahead of the global curve on this one.  It’s been a surprisingly fast trip from the Cultural Revolution to the Capitalist Revolution, and I think it would be fair to say the China boom wasn’t an obvious development, viewed from twenty or even ten years ago.  But now it’s now, and the playing field has changed dramatically.

For another thing . . . there’s a lot of rhetoric about the impact of globalization on employment.  But most of the public discussion is about the shift of relatively low-wage manufacturing and customer service jobs to countries where labor is cheaper.  Much less is said about either (a) the opportunities in Asia and other countries for American and European workers, or (b) the competition for local talent in quickly developing markets such as China.

The IHG website features a gorgeous video about China, and their Careers site is worth a visit—not only for a look at their Asia initiative, but also to see their strategies for increasing employee engagement.  With a farflung workforce, it’s especially important to create a feeling of “corporate community,” and IHG is pursuing that goal with a lot of features on their main site, and a special campaign called Room to Grow.

If your company isn’t doing business multi-nationally today, it may be soon.  What’s the plan for expanding the recruiting message beyond familiar borders?

Speaking from Experience! Now, About Transformability…

In Hiring for Fast-growing Departments or Companies (an interesting article on ere.net), consultants Tony Kubica and Sara LaForest contend the two key issues for successful hiring in rapid-growth conditions are alignment and transformability.  In their words:

Alignment addresses the passion and skills the person brings to the organization, and their fit within the organization. Transformability is hiring the person not for the job as it exists today, but as it will exist tomorrow. Addressing the alignment issue without considering the transformability issue will likely result in hiring the wrong person.

I’ll guess that the concept of assessing alignment is already familiar.  More than just matching the skills to the job—it’s finding someone who’s a good fit for the culture and has an enthusiasm for the goals and challenges of the position.

Not that it’s always easy to achieve alignment in hiring (or to maintain it across the organization), but the concept is familiar HR terrain.  Transformability, on the other hand, may be terra incognita.  In evaluating this quality, you are basically asking “Can this candidate evolve with the job?”

Kubica and LaForest make the point that in hiring for a fast-growing entity, recruiters should be “looking for candidates who fit the future, not just the current, job requirements.”  But I would go a step further:

Today, some companies may be fast-growing, but many are fast-shrinking.  And most are engaged in some kind of change.  With the entire ground of business undergoing shifts, from small tremors to major quakes, transformability may be a vital key for hiring in the majority of organizations.

My own experience connects up here because I’ve worked as a contractor/freelancer/consultant for most of my career.  Flexibility and tolerance for ambiguity (!) are qualities I’ve cultivated, and they have always been viewed as an advantage by the organizations I’ve worked for.  But I’ve noticed that those same organizations, when hiring full-time employees, look for a tight fit with the specific job requirements—and often end up with a workforce that doesn’t respond to change very well.

In transformational projects, change management is always a huge challenge.  Not just on the practical level, but on the cultural level.  So maybe, since the times they are a-changin’ faster and faster, transformability (“the ability to be transformed”) ought to be in the forefront of consideration for all hiring at all companies.

But.  Based on what I’m seeing in the market right now, the trend may actually be in the opposite direction.  With budgets tight, only the most necessary positions are being filled, and there’s a view that every hire has to be a slam dunk.  That means extra emphasis on “fit,” and less consideration for the kinds of strategic qualities that could seem like a luxury.

Thought experiment:  What if every job had two descriptions?  A “now” version, and a “maybe” version.  Now the job is selling widgets, but maybe it will soon be marketing the art of widgetry.  The best candidate might be the one who can imagine making that transition.

Speaking from Experience! About Applications and . . .

something called “Transformability.”  Two separate topics, but I’ve had reason to think about both lately—so here are a few comments:

First.  I had to fill out a job application online.  Only sort of a “job” application, really, because I was responding to a project opening advertised on a fairly specialized niche board, and it was not a full-time employee position, but rather a part-time, virtual “opportunity.”  In short, the sort of thing that is usually handled by submitting a CV, samples, cover, etc.  However the entity involved is an educational institution, and they wanted an application, so by golly, I jumped into the process.

NOT a good experience!

There were two problems.  (A) The application was a complete misfit for the opportunity, asking questions that not only didn’t apply, but really couldn’t be answered by most people who would be responding.  But (B) even if I had been seeking the kind of position the application was designed for, the process of filling it out would have been very frustrating.  It went on for MANY pages/screens, with no indication of where I was in the process, or when (if ever) it might end.  When I started the application I had no hint of what would be involved—and once I began, the only connection to the application form was the Continue button.  The path  of no choice just led deeper into the maze, and since the MANY questions in the application had no groupings and no discernible order, it wasn’t even possible to make an educated guess about how far along I might be.

The questions on each page were in a complete vacuum (i.e., no context, no way of referencing previous questions)—and I began to notice that new questions were similar to ones I’d already encountered.  I wondered how question 36 differed from the very similar 23.  No way to compare.  So was the similarity a psychological test of consistency?  Why else ask twice in different ways?  Was it nuanced, or just careless?!

And there’s always a slim chance the whole thing was intended to discourage applicants, or test their tolerance for frustration.  But more likely, I’d guess that different stakeholders wanted to have their questions included on the application in their very own words, so the form became kind of a collage, with similar questions that might be redundant–or might merit completely different answers if the applicant had any context to go by.  Who knows?

Very likely, someone just took the paper application and made it clickable, so all the problems of the original became that much worse.  As for my experience–with no way to stop and save the work I’d already put in, I slogged on to the end, but was pretty cranky by the time I put N/A into the last blank.  One thing I was sure of:  the completed application did not provide very much that would be useful for evaluating me as a candidate.

I see that my rant has used up all of today’s post, so Transformability will have to be covered next time.  Meanwhile, some suggested takeaways:

  • See how upsetting a bad application form can be?
  • Web-based application forms need to be web-user-friendly.  Putting a paper application online is bad.
  • Different types of opportunities require different types of applications—or at least enough flexibility for the form to be used in different ways by different applicants.  One-size-fits-all is bad!

Off the Wall! Three Irresistible Ideas


Oogst 1000

Serendipity has led me to several items that are just so interesting I have to share.  One actually has practical application, another is a cautionary tale—and the third is an inspiration.

Let’s start with the inspiration, since that’s connected with today’s eye-catching illustration.  Yes!  It’s a completely serious design for a “self-sufficient farm, restaurant, hotel and amusement park for 1,000 people per day.”  In the Oogst 1000 Wonderland:

  • Everything is linked by technology to create a self-sustainable system.
  • All food for the restaurant comes from the farm.
  • Visitors can learn about sustainable agriculture while they vacation.

The idea comes from Dutch design firm Tjep, and it’s part of a series that includes a house/farm that will provide one person with everything they need to live: greenhouse-grown food, solar and wind energy, and a completely self-contained oxygen atmosphere.

Relevance for the corporate website?  Surprise your visitors, at least occasionally.  Don’t just rely on “Careers page” stereotypes.  Add some imagination.

The second item is more practical, although application in the recruiting sector looks to be still in the future.  Mingle 360 has introduced a really fun and useful concept/product/service that let’s people use a gadget to exchange/capture information.  The “MingleStick” is just a little bigger than a typical memory stick, and as of now, it’s mainly for use at events, such as tradeshows and conventions.  Attendees use the MingleStick to click each other instead of exchanging business cards, and back home, they can see/store/organize their captured information in Mingle Manager.

There’s also social networking integration with Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.  And exhibitors can use a desktop MingleStation receiver that ties lead retrieval into the total package.

Some of my favorite career experiences have been associated with the tradeshow industry—and as a veteran on both sides of the aisle, I just see Mingle as a great idea. The current business model seems geared toward very large events (1000+), but it appears there would be a natural potential for use in more specialized settings, such as job fairs and career events.  I’ve asked the company for additional information (including some ideas about cost-effectiveness) and will provide more Mingle info in a subsequent post.

The final idea is really only half-irresistible, but that was too long to explain in the post title.  Mine Magazine, a personalized/customized print/online delivery platform from Time, Inc., got decidedly mixed reviews in its early outings.  A few folks liked it much more than they expected to, while others really didn’t—and (as far as I know) there’s no telling yet whether the project will progress, morph, or die.  But there is something important to consider about the attempt itself.  That being:

Everyone recognizes that the whole process of information delivery is changing fast.  Some of the familiar methods taken for granted in the past (print newspapers, for example, and broadcast television) are going to change radically in the future, while  some of the newer formats we rely on today (like the website!) are already losing their effectiveness.  So every smart company is looking for ways to change ahead of the curve, rather than falling behind.

The conventional corporate website is beginning to take on a “vintage” look–and nowhere is that more apparent than in the Careers sector.  What’s the plan at your company for the evolution of web presence?

2010 is just around the corner . . .

Cut on the Bias? Race and (Un)employment . . .


Scissors 1

A recent article on the Workforce Management website points out that job openings in America have decreased by 36% since May of 2008.  There are a lot of obvious consequences related to this fact.  But the article goes on to consider a couple of the less obvious by-products.

The first is concerned with race:

The recession is replicating racial disparities documented in earlier downturns. In June [2009], the official unemployment rate hit 14.7 percent for blacks and 12.2 percent for Hispanics, compared with 8.7 percent for whites.  Racial disparities in the unemployment rates appear across all levels of educational attainment. When employers can generate large numbers of applicants from limited outreach or even a single source, the pool of candidates becomes increasingly homogeneous.

The second is about perception:

“The concept of passive candidates is fiction,” [says John Younger, CEO of recruiting firm Accolo]. “We’re all temporaries. In normal times, if a candidate has been out of work for six months, there might be an assumption that something is wrong with the candidate. Today, there are world-class experts in every function who are not working, but there is still a preference for employed candidates.”

I added the italics in both these quotes to emphasize what I think are important points.  While it might make sense to reduce the volume of applications when there are too few people to review them, the way that’s done can reflect personal and/or institutional biases toward (or away from) particular groups.  Bias can affect choices regardless of intention, and may remain invisible when busy people are just trying to function effectively under challenging circumstances.

Still another problem is surfaced in the Workflow Management article.  Accolo—which is a pretty big operation—aggressively pursues diversity among the applicants it presents to its clients.  However, according to the examples offered by Younger, that isn’t doing much good.  He reports using both broad-reach sites (Monster, Yahoo, Craigslist, etc.) and also niche boards (targeted toward minorities, older candidates, and women) in an attempt to achieve a more diverse candidate pool, yet the percentage of black and Hispanic applicants is still very low.

The article offers no speculation on this point, but I’d be very curious to understand why the groups that are disproportionately unemployed are also the groups that are disproportionately not applying for jobs.  There could be a skewing effect based on the types of jobs being offered in the Accolo examples—but there could also be other factors at work . . .   A higher level of discouragement among minorities?  A higher rate of migration from employment to self-employment?  Subtle disincentives from employers/recruiters?

Obviously, the article raises more questions than it answers.  But I’ll add one more query to the mix:  Are some companies changing their websites and/or their messaging to discourage applicants, and thereby reduce the quantity of candidates to be managed?  I have no idea, but it seems like something worth wondering about.


(Thanks to DrBacchus for the excellent image of scissors “at work.”)