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Shoosmiths solicitors in 60 seconds

We don’t believe in too many words. We think they can get in the way of things. So here’s a 60 second video with some of our people talking about Shoosmiths. For more information about a career with Shoosmiths click here www.my-ijob.com

Working for Nokia

Want to work for Nokia, watch this great video and find out what its like. Then visit www.my-ijob.com for more info.

5x More job candidates thanks to video - Just don't tell anyone !

I found this article over at http://www.cheezhead.com/2007/10/01/video-job-postings/  The post is almost a year old now ,  how far have we come?  still some way to go?  will it all be worth it?

5x more job candidates thanks to video

Mon, Oct 1, 2007

Video

“Just don’t tell anyone about what we’re doing.”

This is how a recent conversation with senior VP Chad Peddycord of MRI Indianapolis almost ended. Fortunately, I was able to get approval to share the following information after a little arm-twisting and pleading.

Earlier this summer, the organization jumped headfirst into video. JobCentral’s Chad Sowash had a post highlighting the initiative and the redesign. As part of the strategy, MRI is aggressively promoting videos in their job board postings.

According to Peddycord, the first thing they did, which he believes is responsible for approximately 25 percent more views of the opportunities, was highlighting the videos in job listings:

Then they add a link to the video for each job in the job description. Apparently, many boards are against embedding a video within the posting, a la YouTube, so a link is necessary. Each video is unique, because it describes each job opening as opposed to giving a general employment branding message. Comments can be added as well.

According to Peddycord, since adding the video text and links to their postings, they’ve received up to five times more applicants when compared to traditional text-only postings. Specifically, this translates into 7 percent vs. 22 percent. Moreover, the applicants are described as being of better quality overall.

In addition to more candidates, the Web site’s overall traffic has increased and time spent on the site has doubled. Another interesting tidbit: The firm uses Blip.tv over services like YouTube, because while the big video sites tend to be blocked by corporate Web properties, the lesser knowns get through. This way, recruiters can reach candidates at work instead of waiting for them to get home to view an employment video.

Clever.

Video “branding”

Video Branding

 

Appearing as a guest blogger for the first time on www.mylonglunch.com is indeed a great honour and privilege, it struck me however as I sat down to scribble some notes, that being a guest at someone else’s gig has almost certainly been taken to a whole new level over the last week.  But I wonder how much of that is actually down to the incident itself rather than they way in which we all now consume more and more information via video.

 

I’m certain just about everyone in the UK is now familiar with the timeline of the recent Brand / Ross event, unless of course you’ve been away in some exotic far flung country, but I guess even then you would have seen or heard about the prank, briefly the show was broadcast on Saturday 18th October with around 400,000 listeners and received two complaints immediately after the show.  The Mail on Sundays reporting on 26th October and the inevitable inclusion onto YouTube

which so far has been watched almost an amazing 1 million times in just over 3 days and the complaints have now reached over 30,000 according to the latest reports.

 

So is there a connection between the video content being made available on the internet and the number of complaints? Or is it still just down to the sheer wait of column inches, TV news coverage and radio air time?

 

In the greatest tradition on BBC radio links, and for one that has a face perfect for radio, I feel reasonably safe, I’m going to attempt link number 36D and try and move the discussion onto video and recruitment, seamless eh?

 

A new idea?

 

No, not really. Video and its use for recruitment is nothing new, Susan Burns, http://www.linkedin.com/in/susanburns  whilst at the American retail giant Macy’s in 1999 (almost 10 years ago!!) launched a college recruitment site with around 20 videos of executives being interviewed, (I couldn’t find these anywhere, if anyone knows if they are still available, would be great to watch them). Fast forward to 2008 and around 80% of internet users are consuming video content, according to emarketeer http://www.emarketer.com the split of users is equal in terms of gender, so I guess that whilst the boys are watching that excellent strike from David Bentley against Arsenal the other night.

 The girls on the other hand may well be watching Daniel Craig in the latest 007 offering “Quantum of Solace”, maybe those viewers might well be the other way round, who knows? I for one think "James" and his fast cars are brilliant.

The answers yes, now whats the question?

 

The question is – is video right for recruitment? The answer is absolutely YES for companies to communicate to prospects and candidates.

 

There are many great examples of such communication out there at the moment not least of which are a couple we quite like, showing a different approach to communicating the corporate message, the “60 second” all about us leaves you with a clear understating of the employees view of the organisation whilst the second more elaborate video also formed part of an internal campaign to reinforce the employer branding message and drive internal referrals.

http://www.my-ijob.com/agencyprofile.asp?AG_ID=297

http://www.my-ijob.com/agencyprofile.asp?AG_ID=181

 

Value for Money

Susan Burns comments further on the potential cost effectiveness and the ROI that you can get, if you think about it any good corporate recruitment site almost certainly incorporates video to allow job seekers an opportunity to get to know the company through the community of people that come together to make their business happen every day. Yes, that also implies that good recruitment videos include “real” people and not hired actors. And, the really good ones aren’t scripted either. It’s more cost effective than ever to produce good recruitment videos. Once you have content created you can use snippets of video in many, many ways to make your recruitment site more engaging, layer content into social networks, and incorporate video links into candidate communications and job postings – yes, job postings! The story here is that you get a lot for what you produce if you think about how to leverage it.

 

Video for recruitment is most definitely on the radar for more and more clients and should absolutely form part of the strategy to engage with and communicate to potential employees.  In a recent article by Dr Emma Parry, Senior Research Fellow, Human Resources Management at Cranfield School of Management wrote in an article entitled “The war for talent moves online”  .. “They (the employer) must present themselves in a way that will attract the job seeker and build a relationship with them so that they want to apply for a job” “This can be done by creating a content-rich website that is interactive and interesting, by using functionality such as videos and pod casts”

 

Having created much excellent content the client then needs to find a channel to connect with job seekers and communicate via the video their employer brand proposition and to start to build that relationship with the job seeker. The obvious one given the very nature of the media must be www.youtube.com but that in itself presents some interesting topics for discussion, the audience is most definitely there but how will the feel about the glossy corporate videos being used to encourage them to join, a great example of this can be found at

 

Or would job seekers prefer to see more grainy, user generated content, given the very nature of the Gen Y job seeker ? (This is an excellent video and just about sums everything up in under 4 minutes).

 

With the continued advances in technlogy and the recent launch here in the UK of the Flip

http://www.theflip.com/ How long will it be before we see a social networking site such as www.whatitsreallyliketoworkhere.com with your chance to upload your very own version?

 

Gen Y Explained in under 4 Mins - Perfect

 

This is a great video encapsulating perfectly what Gen Y is all about, complex, full of contradictions, the future?

Using Video to Maximize Your Recruiting Efforts

We’ve all heard the saying “a picture is worth 1000 words, but a video is worth 1000 pictures.” Video interviews, video resumes, job videos, employment branding videos…videos have become one of the hottest new trends in recruitment and marketing efforts across the globe. But they can be expensive and ineffective if the strategy or execution is flawed from the beginning. What’s the best use of video in your recruitment efforts? Is your organization on track to use video successfully?

In 1981 Hank Stringer, a recruiter for the oil and gas industry in Houston, Texas, took video camera equipment to Bessemer, Alabama to interview Pullman-Standard engineers who had been laid off. Hank learned a great deal from this early video interview process and has watched over the years as new technology and services have entered the recruitment market place. Technology and content distribution have evolved to a point that video can be effectively used for talent attraction, assessment and delivery. Today we will review how video can be used to help your organization efficiently compete for and hire quality talent.

Talanent Management 2.0: How HR can use Web 2.0 to attract and retain talent

 

Attracting and retaining talent are two major challenges for HR these days.

If you think about it, talent managment really starts from recruiting through on-boarding; and carries on until the employee is comfortable with the culture, is made to feel at home in the organization, and is equipped with the tools to be productive.

Talent attraction

Some thoughts around how HR can use Web 2.0 concepts and tools to attract talent:

1. Use employee-generated videos to describe a day in their life or what the company really means to them. These videos are able to establish a more "real" connection with potential recruits.

2. Create company's external-facing social networking platform where candidates can ask questions or chat live with recruiters about the company and recruiters can share experiences more than formal facts about the company. They can also meet other candidates. E.g. companies use Facebook as a social networking platform for potential recruits.

3. Create a virtual / rich 3D experience for employees to learn more about the company using cool self service features, have walk in interviews or interactive info sessions, get a virtual feel of the culture, and overall learn more about the company through rich media interfaces. E.g. companies can use SecondLife to provide such a rich and close to real experience.

4. Conduct video conferences or virtual interviews, and accept multimedia/video resumes.


Talent Retention

The real work for HR really begins once the offer is accepted. Promises made during the interviews need to be fulfiled. Many times a company hires a person for a specific role but what really keeps that person in his chair is not merely the role he was hired for. For large companies, it is difficult for HR to provide every employee the attention they deserve. Therefore HR needs to consider providing 'self-service' tools and methods to retain employees.

To retain an employee it is important to provide him the right tools to be productive, and that includes providing the ability to quickly establish the social connections that he needs to be successful in job. We all know that work is really done through informal networks and with the tacit or unstructured type of work these days, structured tools and systems that exist in organizations today do not help.

Some thoughts around how HR can use Web 2.0 concepts and tools:

Once the offer is accepted, HR provides the new employee with a URL to access the intranet for the following:

1. Provide the ability to create his/her own profile on a social networking platform on the intranet.

2. Start with searching employees in the company who may be a friend, classmate, or worked with him before. This can be done using web services that read directly from the employee's personal address books in Yahoo, Gmail, MSN, etc. and finding employees from the company's address book and social networking portal - similar to the Friend Finder feature in Facebook.

3. Also by feeding his interests into the portal so that he can quick find others with similar interests.

4. Provide the ability to search and join online groups. Suggest online groups based on his interests, such as volunteer / social service groups - an important criteria to select an employer these days.

5. Allow personal blogs, wikis, and ability to tag employee-generated content.

Social networking can specifically turn new hires into star performers, and should also be considered for faster onboarding. Such web-based onboarding, also known as 'relational onboarding', is a shift from adminstrative onboarding.

These methods can particularly be useful in tough times, i.e. when resolving issues at work. They can particularly prevent employees from leaving the company when they are not satisfied with their current roles by letting them search and apply for internal job postings.

Wondering whether these methods really add any business value. Watch slide 4 at this link! And click here for on-going research on HR and Web 2.0.

Talent & the video age - An Article by Susan Burns

Talent and the video age

The use of video for recruitment is nothing new. It may not be widely used yet but its nothing new – in 1999 while at Macy’s Inc. we launched our first college recruitment site with 20+ executive video interviews. Even the use of video for candidate interviews is not really new – several years ago video-conference style interviewing was trying to emerge….it never happened, due to many of the same questions that remain today around the use of video resumes.

You’ve probably noticed though that there’s been a meteoric rise in online video content, unless you’ve been living in Diomede, Alaska helping Sarah keep an eye on Russia and don’t have TV or Internet access. Chances are you’ve even created your own videos. Overall, user generated video content has become explosive – just visit YouTube. And, people are watching! According to eMarketer, about 80% of Internet users consume online video content; its about equal by gender; and, even seniors (50% of them) are consuming video content. Thanks to the popularity of the Flip camera, increased functionality of digital cameras, and availability of webcams most people today have access to create and then post their newest artistic creations online.

The question is – is it right for recruitment? The answer is absolutely YES for companies to communicate out to prospects and candidates. But, for candidate interviews there are still a lot of challenges to overcome.

Company Communication
Any good corporate recruitment site incorporates video to allow job seekers an opportunity to get to know their company through the community of people that come together to make their business happen every day. Yes, that also implies that good recruitment videos include “real” people and not hired actors. And, the really good ones aren’t scripted either. It’s more cost effective than ever to produce good recruitment videos. Once you have content created you can use snippets of video in many, many ways to make your recruitment site more engaging, layer content into social networks, and incorporate video links into candidate communications and job postings – yes, job postings! The story here is that you get a lot for what you produce if you think about how to leverage it.

Candidates
At the end of the day this is a by-company decision. What is right for one company’s recruitment strategy and process is not necessarily a good fit for another. Know your company – their process capability, culture, and tolerance for risk. With any good recruitment process it must be fair and consistent. When video resumes are “solicited” there is an absolute obligation for fairness and consistency in your selection process. Although video creation and the Web is widely accessible a case can still be made around those that don’t have access. More importantly, video brings to the forefront of the selection process increased exposure around personality and appearance. Additionally, there are challenges around “time-to-view” and video retention. While many of these key issues will evolve over time its important to consider today’s reality amongst all the video hype.

So, now for some hype!
Vipe
I recently had the chance to meet Adam Peterson, founder of Vipe – a recruitment video service. There were a few things about Adam’s approach and application that intrigued me around the use of video for company communication and candidate video submission. Overall, the application is very easy to use and the interface is intuitive and crisp. Vipe can accept video from digital cameras (currently #1 source), web cams and mobile phones. The system isn’t currently integrated into an ATS, which isn’t ideal from keeping a process streamlined. The Vipe service can also be quite helpful for candidates that would need to travel to an interview and have difficulty taking time away from an active job. Vipe is an ASP model so they manage file retention, as long as you are a client. Here’s what I specifically liked about Vipe for each category of communication.

Candidates
Vipe’s product services aren’t positioned as video resume but more of a candidate video introduction for hiring managers, supplementing the resume. Vipe recommends videos be only 30 seconds in length. While I’m not sure that is sufficient time, I like the idea of keeping it short and simple for the candidate. The video would actually be requested after the phone screen. Once you’ve identified a core group of candidates its quite simple to send each an invitation to record a video response to a specific question(s) – either custom or selected from the Vipe library. This can be quite valuable to recruiters trying to position a non-traditional candidate. It gives the hiring manager an opportunity to hear the candidate address a specific question rather than simply viewing a resume that doesn’t tell a sufficient story. Another consideration here if you don’t want to use video is an audio service called Verbal Summary offered by Jerry Albright.

Company Communication
This is where I think Vipe gets really interesting. Creating and sending videos out to candidates is very simple. The ease of creating and distributing content makes it quite feasible to incorporate video into direct candidate communication. In some cases, like college recruitment, I think it’s a must – whether your using Vipe or not. For other types of candidates, its just a smart way to differentiate your brand. Vipe makes it so simple there’s no reason not to give it a try. Here’s just a few ideas –

Close the time gap: Given the lag time between when college students receive offers and when they begin, keeping them warm and connected has always been an opportunity. Since this is “their medium” it’s a great opportunity to keep them engaged.

Team welcome: Why not have a team record a quick video message to send to a new recruit. How would that play out over dinner party conversations!

Get aggressive….in a smart way: When pursuing a top candidate it can often be very competitive, especially at mid to senior ranks if multiple companies are involved. Why not have the candidate’s potential boss, division head, or better yet the CEO, record a quick personalized video sharing how much they’re looking forward to the candidate joining the company. Again, this takes seconds and its done. Not a lot to ask if the company has a commitment to getting the best talent.

Back to college: As summer internships come to a close and students head back to campus wouldn’t it be nice for them to receive a video message letting them know that an offer is on its way? Or, simply thank them for a great internship and wish them the best in the school year? Even if your not going to hire them the story will be a positive one.

There are more opportunities today than ever to integrate video into your recruitment strategy. Incorporating video into your corporate recruitment site is no longer an option or nice to have but an expectation and powerful medium through which to share your brand message. Vipe is an interesting provider to explore and consider for direct candidate communication - incoming and outgoing. Regardless of what technology you use, have a strategy in place around how video fits into your overall recruitment goals and talent philosophy. If your intrigued about using incoming candidate video, resumes or introductions, consider first how it fits into your company’s culture, process and risk-tolerance.

Returning "gap year" grads get work from job boards & recruitment agencies

Nearly 40% of graduates returning from gap years have got
work from recruitment agencies or job boards, according to
research by recruitment and communications consultancy
TMP Worldwide.

Neil Harrison, director of planning at TMP, told 200
recruiters from businesses around the UK at a Targetjobs
breakfast meeting on graduate research that the resources
used by graduates for job hunting changed dramatically
when they returned from trips abroad.

Out of 514 undergraduates and early career professionals
polled on the career publisher GTI database, 60% of
students said they would favour applying directly to
employers and over 40% through university careers services
for jobs before they went away on gap years. However,
22% of the professionals secured their graduate job
through a recruitment agency and 17% through a job board,
compared with 15% through employer websites and only
6% through the careers service.

Meanwhile, Bryan Finn, leading economist with Business
Economics, painted a gloomy picture of the UK economy at
the event. He told guests that unemployment would rise by
between 250,000-350,000 people next year, with consumer
confidence and  mortgage lending plummeting.

He added GDP, which he said is directly correlated with
recruitment, would be "nowhere near" Chancellor
Alistair Darling's estimate of 2% this year and 2.5% next year.   

The Times reveal top 100 graduate employers

The Times has released its annual list of the best 100 graduate employers in the UK.

For the fifth year running PricewaterhouseCoopers was voted the winner with a little over 8% of the finalists' votes.

A new entry into the top ten was budget supermarket Aldi who rose to eighth place. It offers £40,000 salaries for graduates as well as an Audi A4 company car, pension, private healthcare, life assurance and five weeks paid holiday, according to the Times.

Dan Ronald, a regional managing director responsible for graduate recruitment at Aldi, said: "In three years here you can get where it would take you ten years to get in another company."

In second place was PricewaterhouseCoopers' rival Deloitte with KPMG, another professional services firm, coming in third.

The full list is available here;

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00400/Times_Top_100_Gradu_400244a.jpg