Corporate Eye

...compare, compete, excel

Cynthia Giles

Cynthia Giles

July Wrap-up


Beautiful Rose

Summer slowed down the posting for Careers in July, so this month the Wrap-up offers a few items that didn’t make it online.

A Note about Certifications

There’s a long-standing debate about whether certifications have real, practical importance.  Does professional certification increase someone’s worth in the marketplace—or is it mainly a source of revenue for the certification provider?  (Check out this lively international discussion for multiple perspectives on IT certification.)

From the individual’s perspective, there are some good reasons to consider certification:

  • Preparing for exams provides the chance to review information, assess strengths and weaknesses, and maybe even learn something new.
  • Passing exams and obtaining a certification can be a confidence booster.  Success feels good!
  • On the other side of the coin, failing an exam could be a needed wake-up call for folks who have been overestimating their skill level.

Although having a certification won’t magically double your market value or ensure a promotion—those initials after your name actually may add a little heft to business cards and resumes.

So for those who can afford the time/effort/money, and don’t expect a miracle, certification can make sense.  Unfortunately—no certifications available yet for Brilliant Online Corporate Careers Communication.  But until the BOCCC comes along, there’s the PHR (Professional in Human Relations) and the SPHR (Senior Professional in Human Relations) from the HR Certification Institute.  Visit their blog for a further view into the details.

Revisiting Disability

Recently, the USA marked an anniversary:  twenty years since the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).  For some reflections on the accomplishments since then—along with the gaps that still exist—listen to an NPR conversation:  20 Years After ADA, Accessibility Remains ‘An Evolutionary Process’.  There’s a transcript too.

And for a global perspective, check out the website provided by the UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission.  Three good reasons to visit:

  • A colorful and creative design
  • A summary of the Equality Act 2010, as well as a full-text PDF
  • A guide to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (UNCRPD), as well as full-text versions

An Interesting Survey . . .

I’ve just browsed through a new survey being conducted by Aberdeen’s Human Capital Management practice.  I did not answer the questions, since I’m not in their target demographic—but I did get some ideas by reading the questions, so there will be a post in the future.  Meanwhile, see for yourself.  The survey is online for another week or so, and the results will be out in October.


(Many thanks to elbfoto for the “beautiful rose.”)


If You’ve Got It—Flaunt It!


CTP Website

Recently, the Boston advertising agency Conover Tuttle Pace started its second annual Summer Sublet desk swap.  As reported by the Boston Globe, the Summer Sublet is a combination lottery/draft, in which employees maneuver their way to better quarters for a month.  This year’s big winner traded his spot in the communal workspace for the president’s glass-walled corner office–complete with TV and a garden view

Summer Sublet requires everyone, from the newbies to the bosses, to sit in a different place until Labor Day.  As a small company (just 35 employees), Conover Tuttle Pace is in a position to move folks around without too much hassle, and obviously, this kind of exercise would be logistically impossible in a big corporation.  But Summer Sublet is a playful idea that stimulates cross-functional interaction by mixing up the creative types, the techies, and the execs in new ways.  According Amara Bassiri, the company’s “workflow, wellness, and broadcast guru,” an “exchange of ideas happens organically.”

When the Boston Globe wrote up the Sublet caper, Conover Tuttle Pace swiftly put a big link to the story on their company’s home page.  (That’s it in the post illustration.)  Which brings us to the point:  This is a knockout story for their employer brand.

Again—this particular idea would not translate easily to a corporate milieu.  But there are plenty of clever, creative activities going on in big companies, and as a rule they are not exploited.  A few typical reasons:

  • The Careers/Jobs section is in a silo, not integrated with overall PR and marketing efforts.
  • The PR and marketing folks don’t pay much attention to employer branding.
  • The Careers/Jobs section is focused on job posting and application gathering, with only sporadic attention to the employer brand.
  • The Careers/Jobs section is updated infrequently, and may have no easy way to add newsy items.

Takeaway: The (very) slightly more relaxed pace of summer offers a good opportunity to find out about innovative ideas and activities in your company.  Even if there is no currently convenient way to report these activities on the corporate website, they make great blog posts, and can be included in social media—Facebook loves this type of item, especially if there are photos.  And “cool” stories provide an opportunity for recruiters to tweet something other than routine job postings.

To see fun done right, it’s always worth stopping by Southwest Airlines.   Check out the SWA Facebook page.

Phenomenal Facebook


Julia fractal

I am (at last) getting into Facebook.  For some reason, Twitter made sense to me immediately, while Facebook has remained largely a mystery.  But after a few weeks of floundering around, I’m starting to understand a little better.

Biggest help:  Oddly enough, a talk by David Kirkpatrick on BookTV.  Kirkpatrick (formerly senior technology editor at Fortune magazine) is the author of The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company that is Connecting the World, which came out just a few weeks ago in the US, and will soon arrive in a UK edition.

Needless to say, The Facebook Effect has its own Facebook page, where you can read an excerpt, watch an interview, and (of course) “like” the book.  More than 5,000 likers so far, and the book is well-ranked on Amazon niche lists for E-Commerce (#3) and Company Profiles (#7).  In addition to an in-depth retelling of the well-known dorm-to-dominance story of Facebook’s creation/evolution, Kirkpatrick provides thoughtful analysis that applies not only to Facebook, but to the whole social media landscape.

The second biggest help in my Facebook education was stumbling over what I now think of as the “friend tripwire.”  As an individual, you can plunk along for quite a while just adding friends occasionally for some seemingly good reason.  Then–you add one well-connected activist, and you find yourself with a generous pile of recommendations and requests.  (If you open the door at this point, you need to understand about lists . . . )

So all of a sudden, I began to think of Facebook as something like a fractal generator—i.e., a self-similar replicating system that creates intricate patterns.  From a slightly different perspective, it’s like a complex system organizing itself in response to initial conditions (“me”) and various attractors (“friends”).

If that works for you, happy to be of service!  But if not it doesn’t matter, because probably everyone finds their own point of entry for Facebook, and no one really needs to think of it beyond the practical applications anyway.  Which brings us to the real point:  Facebook for recruiting.

In 2008, there was a lot of hype around “Facebook for recruiting,” and companies like Jobing and Appirio introduced apps and services to build out that potential.  So far, however, these approaches have not seen spectacular success in performance or adoption . . .

So how is Facebook being used effectively to find talent?  That turns out to be a longer story, so stay tuned for two more installments:  Corporate Recruiting via Facebook (with a useful case study) and Recruiters on Facebook (with some interesting examples).


(And yes, that’s a lovely Julia set, shared by Eequor.)

Summer Fun


Battledore_-_Youthful_Sports

Summer isn’t really less fraught than the rest of the year, but we keep on thinking there’s more time to play during the warmer months . . .

In the spirit of the season, here are a few ideas that have (or at least could have) something to do with careers/recruiting/work/job, with a little fun in the bargain:

  1. Catch up on your reading. If you haven’t already followed last year’s Summer Reading suggestions—why not now?  And add to the list Penelope Trunk’s Brazen Careerist:  The New Rules for Success, a quirky look at what works—and what matters—in today’s employment environment.  Some chapter titles to give you the flavor:  First-Time Managers Do Not Need to Suck; Sex Discrimination Is Everywhere, So Don’t Try To Run; and Getting a Promotion Is So Last Century.
  2. Start your own blog. Seriously.  TypePad is super-friendly, offers dozens of great designs, and gives you a 30-day free trial or even a free microblog.  WordPress also has a free version.  Don’t think about it in terms of an audience–blogging is a great way to talk to yourself!—but if you want to do something more in the professional line, you can start your own blog on ere.net with almost no effort.  (Extra motivation: ere.net bloggers can compete during July to win an iPad.)
  3. Get some business cards. No, not those dull ones you already have a box of.  Some really great ones from MOO.  MOO offers a wonderful array of designs, or you can upload your own images—and every card in your order can have a different design if you want to go nuts.  These cards really do grab attention, so they are worth the small investment.  Use them to invent an extra/alternative version of yourself, start that freelance thing you’ve been thinking about, or add some snap to your professional image.
  4. Organize your life. That’s a big one—but hope springs eternal, so if you’ve already run the gamut of time management methods with no luck, the Pomodoro Technique may be just what you’re looking for.  All you need is one of those kitchen timers that looks like a tomato, plus a free ebook from the Pomodoro website. You’ll either love it or hate it, but you’ll get some fun from the try-out.  And some people say this method worked for them when nothing else did.  (Pomodoro is Italian for “tomato,” by the way.)

Enjoy!  And if you guessed that today’s illustration is from the 1804 edition of Youthful Sports, give yourself ten points.


Jeremiah Owyang’s Roadmap for the Corporate Website

Jeremiah Owyang is definitely one of the most influential voices in the social media space–and he has questioned the relevance of traditional corporate websites in the new online landscape.  In this presentation he outlines the issues and projects a path toward integration of social media and corporate website.

Although his overview is mainly focused on consumer-facing aspects of the corporate site, and he doesn’t touch on Careers or employer branding, the presentation offers some very useful information and insights.  Worth watching!

Making your Corporate Website Relevant


And here’s the related post.

Interesting note:  This presentation has received more than 16,000 views on SlideShare and is embedded on more than 60 sites.

Cinderella’s Career


Cinderella

As everyone knows, Cinderella worked hard while the stepsisters just lounged around.  But her industry was not appreciated!  At best she was ignored, at worst ill-treated . . .

Sometimes it seems as if the corporate Careers site needs a fairy godparent.  In many cases Careers is the hardest working part of the company website, since it not only promotes the employer brand and woos prospective employees, but also provides job-search functionality, gathers online applications, and may even carry out testing and pre-screening.  Yet the Careers site often receives very little attention or appreciation within a company, and even less from the HR establishment at large.

So it’s nice that the annual ERE.net competition includes a dedicated award for the “best” Corporate Careers Website, and also considers the Careers site in the Employer Branding and Best Function categories. Analysis of this year’s winners and finalists is in four parts—start here and follow the links on the right of the ERE.net screen. But you’ll have to go back to Part 1 every time, as the links only appear on that page . . .

Also on ERE.net, another excellent checklist from John Sullivan, this one on authenticity in recruitment messaging.  Many of his points relate to the Careers site, so the article is well worth a read.  But you’ll have to wait (or hunt) for the Part 2 that’s promised by the title “Part 1”!  At least I couldn’t find the second installment . . .

If you noticed a theme developing in those last two paragraphs, right again.  Although the ERE.net website is home to a lot of good material, it’s not a great exemplar of online organization and user-friendliness.  Seems like another case in which a hard-working website doesn’t receive the attention it deserves!

Finally, there’s the question of what happens after Cinderella leaves the ball.  Suppose that every corporate Careers site on earth were magically transformed to perfection, today.  What next?

One hopes that Cindy herself lived happily ever after—but that will not, cannot, should not be the fate of any website.  Technology moves on, really fast.  For example:  Intuit, which created an extensive and expensive all-Flash Careers site last year, may already be regretting that it didn’t choose a more mobile-friendly development approach.  (And the site is also quite slow, at least on my desktop.)

HR guru Kevin Wheeler writes that our current model of corporate recruiting is doomed, as companies progressively outsource non-core functions. So what does that mean for the Cinderella website?  Stay tuned.


(That’s Cinderella rethinking her career plan in an 1865 version of the story by the Brothers Dalzell.)