Link Love

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!

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!

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!

Personality tests fascinate me. 

I’m not talking the ever popular Buzzfeed what celebrity baby are you type quizzes here, although occasionally even those prove hard to resist! 

Nope, I am referring to those tests that claim to give you all of the information you need to choose your perfect career, make people like you, and just generally become more successful at life.

So I couldn’t help but click when Trish from HR Ringleader posted an article begging the question: How Valuable are Personality Tests?

Like Trish, I am also torn on the subject, and like Trish, I was curious enough to take the “Fascination Advantage” assessment that inspired her article.

You can get a free promo code to checkout the test (it’s pretty short) at Jennifer McClure’s awesome blog, Unbridled Talent. 

I don’t really see how the info I got from my assessment is going to help my career much… But there’s a new app out that looks like it could help me with that!

Good.Co has just released an iOS app also called GoodCo that claims to help you find out how to improve your work relationships, and determine if you are a good fit for a company’s culture through a series of fun quizzes.

So far so fun, but I don’t know that I would let an app, especially one with such hideous icons, dictate my future job choices!

One personality type I never seem to get, no matter what test I take is “Introvert,” even though I spend all day working all on my lonesome with only the voice of Ira Glass to keep me company!

If you, or someone you know does fall into the introvert category, then I highly recommend reading this lovely article for WorkAwesome by Diane Mottl: 5 Ways to Make Office Life Easier for Introverts.   

A personality trait shared by many entrepreneurs is, apparently, an extreme lack of enthusiasm for HR… Do they not understand that the HR field is best field? Jeez!

Well, according to a recent Wall Street Journal article, Startup Executives May Not Focus On HR, but It Plays Important Role. Both Kris Dunn and Laurie Ruettimann were interviewed for the piece so it is definitely worth a read.

In fact, this article is the source of Jobcast’s choice for best HR quote of the week. The quote is from Kris Dunn who warns that:

“The biggest mistake [startups] make is to hire someone who’s a cop and who thinks it’s enough to have an employee handbook and just enforce the rules.”

Infographic of the week goes to James clear with this little gem:

And video of the week is all about a trait I hope you all rank very high in: happiness!

Apparently employees happiness has less to do with whether or not they interact with unpleasant customers, and more to do with whether they have to fake a sunny disposition.   

TEDxCopenhagen – Mette Böll and The biology of authenticity:

TEDxCopenhagen - Mettre Böll and The biology of authenticity

What about you?!

Do you believe in personality assessments? Would you use an app to help determine cultural fit?

Let us know in the comments!

Happy Link Loving and stay quizzical 🙂

We are halfway through the work week, well into summer, and, I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for a reading break!

I know it’s time to kick my feet up, grab a coffee, and pull out ye old iPad whenever I start getting super excited by headlines like “How Flexible Work Culture Can Make Business More Social”… 

Not that it’s a boring headline, but it’s no “Bat Boy cheats on Lobster Girl with her reptilian sister,” if you know what I mean?!

But, without fail, come Wednesday morning I need to know all about how a talent hungry business wouldn’t consider an incredibly skilled and talented candidate, living in London – one of the world’s best cities in which to build a career because she needed a small degree of flexibility.

If you feel the same way give the article a read. It is actually quite fascinating, Bat Boy or no!

Flexible culture is not just a great way to attract candidates, it is also a great way to improve retention. Providing your staff with a little flexibility is well worth the improvements it provides in both engagement and productivity.

Not convinced?

“Disengagement and unproductivity is costing the US $4,621 per full time working employee.” – Click to Tweet

That number shocked the pants off of me! For more about how the cost of workplace disengagement is real and is much more of a priority than many of us ever thought, head over to Blogging4Jobs and read Jessica Miller-Merrells eye-opening new blog post.

Janine Truitt, another fantastic woman of HR, also shared a fascinating article this week called “Is Too Much Cross-Functional Work Killing Your Employees?” 

“Despite a society in love with doing the most, the truth is that we can do only one thing well at a time.” – Click to Tweet

We all know that trying to tackle too many projects at once is a recipe for disaster, but according to Janine many of today’s companies are witnessing this disaster first hand because they have condensed jobs to a point where employees simply cannot cope.

If you’re experiencing employee burnout at your company, you may want to check out Airtasker. 

Airtasker is like Odesk, but for employers looking to hire locally. Unlike similar sites such as TaskRabbit and Gigwalk, Airtasker is less curated. It’s founders describe it as more of an open market place approach to hiring temporary staff more like eBay and Airbnb.

So far Airtasker is only available in Australia, but they plan on expanding to the US in the near future. Australian or not, I highly recommend checking them out as the casualization of labour the company represents is a growing trend.

Let’s end on a fun note. This one’s an oldie, but a goodie… It’s probably the funniest HR related video I have EVER seen. Language has been beeped out, but the end is NSFW. You have been warned!

Dr. X fires Wolverine: 

Ex-Men: Wolverine

So, how about it, would you fire Wolverine? Would you use a service like Airtasker? Is you culture flexible?

Let us know in the comments!

The internet is just bursting with fantastic content this week!

From slick new apps, to recruitment basics revisited, to triangular infographics: this link love’s got it all!

On Hiring, Recruitment, and HR

There’s a new report out from ADP’s Recruitment Quotient: Raising Your Talent IQ 

You do have to give them some of your personal info, but it’s worth it for graphs like this one:

How is your ATS effecting your candidate’s experience? According to Andrew O’Brien’s article: Are Recruiters Taking the Wrong Approach to Applicant Tracking, not so good! 

“Just 16% of candidates think existing applicant tracking processes ‘work well.’” – Click to Tweet

Maybe it’s time to try something new? Like an app. Perhaps even an app that let’s you recruit on all the major social networks from a single dashboard, automate the job posting process, and allows for collaboration, note taking, and applicant tracking… Just sayin’.

“Almost every US company (92%) is now hiring through social media.” – Click to Tweet

At least according to Ben Slater’s article: The Pre-Application Stage: Attracting the Best Talent, and honestly, that stat doesn’t surprise me.

Ben’s article, on the other hand, is brimming with new spins on some HR basics. He explains where a brand begins to be a part of the application process, and provides excellent advice on making the recruitment process welcoming.

Another recruitment related question you may have found yourself asking is: How Risky is That New Hire? 

Luckily for you, Andrea Sharfin answers that question in her recent article on Medium. She also quite confidently shares what, in her opinion, is The One Interview Question That Really Matters!

I don’t know if it’s really the single most important of all the interview questions in all the world, but it is incredibly smart and left me feeling  quite impressed by Andrea and her thought process.

Social Stuff

The Complete Guide to Transactional Email by Jimmy Daly is a MUST read. It is clear, chock full of valuable information, includes screen shots and excellent data points, and it’s a fun read.

You could easily apply what he is saying to your email transactions with potential hires, or if email marketing is completely outside of your wheelhouse, I highly encourage you to send it to anyone you know in marketing.

Bonu Link

New app alert!

Icebergs.

This app is sort of like Pinterest, but for hipster designer types. It allows you to create boards (Icebergs) from content you find on the web, files you upload, and notes that you can write in app.

You can use Icebergs to collaborate with team members, and use the information you gather their to work on projects, assist with content curation, and what ever else you have on the go.

So far I give Icebergs a 14 out of 20. For context’s sake: Trello is a 21 and the LinkedIn app is a 4.

Well, his week’s Link Love has me feeling inspired to revamp our content calendar, email campaigns, and newsletter… I hope it has provided you with some inspiration as well.

From all of us at Jobcast, have a lovely week…

And stay social!

Hello and welcome to the first Link Love for July.

It is going to be hot hot hot… 

Okay… Not really, but we do have some sizzling articles to share!

If this blog post was actually that hot, then it would be NSFW. If this blog was NSFW, then you would have to read it outside of office hours which would cut into your time in the sun.  

Now that we’ve explained the lack of bikini clad HR pros and muscle bound recruiter dudes, it’s time for the links:

“To win in the marketplace…you must first learn what makes your employees want to be in your workplace.”

This quote is from a Switch and Shift article called The Employee Trinity: Engaged, Happy and Motivated, by Shauna Sexsmith. In the article she explains how to get the most from your employees by making a few small changes to the way you interact with them.

Next up: Is Your Recruiting Process FEEP. 

You heard read me right. FEEP. Sounds like a noise made by an adorably fluffy Pixar character, but it is actually an acronym for fast, engaging, easy, personal invented by Raj Sheth.

Much less adorable is the stat Raj shares on candidate experience stating that: “46% of candidates rate their experience poor or very poor.” Raj’s solution, make your recruiting a little more FEEP (bet you  didn’t see that one coming)!

Speaking of innovative recruitment ideas, have you heard of “evergreen jobs?” I certainly hadn’t, but it’s a very cool concept. 

“Simply put, these (evergreen jobs) are the one or two most critical corporate jobs where you continuously search and hire every more-than-qualified applicant who fits the culture in order to ensure that you always have enough talent in these critical positions.” 

This concept is promoted by Doctor John Sullivan, in his recent article for TLNT: The Evergreen Advantage: Why It’s Smart to Always Be Recruiting.

To always be recruiting sounds a touch exhausting no? But at least you have podcasts to help get you motivated! In fact, thanks to Nisha Raghavan, you have a pretty epic list in the DriveThruHR HITS Series for 2014 that you can turn to when you need a little human resources inspiration to get you going.

Listen to enough of these HR smarties on Nisha’s podcast and you may even decide you have some ideas worth sharing. If so, you’ll need an audience to share them with!

The Buffer Blog has your back with Alex Manthei’s: 5 Methods and 15 Tools To Find Your Audience And Build a Community.

As a “community manager,” I was especially pleased by Alex’s line: “the secret is, you grow with your community just as much as your community grows with you.”

It made me feel all warm and fuzzy.

In a completely safe for work kind of way!

Happy Link Loving, and don’t forget to have a summa 😀

Engagement is one of the pillars of effective social recruiting.

Likes, comments, and shares are the best way for you to get more eyes on your jobs, because much like with referrals, when your job post reaches potential candidates through these actions they are imbued with social proof.

If a friend shares a job posting to your Facebook Page, even if they have no connection to the employer, it still seems more trustworthy than if it was sent by a random recruiter.

Encouraging this kind of sharing from your fan base is difficult. They have friends’ engagement status updates to Like, news of Kim Kardashian’s latest adventures to comment on, and their latest Spotify playlist to share.

In order to engage them, you must understand their priorities:

1. Kittens

2. Gossip

3. Kittens gossiping about puppies

Now, if you are not hiring for a feline related position, you are probably thinking “How the heck am I supposed to get my job posts out there!!!”

The obvious solution is, of course, to attach pictures of your, or your neighbors pets to every job you share.

The effective solution is to broaden our scope, and understand our audience’s priorities in terms of medium of posts, instead of message.

Top genres for engagement:

1. Video

2. Images

3. Inspirational Quotes

Posts with video receive three times more inbound links than plain text. (via Moz) – Click to Tweet

Mobile video ads that include social media buttons drive 36% higher engagement. (via Rhythm New Media)  – Click to Tweet

Job postings that include video receive 34% more applications than those without! (via Talent Square) – Click to Tweet

Recruiting with video may seem intimidating at first, but it really doesn’t have to be.

You can go pro like our client Earls did in this fantastic recruiting video.

Or silly, embarrassing, and extremely low budget (actually no budget) like our Vine recruiting video!

Just make sure your video represents your culture, your values, and expresses what it’s like to work for you company.

I think our video makes it very clear that to work for jobcast you must have a sense of humour, the ability to check your ego at the door, and basic Jiu Jitsu training.

Some recruiters even create short videos for every job, or category of job that they post so that they can attach one to each new job post they share.

We also highly encourage every Jobcaster to embed a recruiting video directly into their Facebook Career Page.

In fact, we even made a short video explaining exactly how to do this in less than 3 minutes:

(video not available)

Happy video recruiting!

On Monday we went over all the new changes to Facebook’s 2014 Page layout.

Some good, some bad, some sneaky!

I think our post does a pretty good job of explaining the key changes, heck we even included screenshots, but in order to really get the most out of Facebook recruiting it’s important that you know how to use these new features to your advantage. Especially the “Pages to Watch” feature!

Jobcast is a Facebook App so we live in constant fear anticipation of updates to the social network. We have to pay attention in order to adapt, and grow to best serve our clients. This means we follow a lot of great social media blogs (as Facebook’s explanations are never enough) that cover a diverse range of topics pertaining to Facebook Page Admins.

The past couple of weeks have been rife with articles about Fabook’s recent make-under. There are so many blog posts, videos and Infographics on the subject, that there is simply no way that you could read all of them without going completely bonkers.

To avoid the mess that would surely ensue if all of our wonderful clients fell victim to information overload: we have decided to play curator!

Team Jobcast has compiled some of our favourite articles to help you get the most out of your Facebook Page:

Buffer Blog: New Facebook Page Redesign: Everything You Need to Know to Optimize Your Page.

Have Camera Will Travel: An unofficial guide to what’s what, what’s where, and how big for your Facebook Page! 

Social Media Examiner: How ‘Pages to Watch’ from Facebook Can be a Source of Competitive Insight. 

Tabsite: 8 Popular Questions Answered About The New Facebook Page Layout 2014. 

Vertical Response: What Facebook’s New Pages Layout Means for Your Business. 

Want to make your Company Facebook Page the most awesome recruitment tool ever?

Then, you should probably install the Jobcast Facebook Recruiting App like so:

(video not available)

How do you feel about the updated layout? Do you have any tips for using Facebook’s new features? Of course you do! Please share in the comments, we’d love to hear what you have to say 🙂

Happy Link Loving, and stay social!