Deselection isn’t new, even in social recruiting

Besides attraction and engagement using social media, how about deselection? There seems to be a movement at the moment that this is something radical. Something new. It’s not. It really isn’t. Most good recruitment communications have always (or should have) attracted the right candidate, while ensuring those ‘not quite right’ thought twice, or at all, about applying. Whether that was a press ad, a poster or website. It’s a principle we’ve always believed in. And always practised. After all, what makes an employer seem attractive to one candidate, can make others turn away.

Recruitment marketing, done properly in any media, has never just been purely about attraction. And now with social media, that ‘deselection’ process is an even stronger option. Questions can be asked before an application. Answers can be given to sway either way. Never mind the option to talk to someone in the company/role. Or actually getting to know what the job entails. The normal job listing ad ‘take-it-or-leave-it’ approach has been ‘left and gone’. So thankfully has the ‘first opportunity for most candidates can ask a question about the role/employer is the first interview’ approach.

This means candidates who ultimately apply for jobs are more engaged. More keen. More interested. More suitable. That is how social recruiting can help you attract the right ones.

How can you add more to their candidate experience? This all has an impact on the perception of you as a brand and as an employer.  It’s much more than ‘being where the fish are’. It’s about being there when the fish are feeding. There’s nothing worse than sending an email and waiting for a reply. Or leaving a voicemail and wondering if it was picked up. At certain levels of job hunting, there’s an expectation of immediate response. Which goes back to where we started about deselecting. The image of your employer brand isn’t just the design of your Facebook page, the size of logo in an avatar or even that video showing what a ‘wacky’ place you are to work for. It is your approach to response. Otherwise, you may find the right candidates deselecting you from their list of companies they’d like to work for.

Social recruiting enters a new Timeline

It’s arrived – TimeLine for Facebook pages. Signalling yet another change in the world of social recruiting. Gone are the beloved Landing pages. We’ll miss them. (Or will we?) But there is a nice big ‘picture’ banner to utilise. Tabs have ‘moved’ with only the first two prominent on the page. The Timeline (nee Wall) is now even more critical to tell your employer brand story. It challenges the need for more sharable content and more interesting posts. (Ironically, strengthening some ideas we’ve been playing around with for future campaigns – but that’s another blog.) Posts from candidates are viewed differently. Not to mention that private messaging is now possible – eat your heart out Twitter DM’s.

The whole experience of a Page has changed. It’s going to be interesting to see how it fares. Remember from a recent poll, isn’t it around 70% of Facebook users who aren’t that ‘keen’ on Timeline already? So for those just stepping into Facebook for recruitment, the game has altered before it began.

What all of this also proves is the need for an ‘adaptability factor’ in any strategy for recruiting using of social media. You can plan what you want to achieve. That’s easy. But the methods or platforms used needs to have a fluidity. The ability to change as ‘easily’ as the social media environment around them. Look how interest in Pinterest has taken off in the past couple of months. At the end of March, the full effect of Timelines will be felt as every single Page on Facebook is clicked over, like it or not. This ‘unpredictable’ nature of social media is what makes it such a challenging and interesting area to work within – as well as an exciting and rewarding one to use.

What’s happening to original thinking? The world of advertising has always plundered popular culture – even before the growth of the internet. Original ideas have been copied. Or at least ‘inspired’ some people’s creativity. But with Google and now the rise of Social Media,’naughty’ creatives and designers, who think no-one will ever notice, blatantly display someone else’s work as their own. Why would you do that? What does it achieve? Apart from the option of being uncovered and ridiculed. True originals are created by that old phrase ’99% perspiration, 1% inspiration’. It’s tough. It’s hard. But it’s damn satisfying when you get there. And when you do reach that nirvana – don’t be tempted as some are, especially in the digital world of web design, to replicate it on your next few projects just because you can re-skin, re-brand and re-use it. Where’s the fun in that? And much more telling – where is the client’s ‘brand’ in that? But it’s not just design types whose original thinking is clouded by the digital world. Delve into the depths of social media and it’s the same. The copyists. The case studyists. With the etiquette of sharing ‘socially’, comes the easy option. If Company X do that, we can. If Agency Y did it that way, why don’t we just do the same thing? If Business Z were success with that, let’s see how they did it and follow that plan. Why? Because you’re afraid to try something different yourself? You need a safety net of somebody else’s originality to show you the way. It’s a philosophy we’ve never believed in. For years, the only way to know what we did – outside of seeing the actual work itself – was when we entered it for awards. Our website was literally just fun and games. We kept the ‘creative’ wheels turning by doing what we considered were the best solutions. No matter what everyone else was up to. Same with Social Media, we just did it. Slowly. Enquiringly. Testing the water. A trial here, the odd fail there. It grew. We saw what it could achieve. What we could do. We learned by rolling up our sleeves and getting on with it. It’s the only valuable way to go, in our honest opinion. A true enquiring mind should be able to discover, use, create and ‘sell’ the strategies, solutions and ‘successes’ for itself. If you want to learn what others do, don’t just take it verbatim and rely on them to do the ‘hard work’ for you.

What’s happening to original thinking?

The world of advertising has always plundered popular culture – even before the growth of the internet. Original ideas have been copied. Or at least ‘inspired’ some people’s creativity. But with Google and now the rise of Social Media,’naughty’ creatives and designers, who think no-one will ever notice, blatantly display someone else’s work as their own. Why would you do that? What does it achieve? Apart from the option of being uncovered and ridiculed.

True originals are created by that old phrase ’99% perspiration, 1% inspiration’. It’s tough. It’s hard. But it’s damn satisfying when you get there. And when you do reach that nirvana – don’t be tempted as some are, especially in the digital world of web design, to replicate it on your next few projects just because you can re-skin, re-brand and re-use it. Where’s the fun in that? And much more telling – where is the client’s ‘brand’ in that?

But it’s not just design types whose original thinking is clouded by the digital world. Delve into the depths of social media and it’s the same. The copyists. The case studyists. With the etiquette of sharing ‘socially’, comes the easy option. If Company X do that, we can. If Agency Y did it that way, why don’t we just do the same thing? If Business Z were success with that, let’s see how they did it and follow that plan. Why? Because you’re afraid to try something different yourself? You need a safety net of somebody else’s originality to show you the way.

It’s a philosophy we’ve never believed in. For years, the only way to know what we did – outside of seeing the actual work itself – was when we entered it for awards. Our website was literally just fun and games. We kept the ‘creative’ wheels turning by doing what we considered were the best solutions. No matter what everyone else was up to.

Same with Social Media, we just did it. Slowly. Enquiringly. Testing the water. A trial here, the odd fail there. It grew. We saw what it could achieve. What we could do. We learned by rolling up our sleeves and getting on with it. It’s the only valuable way to go, in our honest opinion.

A true enquiring mind should be able to discover, use, create and ‘sell’ the strategies, solutions and ‘successes’ for itself. If you want to learn what others do, don’t just take it verbatim and rely on them to do the ‘hard work’ for you.

Our andsome thought for the month of love View high resolution

Our andsome thought for the month of love

Another job blog for a new #andsomejobhunt

Here we go again. We’re looking yet another newbie to join our andsome team. This time it’s all about digital (and social media, naturally.) There are plenty of links on the left there to give you more of an idea of what we’re about. (Not to mention, stalking around the posts on this blog). Basically, we’re a communications agency into recruitment marketing, internal comms, employer branding – with a growing, award-winning reputation for innovative social recruiting. That probably explains why we already have projects and campaigns for over 8 new clients to launch in the New Year.

That’s where you can come in. Working through the whole spectrum of digital, online and even some good old print media. So if you’re interested in everything from JQuery to HTML5, Adobe Suite to video editing, tweeting 140 characters to artworking a 40 page brochure plus stretching your thinking with concepts and ideas. This is the blog, sorry, job for you – if you’re fresh out of college/Uni or been working for a year or so.

What more could you ask for? Well, ‘how do you apply?’ is the starting point. We’re putting our social recruiting rep where our mouth is, so it’s going to be different. Look at our website – weareandsome.com – both on your macbook and mobile. What do you think? We’re looking to re-develop it next year, so here’s your chance to start us off by designing/creating what you think it should be like. Email your thoughts/designs/links to more@weareandsome.com Nothing that new there, you think… but here comes the different part.

If we like your idea, we’ll invite you to an ‘andsome jobhunt Google+ hangout’(phew), so that you can really sell it to us. (Don’t worry, if you’re not on Google+, we’ve plenty of invites to share.) Then, if we like what we hear, we’ll invite you over to see you in ‘real time’ for an interview. Sound good? Then get your thinking caps on – we’d like to start ‘hanging out’ by mid-January, as we’d love you to start with us in February.

Keep in touch with what’s happening by following #andsomejobhunt on Twitter and we’re always around on there if you fancy a chat.

We look forward to seeing what you can do.

No ‘gimmicks’ social recruiting

Nowadays there’s starting to be a plethora of ‘attraction’ being waved in front of potential candidates on social media. Games, competitions, prize draws – you name it. Most work to gain followers/likes but are they the right kind of ‘numbers’? Have they joined in purely for the prize? To beat the game? Or because they actually want to work for a company like yours? Some will, many won’t. And what if you haven’t the budget for a nice bit of gamification or a lovely five-figure prize fund?

Using social media as a ‘social’ space rather than a game/competition platform can still pay dividends. Encouraging real old-fashioned ‘Word of Mouth’. People actually telling their friends (on Twitter and Facebook) about the opportunities. With their own messages rather than the ubiquitous social media way of clicking a share button, pressing ‘Like’ or sending out a ReTweet. We’ve seen it.

And that exact ‘social’ approach has worked in couple of our recent ‘entry level’ campaigns – each using Twitter as the sole driver to a ‘community’ page on Facebook. Over a period of a few weeks they generated almost 3000 applications between them. Without any paid advertising – PPC or otherwise. No prize ‘gimmicks’. Not a game achievement in sight. Just interaction. Conversation. Word of Mouth. And, most importantly of all, the holy grail of social recruiting – brand engagement.

A ‘picture’ is worth a 140 characters

Twitter’s for words. 140 characters to say something with. Something relevant, intriguing, perhaps even witty. That’s all you can do, right? No. Ever heard of ASCII art?

(Prepare for a Geek speak paragraph.)

ASCII art is a technique that consists of pictures pieced together from the 95 printable (from a total of 128) characters defined by the ASCII Standard from 1963 and ASCII compliant character sets with proprietary extended characters (beyond the 128 characters of standard 7-bit ASCII).

(Phew. Normal service is now resumed.)

So now imagine what you could do to attract the attention of the average student. They use the online space at pace. What makes them stop and react on Twitter? How about a ‘picture’, perhaps. But no ordinary one though. One created ASCII-stylee. The reason? To create impact – with the audience. To be noticed – as widely as possible, thank you Mr ReTweet. And above all to create a response.

The above OMG generated over 400 click-thrus. And together with another four ASCII tweets, this ‘mini-campaign’ produced almost half the click-thrus in our social recruiting campaign.

Now do you remember that last *new vacancy* or ‘Now Hiring’ tweet you saw…

The unloved QR Code

The haters always point to them being seen at inaccessible places, such as on the London Underground. ‘What’s the point?’ they moan, ‘There’s no signal, no wi-fi or anything.’ But when you get out of the underground? You can pick up your network in the street. Pop into Starbucks for a coffee and log on. And that’s before you even reach your wireless-enriched office.

How does that help with the unloved QR code on that poster you saw in the carriage when whizzing around the Circle Line? Well. If you’d scanned it. You’d be accessing it through the ‘History’ of your QR code reader as you enjoy your Crème Brûlée Macchiato. Nice.

So don’t just think ‘immediate access’ the next time you see a QR code in what you think is the ‘wrong place’. Think ‘bookmarked’ for future reference instead.

Is video killing the creativity of careers sites?

What’s going on? Websites, especially careers sites, seem to be losing all individuality. Remember the old acid test for seeing if your work was well branded? No? Then shame on you. When you covered over the logo and you could still ‘see’ who the communication was from. Go on, pick a few websites. Do the same. 2.0 stylee - just scroll down to hide the logo at the top of the page. Do they ooze the brand personality? Or do they blend in with each other? Where is the Big Idea?

Careers sites used to have them. Some still do. But nowadays you’re more likely to find a pick ‘n’ mix of the same old familiar ‘copy templates’. But with plenty of ‘head and shoulders’ profile videos. Different? Engaging? Once upon a time. But now, most just ‘bland’ into each other. Cutting from those talking heads to shots of open plan offices full of people sat at computers. “It’s showing what it’s really like” you say. It’s revealing very little of the culture of the business, is what we think. This type of video-added careers site is fast becoming the new recruitment ‘ad borderstyle’. They all do the same thing. Show a similar type of content. And all last for around 2 minutes. Vive la difference.

Our andsome thought for Steve Jobs RIP View high resolution

Our andsome thought for Steve Jobs RIP