Corporate Eye

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Cynthia Giles

Cynthia Giles

From the Inbox: Tips for Great Tweets, plus a Serious Subject


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Two items found in my email recently are definitely worth passing along.

First:  Using Twitter for Employment Branding? 15 Things Recruiters Can Tweet About . . . is a concise, creative checklist of ways to make Twitter make sense as a recruiting tool.  Tweeting career advice, sharing interview examples, announcing offers and new hires, posting event photos-real-life ideas and information that will make your Twitterstream actually interesting!

The post is so perfect that I won’t try to summarize here.  Instead I’ll just suggest you print it out, laminate it, and keep it in plain sight at all times.  Even if you don’t tweet, these suggestions can be utilized in a variety of other ways to enrich HR communications.

While you’re at it, check out some other smart advice from the same author (Jessica Lee, a Senior Employment Manager for APCO Worldwide), such as Social Media Won’t Do a Thing for Your Employment Brand if Your Brand Simply Sucks. Partly I just like the title, but the post is also a good reminder that realism is often the first casualty of social-media enthusiasm.

At the opposite end of the spectrum is an item from the Workforce Management website:  Employers Grapple with Rise in Workplace Suicides.  According to this important article, “there was a 28 percent increase in the number of suicides committed in the workplace last year–251–compared with the prior year, according to a census by the U.S. Department of Labor released in August.”

Note that 251 is the number of suicides actually committed in the workplace.   That doesn’t include the much greater number of employees who take their lives elsewhere.  The piece goes on to explore some reasons behind this trend, and provides some advice, along with links to related discussions.  Again, I won’t summarize–but I urge you to read the article.

What does workplace suicide have to do with recruiting in general, and with the corporate website in particular?  Here’s one connection:

Positive corporate values, a supportive workplace culture, respect for life/work balance, and a constructive approach to diversity are intangible benefits that improve the employee experience and should be highlighted on the website, just like tangible benefits such as health insurance and 401Ks.  In addition, the availability of Employee Assistance Programs and mental health coverage are valuable assets that enhance the employer brand.

Most people don’t join a company expecting to experience a life crisis–but they would like to know that if or when they do, they can expect help and not harm from their employer.  When a prospect evaluates a company, that’s one of the assurances he or she seeks, even if not consciously.


Boost Website Appeal with Tourism Lessons

 

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According to SmartBlog on Workforce, this presentation was a hit at the recent annual conference of SHRM (Society for Human Resource Management):

10 Ways To Jazz Your Recruiting and Employee Self-Service Web Sites: Learn from Top Tourism Sites

Description: “Attract and retain top talent through your recruiting Web site and employee portal using the design concepts from the world’s top tourism sites. These sites offer rich, interactive and personalized experiences-the same keys that will boost the effectiveness of your online HR presence. Mr. Rotella will share strategic elements to enhance your Web site.”  Presenter: Joe Rotella, chief technical officer, Delphia Consulting

As of now it appears you will have to time-travel back to the June meeting in order to get the presentation in toto, and I didn’t find further information in the SmartBlog post (or on Rotella’s site) concerning the proposed parallel between recruiting sites and tourism sites.  But my fantasy of what that means is pretty simple:  Tourism sites are designed to make people want to visit [wherever].  A recruiting site should be designed to make people want to work at [wherever].

Simple, maybe.  Important?  Definitely.

The Smartblog summary included a few highlights from the presentation, selected by poster Mary Ellen Slayter.  Here are three of her descriptions–and these points would definitely help in making the corporate Career site more like “invitation to the perfect cruise” and less like “here’s some stuff about jobs at our company.”

  • Get rid of your FAQ. “It’s the junk drawer” of the Web, Rotella said. You should be incorporating that information into your regular content.
  • Know what type of content appeals to your users. And be particularly cautious about using glitzy flash applications. People usually skip them, he said. “Why do you want to pay me to build you one?”
  • Avoid using generic addresses for submitting questions or resumes. “People want to talk to people, not ‘hr@’.”

Some thoughts:

Two thumbs up for the point about email addresses!!  This is one the lowest-hanging items in the fruit basket (i.e., a cheap and easy improvement), yet an amazing number of companies overlook the opportunity.

Two more thumbs up regarding Flash.  Seriously–meaningless motion just looks like filler nowadays.  The new has worn off, and in these serious times, most visitors do not want to spend minutes watching a company romance flick (or even a company action/adventure flick).  The bigger point here:  Think about what your actual target audience would actually want to see and do on your site.  Here again, an amazing number of companies just don’t take that seemingly obvious step.

But about the FAQ . . . I can’t entirely agree.  “Don’t use it as a junk drawer” is spot-on advice.  It shouldn’t be a miscellany or an afterthought!  But that doesn’t mean the FAQ can’t serve a useful function.  FIRST, be sure that every item of needed information is included appropriately in the part of the site where it fits.  THEN, organize and summarize important information and links in an FAQ-type format that will be genuinely helpful to visitors.

Bottom line:  The problem is not the FAQ per se.  The problem is using it in a lazy way!

 

Online Screening: Some Surprising Statistics


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As social media plays an increasingly large role in job-hunting and recruitment, the “public persona” is bound to become more and more important.  Job seekers research the employer, so employers work to build a persuasive employer brand.  (Or at least they ought to!)

So should job-seekers build their own “brands” by crafting a search-friendly online identity?  It looks as if those who don’t may swiftly fall behind . . .

A recent CareerBuilder survey found that 45% of employers use social networking sites to screen applicants–and that’s double the number from last year’s result.  That in itself is surprising, but I was even more amazed at this figure:  35% of employers report finding content on social networking sites that caused them not to hire a candidate.   The top reason (53%) was “candidate posted provocative or inappropriate photographs or information,” followed closely by “candidate posted content about drinking or using drugs” (44%).  Criticizing former employers, co-workers or clients came in at 35%, with poor communication skills (29%), discriminatory comments (26%), lies about qualifications (24%) and sharing confidential information from past employers (20%) rounding out the mix.

On the other hand . . . only 18% of employers reported that online screening had a positive effect on their decision to hire a candidate.  In those cases, 50% of the time it was because a profile “provided a good feel for the candidate’s personality and fit with the organization,” while 19% of the time it was because other people posted good references about the candidate.  In between, were some interesting reasons in the 35% range:  “candidate was creative”; “candidate showed solid communication skills”; and “candidate was well-rounded.”

Unsurprising numbers:  The industries most likely to include online screening (via social networking sites and/or search engines) in their review process were Information Technology and Professional/Business Services.  The most frequently researched sites were Facebook (29%), LinkedIn (26%), and MySpace (21%), followed distantly by blogs and following candidates on Twitter.

Best for last:  14% of employers disregarded a candidate “because the candidate sent a message using an emoticon.”  The surprise here was not that employers found the smiley-face a turn-off, but that there were enough emoticon-includers to produce a statistical effect.   (Much as I love emoticons personally, they just can’t be used safely until you’re not only hired, but the boss of somebody.)

It will be interesting to see how these statistics change in months to come.  The CareerBuilder survey (which tapped 2,667 hiring managers and human resource professionals) found that an additional 11% of respondents plan to add social site screening to their candidate reviews.


(Thanks to Danard Vincente for the great “search” image.)


Can the Corporate Website Drive Process Improvement? Maybe . . .


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A recent post on problems with the interview process left off with a question:  How are interviewing issues connected to the Corporate website?  Here are a couple of steps toward an answer:


Some of the best Career sites I’ve visited signal that they are serious about hiring–and that they have a supportive attitude toward candidates–by offering a thoughtful, well-developed description of the hiring process.  Ideally, that includes a preview of what to expect in the interview process, with tips for success.  Consider a couple of examples at Merck and CarMax.  Not only is the information valuable in both cases, but by their tone and approach the two treatments convey additional information about the respective (very different) companies.

Why don’t more companies do this?  In many cases, I’ll bet, it’s because communicating with website visitors at a detail level seems like a low-priority item that would take time no one has.  But also, I suspect, because the process isn’t well-defined, or possibly doesn’t even exist.  For example–in terms of interviews–there may not be a consistent approach, so different interviewers use whatever method occurs to them.

Personalizing the interview process is not a bad thing, but completely randomizing it probably is.  So one value of providing job-seekers with online information about interviewing might be internal.  That is, the process of crafting a message could/should lead to further thought about what really does go on in a company’s interview process, and whether improvement is needed.

I haven’t (yet) found any analysis or even evidence supporting the idea that website development can drive process improvement.  But I can report on my own experience, much of which has had to do with communicating business and technical information in documents, presentations, and online content.  More often than not, once the decision was made to “publish” a process or project to a broader audience, much (much) re-thinking happened.  The necessity of explaining something frequently reveals the need for clarification, adjustment, or even a return to the drawing board.

Worth the time and effort?  Well–if you believe the studies that say employment interviewing is often poorly done, and that bad interviewing results in costly hiring mistakes and/or new-hires who aren’t enthusiastic about the company–maybe so!

Bonus: It would be great if corporate Career sites actually stated the company’s expectations for its interviewers.  I haven’t found an example of that yet, but hope springs eternal!

Double Bonus: I had a good time reading the uninhibited opinions of HR consultant Wendell Williams on interview questions.  You might too.


(Thanks to Xurble for today’s question mark.)


What’s Up with Those Interviews?


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A friend of mine, who recently became one of many professionals let go by a very large, very bankrupt company, has been telling me about her experiences as a job seeker.  On the up side, she’s been getting interviews.  On the down side . . . each one seems to be more unfortunate than the last.

In one case, the interviewer was the COO, and reportedly so puffed up with his own accomplishments that my friend felt like an audience rather than a candidate.  At the other end of the spectrum was the second event in a planned series of seven rounds!  Candidates are expected to meet with three different HR representatives, “the team,” and two managers, after which whoever is still sane and still wants the job will be grilled by the Big Kahuna.

In Lap Two of this marathon, my friend coped with an hour of detailed questions that began almost before she could sit down and never departed from the formulaic: “Please describe a situation in which you ________” [two minutes].  “Please give an example of your experience with _________” [two minutes] . . . . “Thank you, goodbye.”

In both these cases, she left hoping she wouldn’t be called back.  But of course–since she really wants to find a job–it’s sort of a double-bind situation.  If an hour or two spent with representatives of a company are like torture, do you really want to become an employee?  Yet, like just about everyone who finds themselves wandering around the interview funhouse, my friend feels a sense of failure when an interview doesn’t go well.

From the seeker side, the solution/challenge is to see oneself, rather than the company, as the “shopper.”  And that thought should spark some interest on the company side.  In a recent column for ere.net, consultant Stephen Balzac makes a convincing case that (my paraphrase) companies who think they can take advantage of high unemployment by being rude to job applicants may be in for an unpleasant surprise when times turn around and the best hires have gone elsewhere.  Along the way, Balzac cites examples that might cheer up my friend–such as the interviewer who spent an entire meeting reading email, and when the candidate tried to get his/her attention, responded shortly: “We multi-task here.”

I think we can all agree that comment indicates a misunderstanding of what “multi-task” actually means.  But in terms of the message this behavior delivers to job-seekers, you can take your choice:

  • “I’ve already decided I don’t like you, and I’m just going through an exercise here.”
  • “The job we’re discussing is not important enough for me to give full attention to finding the right person.”
  • “Everyone at this company is so overworked that we have to be doing at least two things at all times.”
  • “Our workplace culture does not value courtesy.”
  • “I can afford to behave unprofessionally because no one cares what I do anyway.”
  • “I’m so disorganized that I can’t manage my job, and yet the company has picked ME to judge YOU!”

Stipulating that interviewing practices may need some improvement at many companies . . . how does that connect with the corporate website?  Glad you asked.  See the next installment!


(Thanks to Margaret Anne Clark for the starting point of today’s question mark.)


What’s New: Graduates, Gadgetry, and An Edgy Approach


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As the class of 2013 gets ready to matriculate, they can probably look forward to seeing quire a few 2009 graduates on campus.  In a 2009 Student Survey, the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) found that fewer graduating students already had jobs than in previous years–and fewer were looking for jobs.  The study, conducted from February through April, surveyed more than 34,000 students (about half seniors) from over 800 colleges nationwide.

It turned out that less than 20% of the about-to-be grads who were looking for a job actually had one, compared with more than half of the 2007 set.  But the steep drop actually took place last year, when the percentage plummeted from half to 26%.

In terms of job-seeking:  64% were already on the hunt in early 2007, slightly more in 2008, and down a bit to 59% this year.  So not a terribly big change.  Similarly, not a huge shift in the percentage of students planning to attend graduate school rather than enter the job market.  The trend was upward, though, with 20% bound to grad school in 2007, 24% in 2008, and 26% this year.

According to the survey, most of the 2009 seniors were planning to look for a job . . .  So it will be interesting to see–when September numbers come out for unemployment and graduate enrollment–how they fared.

Meanwhile, a lot of companies and recruiters are receiving a lot of resumes.  For those who either don’t have a dedicated Applicant Tracking System, don’t like the one they have, or just can’t resist a gadget, Hireability has come up with a product that will turn the Outlook Inbox into an ATS.  Step right up, folks!  The handy-dandy ALEX Desktop will parse a resume, create a Contact, paste the resume content into the Contact notes, and make the whole thing searchable.  For now it’s free, so why not take it for a spin?

On a completely different topic–I came across the website for a company called Talent Revolution, which styles itself as “a drastic change in thinking and behaving with talent.”  They clearly want to establish themselves as different, starting with the look of the site (a definite urban flavor, with graffiti, bricks, and black leather) and the tone of the content (lots of superlatives, challenges, and pronouncements).

I left the TR site with two somewhat contradictory reactions.  1.  It’s nice to see something different.  Now that I think about it, most corporate Career sites and most of the recruiting blogs take a middle-of-the-road, nothing-to-offend approach, both visually and verbally.  2.  It’s not nice to be baffled.  The TR site was so fragmented I couldn’t figure out the navigation (seriously), and even after reading quite a bit of the content, I wasn’t sure what the company actually does or what message they are trying to deliver.

My own takeaway:  Edgy has appeal–but when you invite people into less-familiar territory, it’s important to give them a good map, well drawn.


(Thanks to woodleywonderworks for the amazing Cosmic Soap Bubbles.  Not sure how the picture fits the post, but I just liked it a lot!)