Sirona Says

Making social media work for your company

While doing some Sunday morning reading online, I came across the graphic below from the website Oneupweb, a digital marketing agency, that I thought was simple and brilliant at the same time.

It is self explanatory and it is a very good graphical representation of making social media work for your business, and the different types of social media that could interest different parts of the organisation.

So here it is, making social media work for your company:

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Should recruiters or hiring managers take 'job mashups' or 'portfolio careers' more seriously?

The recession is really impacting on many people's lives in a big way. And in the job market this is absolutely true. There are millions out of work, with some areas of the countries fairing better than others. While some people are lucky and find a new job - albeit it takes a little longer to get one - many are not so fortunate!

What has started to happen, both by choice and necessity is that people are stringing together a number of smaller jobs together, just to survive financially, because jobs paying the required salaries just aren't there at the moment.
These types of job mashups are known as portfolio careers - you no longer have one job, but multiple jobs and employers within one or more professions. Instead of working a traditional full-time job, you work multiple part-time jobs (including part-time employment, temporary jobs, freelancing, and self-employment) with different employers that when combined are the equivalent of a full-time position.

These people that hold down these portfolio careers and succeed need to be applauded for their attitude towards wanting to work. They are actually showing many traits that employers should be looking for going forward. However, my fear is that both recruiters and hiring managers will steer away from them when they come to apply for a individual higher salaried jobs.

With the available pool of talent being more representative of a flood currently, recruiter and hiring managers, will be looking to find the most obvious matches, and the easiest routes to a placement/hire. This is bad news for candidates with a CV showing their portfolio career!! Job seekers with multiple shorter duration jobs on their CV's will be swept to one side by the deluge of people with "stable" job histories with fewer, longer duration jobs on their CV.

So by working hard, wanting to make sure they are working, and paying their bills the best they can, me fear is that these portfolio career workers could actually be setting themselves up for a longer term job problem!

Are the (unfortunately) harsh realities of clients and recruiters alike - specific requirements and available talent - going to seriously hamper these portfolio career job seekers?

I for one, applaud the attitude of these workers, I just wish more people had the same attitude towards work!!

What do you think?

OK, so what DO you have to wear to the interview to get a job then?

Is it a sign of the times that 76% of British bosses will make a decision on your suitability for their job,  based on what you are wearing when you sit in front of them at the interview?

Is this really a surprise? I don't think, so as employers have been doing it for years. In candidate driven markets they have had to 'scale down' their expectations and would overlook dress codes (especially when recruiting gen Y'ers). But now the landscape as changed (albeit temporarily), and the hiring companies feel that they have the control back in the interview, which of course they do!

According to this recent Ladders survey of 500 senior bosses from UK companies, over a third of interviewers have cited bad interview appearance as a primary reason for candidate rejection!! Blimey!!

So what should you avoid wearing at an interview?

Ok Men here you go with your no-no's!

1. No tie (52% say fire)
2. No jacket (50% say fire)
3. Chinos (50% say fire)
4. Polo shirts (66% say fire)
5. Jeans (82% say fire)
6. T shirts (88% say fire)
7. Leather jackets (70% say fire)
    

Here you go ladies, don't feel left out...

1. Short skirt (60% say fire)
2. Low necklines (95% say fire)
3. Sports shoes (91% say fire)
4. Dangling jewellery (99% say fire)
5. Bare legs (94% say fire)
6. Big shoulder pads - ala 80's style - (97% of bosses say big shoulder pads are wrong for interview)

I haven't finished yet, as there are more no-no's.....

1. 59% of interviewers, stains and dirty marks will see you out of the interview room immediately
2. 36% of interviewers see co-ordination of colours and styles as an important indication of the candidate’s personality
3. 75% of interviewers will look at whether your clothes are “appropriate for the circumstances”
4. 33% of interviewers said they would consider whether the candidate’s style suited their organisation
5. 95% of interviewers said orange was an inappropriate colour to wear to an interview, with red (84%) and pink (83%) coming in closely behind orange

What have the interviewers got against the 80's? People did get jobs then even with the fashion mistakes you know!!

So after all that, what should you be wearing to your interview?

1. Tailored navy single breasted suit (51% hire)
2. White or blue long sleeved shirt (48% hire)
3. Black leather shoes (56% hire)
4. Black socks (77% hire) (too right here, seen white socks making a comeback again !!)
5. Low key tie (35% hire)
6. Cufflinks (37% hire)
7. and no handkerchief (35% hire) (Come on, who wears a handkerchief in the top pocket any more?)
8. A mid-length black skirt or dress (64% hire) (women, obviously....)
9. Long sleeved and collared shirt or blouse (42% hire)
10. Tights (94% hire)
11. High heels (69% hire)
12. Pearls (56% hire)

Well it seems that we have returned to traditional boring conservative Britain again!! 

The sooner the employment market gets back to normal, and the gen Y'ers can (and maybe the gen Z'ers) can start to break the mold the better! Seriously, do we all have to dress like shop dummies to get a new job?
Well obviously at the moment, while the companies have control, then I am afraid if you want your next job, you better get shopping!!

Do you know what happens to your CV when it arrives on an Employer's or a Recruitment Agency's desk?

As a job seeker looking for a new job, do you know what the primary purpose of your CV/Resume is?

Is it:
a)  Ammunition for the office 'bin basketball' competition?
b)  Paper airplane material?
c)  A guarantee of getting a job?
d)  Something to make the reader of your CV laugh out loud?
e)  A route to a work permit?

Well, if you hadn't already guessed, it is none of the above!

The primary purpose of a CV is to get you an interview with an employer. That's it!
The CV won't get you the job - YOU do that. It just gives you the opportunity to get a job.

As a job seeker, do not send another CV until that has sunk in, because it has massive implications on your job search. Your task in the CV is to just achieve this, so if some of the information on your 8 page CV could be classified as ' would this get them excited enough to invite me for an interview', then get rid of it now!

Here are some other important things to consider before you send your nice new shiny CV off to an employer or recruitment agency:

1. When an employer or recruitment agency is going through CV applications for a role, the average time spent on looking at a CV is no more than 10 seconds (and for many recruitment agencies it is, unbelievably, less). Tip one:First impressions count.
2. At the initial selection stage, your CV will only ever end up in two piles - 'reject' or 'read more'. You will only ever be filtered out at this stage, nothing else.  Tip two: Don't waste your time applying for jobs that just aren't suitable for what your CV says you do - otherwise your rejected applications will grow and grow!
3. Many companies(surprisingly) don't have skilled (and in some cases dedicated) staff carrying out the recruitment process. Tip three: Do all you can to help by making it very clear at the beginning of your CV what you do and what you want to do, in a well written profile.
4. The majority of recruitment staff (and this goes for both companies and recruitment agencies alike ) are not technically minded. So don't try and bamboozle them with technical data and gobbledy-crap - it won't work. Tip four: Explain in legible easy to read and accepted business speak, not techo-geek anachronisms.
5. Many recruitment consultants within recruitment agencies have become CV blind. They see literally 100's and 100's of CV's a day (both incoming and via their CV databases). For this reason they (understandably sometimes) miss good CV's due to the volume they receive. Tip five: If you have sent a CV for a job (making sure you can actually do the job in the first place), don't make the cardinal sin job seekers make by not following up the CV with a phone call.

In this current recessionary climate, there is no doubt that trying to find a job has become a numbers game - don't be under any illusions about that. You will suffer rejection again and again - the thing to remember is not to take it personally. The interviewer doesn't know you, hasn't yet spoken to you, doesn't even know anything about you. All they see is one or two paragraphs of your CV (more if you are lucky), and then they make a decision......the 'reject' or 'read more' pile. As I said it isn't personal!

If you would like any more of my 'words of wisdom', then you can get a free 12 pages pdf of valuable job seekers tips here.

So here are some of my tips for job seekers regarding sending CV applications, but what would you add? What other nuggets of advice would you suggest based on your experiences?

How do you successfully extract people from 'happy jobs' to fill your role?

This week I have had three particular conversations with people I know well that have all ended with me (for once) being lost for an immediate answer to their problem!  The cause for my dilemma has been the current employment landscape!!

All three conversations have been along the same lines, so let me para-phrase the scenario:

Large blue chip company looking to recruit senior sales and marketing roles. They are well established, have a solid financial track record, have a good reputation and are paying good salaries. They do have high standards (as you would expect) but not unrealistic, and there is proven career progression.
These companies have been trying to recruit these roles for several months, and have even got to offer stages (all of them), but were all counter offered, and subsequently lost their candidates.

The question I was asked was this, "What do we have to do to find great people that actually want our jobs, and extract them from their current employers?"

Now as you might expect, I have covered many things with them in trying to help them understand why they are having problems such as; salary, package, location, spec, profile, company profile, brand, career, training, development, employment brand, understanding candidate motivation, approach of the recruitment agencies, which agencies they use, products they are selling, travel, market perception etc etc

I would just like to say that they are all being realistic and prepared to be flexible where they can, but there does come a point where you draw the line!
The impression that these people have been left with, is that yes there are many candidates 'looking for a job', but when it comes to the crunch they won't make the ultimate commitment and leave, citing the economy and 'maybe in six months time' as reasons.

WHY?

This is where you come in!
A question for all you recruiters or candidates out there - how do companies like the ones above entice people away from a good job? What can they do to make them take the final step and actually leave their current company?
I would really like to hear your ideas?

Facebook is used to recruit a UK World Champion

Facebook, is now being used more widely as a recruitment tool. A recent success story shows just how effective Facebook can actually be for recruitment.

The UK is not renowned for its huge numbers of bobsledder's, so when recruiting for new team members, some creativity was needed, highlighting  the skills needed rather than the experience - please take note employers!
The No 1 women's bobsleigh driver Nicola Minichello, was looking for answers. She knew that her team needed boosting with new talent to challenge for medals, but since it was not forthcoming, she started her own talent search......on Facebook.

From her initial search, she shortlisted twenty candidates, that she felt met her criteria  then she got emailing. Following, some communications and subsequent trials, they found an absolute star, in the name of Edinburgh long jumper Gillian Cooke. She was so good that she went straight into the No 1 team.

After a series of top 3 finishes in various World Cup races, they capped it all with a Gold Medal, by winning the recent Bobsleigh World Championships in Lake Placid in New York.

So if anyone says to you that you can't use Facebook, to successfully find very specific skills, then let this story be a great example of how good Facebook can be as a recruiting tool. 

Are Job Seekers wasting their time with Recruitment Agencies?

Every day now there are seemingly endless amounts of people ending up in the queues at the Job Centres. Even today, the Government are trying to help the middle classes who have found themselves out of work in this recession, with special initiatives to help them find work.

So, as someone who has spent their career in the recruitment sector, I find myself asking questions of the industry and whether there should be some evolution in the way that job seekers are advised to find a job. 

I have recently questioned if it is right, to pay a career consultant to help find a job, which prompted some interesting discussion.

Today, I want to focus on recruitment agencies - are they a waste of time for job seekers?

Are Job Seekers now having to deal with Interviewers that have returned to the Dark Side?

Just like Star Wars has been enjoying a resurgence of popularity with the good that is, Luke Sywalker fighting the evil that is, Darth Vadar, it seems like the Evil has returned to the job market!

There is one simple reason why this is happening - the global credit crunch.
The unfortunate effect of the recession is that many more people are looking for, and applying for jobs. And this has given the interviewers too much choice!

So why is this a problem?

Many interviewers - and I include both corporates and recruitment agencies in this - don't possess a fantastic array of interviewing skills. They have probably taught themselves through experience, and it is unlikely that they will have had much training at all. For approximately 12 months prior to the start of the credit crunch, these interviewers were really 'trying hard' to up their game when interviewing new candidates - they had to as there were very limited job seekers out there. So we saw them working hard at learning new skills like competency interviewing, taking advice from colleagues and, dare I say it, actually doubting whether they had the skills to be able to interview in the first place! Then came the credit crunch......

Now there is more choice and some ugly habits have returned!

Fixed Fee Recruitment RPO providers - shouldn't they actually be called recruiting FARM's?

 

As part of a large recruitment audit I am currently working on, I have had cause to look at the fixed fee recruitment providers, such as Webrecruit, Networx, Net-Recruit, Websearch and EasyWebRecruitment.

The first thing to try and do was to understand what they are actually called and what they do. They are not really full RPO (recruitment process outsourcing) companies, although they have the capacity to be. They are not true recruitment agencies, but again they do some of the process.
They all charge a fixed fee for a recruitment management service, whether that be job board advertising, CV database searches or response management.

So, I have created a description for them that I feel is both appropriate and effective as a description of what they do - recruiting FARM's.
F - Fixed fee
A - Advertising jobs
R - Resourcing vacancies
M - Management of the process

I actually think that it describes what they do very well.

What do you think? Does it suit their service? Can you come up with a better one?

Does Your Business need a Recruitment Pinch Hitter now?

I am sure that many of you are not fans of Baseball, so first let me explain what a pinch hitter actually is:

They are simply defined as a substitute for another person, especially in an emergency or a moment of need.  This expression comes from baseball, where it is used for a player substituting for another at bat at a critical point or in a tight situation.

So to put into a business context, it would be someone with specialist skills being called upon to go into a company and solve specific needs of that company, for problems or issues they are experiencing.

Yes it's not brilliant out there, but it's NOT THAT BAD

We all know the state of the economy, it is something that everyday the media seem to taking great pleasure in telling us because they think people want to hear about it!
But what is more significant, is that all this bad news and the continual overkill of doom and gloom  (in my opinion, anyway) that comes out of the British Chamber of Commerce is ever-shrinking the confidence of recruitment and employment in UK businesses.

But let me be clear here, yes there is alot of bad news out there, but it is not effecting every company in the same way, as many are still recruiting staff at all levels. There are still big recruitment problems out there for some companies, as the quality and availability of candidates is becoming very limited.

A large retailer I spoke to last week, told me that their usage of recruitment agencies has actually increased since the credit crunch took hold!! Is that so surprising?
They now receive ten times more CV's, and the quality has dropped dramatically, so for this retailer to get to speak to the skilled individuals they need in their business, they are needing to use agencies to source them.