Samara Parker

Labor Day is one of my favorite holidays.

A day off from work, to celebrate the work we do.

For our non-Canadian/American readers (many of you!), Labor Day is celebrated on the first of September, usually with hot dogs and a trip to the beach.

The first “Labour Day” was held in Canada (hence the different spelling of labor) way back in 1872.

This inspired our neighbor to the South, Matthew Maguire, to bring the holiday to the U.S.A. in 1882, but it took 10 years for his attempt to celebrate America’s workers to catch on.

In 1894, Labor Day became a national holiday.

In 1994, Labor Day became a nationally recognized reason to kick back, eat barbecue, and attempt to squeeze your adult sized frame into a child sized blow-up swimming pool! * (See footnote)

In 2014, we will celebrate Labor Day by sharing a whole bunch of links dedicated to improving the way we work.

Let’s start with something beautiful.

“The achievements of workers are important. Our lives are based upon our own work and the great work of others.” Sharlyn Lauby – Click To Tweet

Sharlyn’s quote is a perfect introduction for this beautiful video that tells the story of Chris Merrick, a 34-year firefighting veteran.

1in100MM – Episode 1: Firefighter, Chris

See what else Sharlyn has to say on her blog, the HR Bartender.

Most of us will never contribute the way Chris Merrick has, but most of us work hard, and try our best.

Show appreciation for the efforts your employees make on a daily basis with one, or all of these 11 Non-Traditional Ways to Reward Innovative Employees.

How do you explain what you do to other people?

Personally, I avoid saying that I work in social media at all costs because whenever I do… I see you judging me; don’t pretend like you aren’t!

Mihir Patkar has a suggestion that might solve this problem for me:

Answer “What Do You Do?” By Explaining How You Solve Problems.

But that opens-up a whole new can of worms.

What if the way you solve problems is even more awkward to explain than what you do?

If it is, you should probably give Annie Mueller’s article, How to Handle the Conflicting Demands of Your Core Actions, a read.

Annie’s post is full of excellent advice for getting to the core of what you do, and learning to make that the focus of your work.

If all else fails, and you happen to work in HR…

Just carry around a printed out copy of this meme:

Happy laboring, and Link Loving!

* “Fact” entirely made-up by the author. I mean, who has ever needed an excuse to eat barbecue!

The future is now. Recruiting technologies abound, and social recruiting is on the rise. Everywhere you look, there's another hot new hiring trend emerging. Last week, we shared an article that explained how to decide which of these trends to adopt. This week's article explores three of the most useful new recruiting trends, explains why they matter, and how you can implement them into your own recruitment strategy (no matter what size your budget!)

The Resume is Being Overshadowed by Data

Resumes have a lot of flaws... For one, they are inaccurate. “58% of hiring managers said they’ve caught a lie on a resume!” (CareerBuilder Survey) - Click to Tweet Resumes do not provide insight into an applicant's soft skills. According to a study by the American Management Association of over 2, 115 managers, “communication, creativity, critical thinking, and collaboration are important to employees' success.” The resume does not provide insight into any such skills. Oh, and to top it all off, one of the main pieces of information that resumes do provide may not actually have anything to do with job performance! That’s right, I’m talking about education. Pegged Software actually found that there was “zero statistically significant correlation between a college degree or a master's degree and success as a software developer." (Source: NPR Planet Money) These are just some of the reasons that companies are turning to people-analytics as a way of replacing old school, resume dependent hiring. Companies like Evolv are changing the application process to incorporate people-analytics. They worked with Xerox to gather very specific data about their applicants. Some of this data came from resumes, but the majority was acquired through tests on pattern recognition, detailed survey questions such as “which word better characterizes you: consistent or witty?” and responses to difficult customer service scenarios. Xerox then tracked the candidates they hired, and how these employees came to perform. They analyzed the application data they gathered, and along with the performance data, are now using it to assess all potential hires. Most companies are not big enough to perform a study like this, but data mining knowledge from by large companies has begun to trickle down to smaller businesses.

How you can benefit:

Here are 12 non-standard interview questions worth asking.

Here is an excellent article explaining more about using people-analytics to hire, with excellent examples of techniques you can apply, and some of the drawbacks to try to avoid.

Employ Insight is a company that helps employers assess candidates based on application questions that measure their soft skills, and then compare them side by side to find the best fit.

Employer Branding and Company Culture

The trend towards building an employer brand, and showcasing company culture online is growing every day. And for good reason! Today’s candidates have easy access to information about your company. “85% of candidates google potential employers." (CareerBuilder) - Click to Tweet If job seekers do not like what they see, or cannot find you, they are much less likely to apply for your jobs. In fact, 91% of candidates surveyed by CareerBuilder said that employer brand influences their decision to apply for a job. They listed a company's culture/reputation for treating candidates well as the most appealing features of an employer's online brand.

How you can benefit:

In this recap of TChat’s “The Talent Science Of Cultural Change”, you’ll learn how to improve company culture with advice from a top social psychologist, a culture expert, and the TChat community. Then have a look at this article by Gareth Cartman, "How to make your employer brand searchable."

Referrals Are Going Social

Companies like Google are taking social recruiting far beyond Facebook Career Sites, and sharing job posts on Twitter. Referrals are a top source for quality hires, have the best retention rates, and are less expensive to recruit. 51% of employers said it was less expensive to recruit via referrals. (Source: Jobvite) - Click to Tweet

Google is using social media to improve upon their referral program. The company is implementing an automated system that uses employee’s social graphs to source potential hires. Considering that the average employee will have 150 contacts on social media networks, social referrals just make sense. Even to companies without Google’s immense resources.

How you can benefit:

TalentBin aims to help employers find qualified candidates through their social graph. TalentBin is focused on the recruitment of technical talent. Zao is a program that allows employers to analyze their referral program’s data in order to measure success and track rewards. Jobcast has recently implemented an employee referral system as well. Jobcast's social referral program is a great way for employees to access your company’s job posts, and then easily share them with all of their social networks. Employees can track and monitor the status of their referrals, learn which social networks get the best results, and track the rewards they’ve earned. By providing employees with this data, Jobcast's social referral program incentivizes them to increase the quantity and quality of their future referrals.

Jobcast's social referral program provides detailed metrics for employers, so that they can monitor the success of their referral program, track each employee’s results to facilitate your rewards program, and manage information about applicants. The program is still new, but if you are interested in learning more, email team@jobcast.net, or shoot me an email directly: samara@jobcast.net.

Happy social recruiting!

In case you didn’t know, I am a woman. Yes, most of my posts reference sci-fi, comic book heroes, and my many failed attempts at mastering Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, making my gender glaringly obvious. But just in case you had any doubts left, I wanted to clear things up. I am woman, hear me roar. We recently welcomed another female member into the Jobcast fold, making our core team an even 50/50 split of men to women. This is a pretty rare thing for our industry. But it doesn’t have to be. Our founders, Ryan and Johnny, know a thing or two about recruiting. They’ve both been working in the field of HR Tech for over thirteen years, and their experience has helped them to find, and recruit qualified female talent. Why does this even matter? Diversity makes teams stronger, women on staff can provide insights into female customers, and according to research out of MIT and Carnegie Melon, having women on a team makes it smarter! Today’s links are all about how to recruit women. Let’s start with something controversial! Fast Company shares an interview with author Vivek Wadhwa, Calling Silicon Valley Out on Its Gender Problem. You’ve probably heard the stat: Women will only apply for jobs if they meet 100% of the qualifications. – Click to Tweet

In comparison to men who will apply if they meet 60% of a job ad’s stated qualifications. This info is often used to suggest that women need to put more faith in themselves.  But Tara Mohr provides a more complex, and researched back explanation for the phenomena, which will help you better understand why more women aren’t applying for your jobs. After learning more about the female applicants’ psychology, here are some straight up tips for recruiting and retaining women in tech.

This advice is actually applicable to any field, but when it comes to gender diversity, tech needs all the help it can get! The last article I’m going to share isn’t about recruiting women, or gender diversity. HR expert, and Chief Writer at blogging for jobs recently published what she calls, The Hardest Blog Post I’ve Ever Had to Write. This article deals with an issue that is very important for women in the workplace, but is rarely discussed: bereavement policy and miscarriages. Jessica’s writing is brave, bold, and an essential part of the gender diversity dialogue. Thank you for reading, and happy link loving from the guys and gals at Jobcast.

Writing better job postings is the best way to convert job seekers into applicants. It is also one of the most difficult parts of the hiring process. There are tons of resources available for improving your job postings: tips and tricks from HR experts, content-tutorials, and even straight-up templates. It’s all been done. Yet, the formula for writing engaging, effective job ads remains elusive! Making job ads interesting is hard, and I’ve yet to see a template make the process easier. These articles are not about writing “Rockstar” job posts. They are not written by HR pros... Or my parents (who are actually HR pros!) Nope. These articles are written by storytellers (Writers, marketers, communications experts). People who’s bread and butter is their ability to engage and communicate with other humans. Some of them even use line drawings!

Productivity Expert James Clear - 7 Improvements I Have Made to My Writing and Work

5,6, and 7 are the most applicable to job ad writing, but if you are brave enough to attempt number 4, I applaud you! Buffer Social’s Kevin Lee - 30+ Ultimate Headline Formulas, these tips are all about capturing an audience immediately. Especially important if you’re using social recruiting! Lifehacker - How to Edit Your Own Work, this is essential reading for anyone without a professional editor to assist them. ESSENTIAL! Cision’s Director of Marketing Brandon Andersen - Writing for the Web to Keep Your Audience Engaged, all of these points can be applied to job posts, but number 9 is especially pertinent with the current trend towards “sassy” yet confusing job titles! The Atlantic presents a video featuring professional story tellers explaining the key element for making a story great. Oh, and one last link just for fun! This one is a little more specific to HR, The Job Rejection Letter to End all Others! Do find inspiration for work from outside sources? If so, please share your tips in the comments!

Staying on trend doesn’t always matter. Food trends can be ignored in favor of eating whatever looks good and is on sale. Fashion trends can be neglected, so long as you stock up on neutrals... Or, for virtual workers like myself, opt for PJs all day every day. Music trends can actually be detrimental to your life, especially considering the current enthusiasm for EDM. And fitness trends ought to be ignored at all costs. For the love of bread, moderation, and an injury free body (please stop trying to stand on giant rubber balls whilst balancing a kettlebell on your head!) But, when trends apply directly to your company, or profession, they do matter. Winning the war for talent requires that you understand current recruiting trends and implement the ones that work. - Click to Tweet Especially if your competitors are doing the same. Considering the sheer volume of recruiting trends out there it can be a real pain trying to track them, understand them, and choose which ones to implement. Here are some ways that you can make that process easier. How to identify which recruiting trends you need to pay attention to:

Watch the Competition

Recruiting can be a lot like marketing, and all good marketers know that keeping your eyes on the competition is essential for success! Your competitors are your competitors because they are after the same candidates as you. So it follows that the trends that work for them will probably work for you too. Look at other companies in your field with a similar budget and employer brand. Analyze their hiring strategy, then use that analysis to help improve your own. If your competition is using Twitter to successfully reach qualified candidates, you should add Twitter to your strategy. If they tried Pinterest and it was a total disaster, then you can probably skip it. This is not to say that you should mimic your competition Tweet for Tweet, but learning from their successes and failures can save you a lot of time. You can then use that time to innovate.

Know what you're working with

Assess your own company culture and employer brand. This will help you determine whether or not a new recruitment trend makes sense for your specific needs. If you have a youthful culture, and strong brand, then you can use a much broader range of social networks. The trend towards highly visual social recruiting on platforms such as Instagram makes sense for companies like Lululemon. The same cannot be said for an accounting firm. On a more basic: assess your budget and resources. If you have a minimal budget, and no creative types on your team, then the growing trend towards video recruiting, though popular, is just not a good fit for where your recruiting is at right now.

Follow HR and Recruiting Blogs

Top 10 trends articles are the bread and butter of the blogging industry. Not only will good blogs provide you with lists of all the latest innovations hitting your industry, but they will also provide you with helpful reviews, case studies, and tutorials.

Here are 7 blog picks for HR trend spotting:

• TLNT

• HR Solutions

• ERE.net

• Blogging4Jobs

• Recruiter.com

• Talent Culture

• Switch and Shift

Follow Marketing Blogs

Basic marketing strategy: Reach people, engage with them, and convert them into customers. Swap out the term customers for applicants and you're hiring. Marketing and recruiting are similar in a lot of ways, but much to HR's chagrin, the marketing department tends to get a significantly larger budget. That's why there are a lot more blogs, magazines, and newsletters devoted to marketing strategy. These resources are great for learning about trends in social networks, engagement tactics, and branding methods.

Here are 5 marketing blogs that are great for HR too:

• MarketingProfs

• Kissmetrics Blog

• The Buffer Blog

• Social Stacked

• Fast Company

Do you have any recruiting trends that you would like us to cover on the Jobcast blog? If so, let us know in the comments!

Being great is a thing worth working towards, at least I think so! I hope you do as well because today’s link love is dedicated to the pursuit of greatness... First things first: “Start by admitting that greatness doesn’t come from the distraction and busywork that often fills up our lives.” - Click to Tweet

I pulled this quote from Leo Babauta’s article How to Be Great. When you’re great you can make all sorts of demands. Like David Lee Roth of Van Halen who used to ask for all of the brown M&Ms to be removed from his candy bowl. When you are really great, like David Lee Roth, you may even have valid reasons for making such crazy requests! Another reason David is pretty great:

Warning: It’s lonely at the top! So surround yourself with other great people.

Keith Griffin explains How to Hire the Best Startup Team. Not quite ready to admit how great you are? Learn by example! What Successful Recruiters Are Doing Right in this blog post from Glenn Powell. Unless it’s not lack of skill or knowledge holding you back, but lack of inspiration. Watching these 7 Empowering Presentations from MozCon is a sure way to get you excited about your work, social recruiting, and your journey to greatness. Especially this presentation by Doctor Pete Meyers that shows you how to be brave, and bold, and as a consequence, never run out of great ideas: How to Never Run Out of Great Ideas What makes a person great? Are you great at what you do? If so, do you have tips for the rest of us? Let us know in the comments!

The main pain point with adopting new hiring platforms is having to share the same job ad over and over again. Sharing the exact same job ad to each of your individual social networks and job boards is a huge waste of time. It is also frustrating because you are must adjust your ad along the way to fit each platforms’ unique standards. Not fun, not efficient, and thankfully, not necessary! With Jobcast you can use our Auto-Share feature to automatically share your job ads to your Facebook Timeline (Personal and Business), Twitter Feed, and LinkedIn Page (Personal and Company). You can even use the Auto-Share feature to push your job ads to several different job boards such as Indeed, and Simply hired. Here’s how to set up Jobcast Auto-Share for one step social recruiting!

1) From the Admin section of the Jobcast App, click on "Customize":

2) You will automatically be directed to the "Settings" tab, from here, click on the clock icon:

3) Click on the "Add Scheduled Post" drop down:

4)

Select the social network you wish to automate sharing for:

5) Authorize the Jobcast app to share on your behalf

6) Fill in all relevant information (make sure to include hashtags, like #hiring, for Twitter and Facebook):

7) Select the days, rate, and the sharing window for sharing your job ads, and tick the "Re-Share" box if relevant. Click "Save":

8) Review your handy work:

9) If you find an error, simply hover over the spot you need to change and click "Edit":

10) Add your Facebook Page, your Facebook Account, your Twitter, Your LinkedIn, and your LinkedIn Company Page:

11) Here's what your job ad will look like once shared to LinkedIn (imagine your logo, face, and hopefully fewer InMails!):

Once you have set up Jobcast Auto-Share: sit back and let Jobcast do the work for you :D Don't have Jobcast yet? Install the Jobcast Social Recruiting App and you'll get a 30 free trial of our Premium plan. Have Jobcast already? Get your whole team on board by giving them admin status on your Company Facebook Page. This article explains how to add admins to your Facebook Page. Then send your team this tutorial so that they can set up the Jobcast Auto-Share feature for their social networks too. Happy social recruiting!

Welcome back to Link Love Wednesday!

Today’s links are human resources heavy, in the best possible way.

HR is a complicated field.

Not only do you need to understand complicated technology, track data, and navigate a maze of policy, but you must have the skills required to attract, motivate, and placate real live humans.

Unlike numbers, us humans are emotional and fickle beasts, which is why excellent soft skills are a mandatory part of the HR job description.

Soft skills are important for making smart decisions about how to invest in employee engagement, health, and happiness. 

And according to John Boudreau’s recent article, To Optimize Talent, Sweat the Small Stuff, these decisions have a surprisingly large influence on a company’s bottom line. Check out his post to learn why.

Another HR related surprise is this new study by CoreBrand showing that employer branding is more influential on millennial job seekers than consumer branding. 

Jodi Ordioni points out some of the most interesting pieces of the study such as how “‘Boring’ brands like Salesforce (No. 18) and Qualcomm (No. 19), which millennials rarely encounter or use, placed ahead of ‘cool’ companies like The Walt Disney Company (No. 20) and Nike (No. 21)” when Gen Y candidates rated the companies they want to work for.

Unlike the popularity of Salesforce amongst young job seekers, most HR pros and recruiters won’t be surprised to hear that referrals are still the best candidates, which is also the title of Will Thomson’s blog post on Blogging4Jobs.

His piece is a nice little reminder that referral programs should still be a primary focus for any company looking to bring in the best talent.

And focus they must as it seems hiring just got a whole lot harder!

According to Tim Sacket this is because “There aren’t enough candidates for the jobs you need to fill.  It’s really quite simple.”

Luckily Tim also provides some excellent/cut throat advice for recruiting in a candidate driven market.

If the war for talent ever gets really ugly, I would definitely recommend staying on Tim’s good side!

Suzanne Lucas is another smart recruiting expert I would want on my side. 

She is up in arms over Entelo’s new app that they claim can predict if your employees are about to quit.

According to Suzanne “Companies should stay far, far away from this.” 

Read more about why she makes this argument in her very persuasive article, Predicting future resignations: Why it’s a waste of time.

Suzanne can be wonderfully blunt when she wants to be!

If you’ve read, or written any killer blog posts about HR, recruiting, social media, or pancakes please let us know in the comments.

Happy link loving 😀

It is Wednesday.

Wednesday is international Link Love day.

That fact is untrue, but it sure sounds good doesn’t it?

Unlike that untrue fact the articles we’re sharing today not only sound good, but are well researched, informative, and not blatant lies… At least we hope not! 

Interesting thoughts on what makes a good hire in the age of social media by Ted Coine. 

“The Social Age is not the age of predictability and routine.” – Click to Tweet

For this reason, Ted suggests hiring with an emphasis on both the applicants specific skill set and their general interests/capacity for curiosity.

We suggest using social to reach this type of candidate!

Denny’s certainly follows our advice… Okay, so I don’t technically know that they do, but they do make sure to incorporate multiple social networks into their strategy, and they do it with flare.

If you thought the only thing to love about Denny’s was their epically delicious Grand Slam breakfast, then think again. The Denny’s crew have an incredibly weird, wonderful and effective social media presence that we can all take some pointers from!

I’m willing to bet we could all learn a thing or two from these incredible female founders and CEOs of HR Tech.

Jessica Miller-Merrell noticed that “there was no list of female founders and CEOs of HR technology companies.” 

So she built one herself. Because she is rad.

Follow these amazing women of HR tech on Twitter by clicking here! 

Another woman of HR worth paying attention too is Sharlyn Lauby the HR bartender. Here are her 6 Steps for Auditing Your Company’s Candidate Experience.

Guess what made number one? Social recruitment that’s what!

Social is an essential element of your candidate’s experience, so make sure you’re using the best social recruitment tool on the market.

Speaking of social recruiting and HR Tech, it’s not (at least it shouldn’t be) just about attracting better candidates, it’s also about using tech and social to make your job easier. 

You all know by now that we love the Trello App, well here’s a reason for HR, recruiters, and employers to love it too: Here’s how to use Trello as a fantastic applicant tracking tool.

Enjoy these links, your day, and hopefully, some delicious pancakes too!

If social recruiting is the future, then the future is now!

94% of companies are using social to recruit, but as often happens with the introduction of new technology, many of these companies are applying outdated strategies to these new mediums for hiring.

They focus on just one network: LinkedIn, and just one form of content: The job ad…

This version of social recruiting is outdated, and ineffective. Especially considering that:

Only 14% of LinkedIn users even check their account on a regular basis! – Click to Tweet

To drive applicants to your jobs, target the right talent with your content, and build a strong employer brand, using multiple networks collaboratively is the most effective strategy.

Why employers need to build diverse, multi-network social recruiting strategies if they want to win the war for today’s talent!

14.4 Million Job Seekers Have Used Social Networks to Find a Job

73% of companies successfully hired a candidate with social media

42 percent say candidate quality has improved and 31 percent saw an increase in employee referrals.

93% of companies use LinkedIn for recruiting, 66% use Facebook, and 54% use Twitter. – Click to Tweet 

Only 36% of job seekers are actually active on LinkedIn.

40% are active on Twitter.

83% are active on Facebook.

Don’t drop LinkedIn from your strategy though, as LinkedIn still drives more actual job views than any other social network.

If reaching a large quantity of job seekers is a priority, then it’s best to use all three networks!

What about reaching different types of talent?

To reach users over the age of 45 both Facebook and LinkedIn top Twitter

To reach millennials Twitter is your best bet: 45% of Twitter’s users are between the ages of 18 – 29.

If you need to reach more women, LinkedIn is not for you.

LinkedIn is primarily used by men, their user base is 67% male.

Twitter is balanced with an equal percentage of female to male users.

Facebook wins the war for women, with 58% female users.

Unless we count Pinterest boasting an 80% female user base!

What about education?

64% of LinkedIn users have a bachelor’s degree or higher.

40% of Twitter user’s have a degree, compared to Facebook’s 30%, which is especially interesting considering that Twitter’s user base is also younger than Facebook’s!

The type of content you share also effects who you reach, and how many candidates apply for your jobs.

700 video are shared on Twitter every minute.

Job posts get 36% more applications if accompanied by a recruiting video.

40% of people respond better to visual information than plain text.

What does it all mean?

The size, demographics and engagement level of the audience you reach depends on which social network you choose and what content you choose to post.

“Organizations with an integrated approach to talent management have an 87% greater ability to hire the best people.” – Click to Tweet

You’ll reach more job seekers on Facebook, but your actual job posts will get more views when posted on LinkedIn.

You’ll reach more millennials on Twitter, but you can’t actually post a full job description in 140 characters.

YouTube doesn’t receive a high level of traffic from job seekers, but recruitment videos are one of the best ways to increase application volume.

The real takeaway here is that diverse social recruiting strategies work better!

The best social recruiters use image based Twitter posts with hashtags to drive traffic to your Facebook Page where you can share full length job ads alongside recruitment videos, and even create a career site where candidates can apply. They share job ads to LinkedIn to capitalize on the high level of views they’ll receive, but also share a shorter version of your ads to Twitter. They mix up their content, ask questions, and share more than just job ads!

For tips on how to incorporate multiple social networks into your strategy, check out last weeks article 🙂

For an easy way to automatically share job posts to Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, check out Jobcast enterprise.

For an easy way to make your life just a little bit happier, check out this adorable video:

Cute Baby Bunny Washing Her Face Happy social recruiting!

Sources:

• http://www.smartinsights.com/managing-digital-marketing/marketing-innovation/digital-marketing-statistics-2014/

• http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/01/08/social-media-update-2013/social-media-sites-2012-2013/

• http://www.careerealism.com/recruiting-new-rules/#!boVKvN

• http://socialmediastrategiessummit.com/blog/state-social-recruiting-u-s-2014/

• http://techcrunch.com/2013/12/30/pew-social-networking/

• http://socialmedialondon.co.uk/using-social-media-recruitment-infographic/