StlRecruiting

The First Rule Of Recruiting Blogging: Have A Point

I get a lot of calls from potential clients asking me to blog for them.  They call up, somewhat introduce themselves, then ask me how much it would cost for me to write blogposts for them.

The answer, is I don't write blogposts for people anymore.  Blogging for a client is something you can only do if you're deeply embedded in the client's marketing infrastructure.  You can write blogposts for them, but then why call someone like me?  Copywriters abound online, and it hardly makes sense to seek me out when they can find it cheaper for someone else.

And if I do humor the person and tell them how much it would cost to hire a blogger (minimum $2000) a month, I get prices quoted back that are closer to $50 for 20 posts.  What has happened, in every occasion, is the business started a blog, realized they didn't have the time or expertise to write, and so they outsourced it.  A copywriter, not knowing the difference between writing and blogging, gave them good content, but no traffic, no SEO, no links, and most important, no magical, wonderful revenue stream.

Which is when they call me.

Here's the point.  If you're going to blog, or if you're going to be involved in social media in any way, have a point.  A point in business is to make money, or cut costs.  If you're going to try to use the blog to fix some business problem, the first rule is to know what business problem you want to solve.  It's amazing to me how many people hear the word, "social media," and say to themselves, "We've got to get us some of that."

You wouldn't buy a copier, or a software license, or a truck, or a building without having an express purpose for it. Why pay for a blog when you don't know what you want it to accomplish?  And if you do pay for the blog, and you know what you want to accomplish, why would you pay for it, and then not use it for its expressed purpose?

For recruiting, that means focusing the blog on local hiring.  If you want to use a blog to hire more people, you have to have something to say to the people you want to hire.  It sounds simple, but companies often make the mistake of writing what they want to sound like, rather than thinking about what a candidate they would hire wants to read.

Things Candidates Care About

1. How to do their jobs better
2. What certifications matter
3. Tenure of people who work at your company
4. What they would be working on if they came to work for you
5. Mistakes applicants make when applying
6. The name of hiring managers and/or recruiters who will return their calls
7. Places they can go on and offline to meet recruiters confidentially

Things Candidates Could Care Less About

1. That your company is the premiere company in its field
2. That your company is hiring and looking for top talent
3. That your company hired a new branch manager
4. Your benefit plan without specifics
5. Marketing pieces disguised as industry white papers
6. How excited you are about blogging
7. Copywriting that has been edited of all life, flavor, or relevance.

Blogging is ultimately a personal communication. It's very difficult to write from a company perspective, which is why you need someone who understands your company, and but writes about their personal views as an employee.  It requires that you dig in, and find what other people are writing, and comment, and link, and converse.

If you want to hire people using a blog, then you have to blog about the issues that candidates want to read.  If you want passive candidates, you have to write about the industry, so they read you when they're not looking for work. If you want top candidates, you have to write brilliant material that inspires them to search you out to work with. If you want highly focused referral candidates, you have to reach out to the people who typically refer high quality candidates, and convince them that they're helping their friends by referring them.

Simple concepts.  Easy to track results.

Talent Drive Commercial

The launch of the Talent Drive Commercial. We'll be doing one a week to showcase their new TalentFilter product.

The Talent Drive blog will have the video as well, and it's built on the Flektor platform.

Recruiting Blogs

I'm more than a little astonished at what Jason is accomplishing over at RecruitingBlogs.com. There are now thousands of recruiters sharing information back and forth. 

What's cool about it, and different than Recruiting.com, is that the editorial control isn't there.  Jason leads the social network, but doesn't run it.  In this case, it's the mob that runs it.  A mob of recruiters.

With Sumser stepping down as editor, it seems that Recruiting.com will lose all of its focus.  It's a real shame, and I wish Jobster would do more with it, but if wishes were gumdrops, we'd all have sugar highs, or something.

It's late, and I blame this rambling post on Twitter, where you can follow me as http://twitter.com/smheadhunter

Don't Spam Me

Normally I don't mind people sending me press releases and notes about their work. I'm not as sensitive as some bloggers, because I'm constantly looking for content.

But don't send me an invitation to your private Beta, and tell me:

"As requested, here is your invite to join the _____.com Beta."

That makes you a liar and spammer. 

1.  Send me a note.
2. Tell me you read my blog or heard about me.
3.  Tell me which blog you were reading
4. Don't send multiple invitations to the same address.

Is that too much to ask?  You know who you are.

Legal Questions On Blogs? Turn To St Louis Blawggers

A blawg is a blog written by a lawyer.  Clever, isn't it?  In St Louis, we happen to have several practicing and recovering lawyers who write blogs.  Of the practicing lawyers, I've met two, and I figured I'd give them a shot in the arm today.

Dennis Kennedy:  Dennis is a technology lawyer for Thompson Coburn, and a genuinely nice guy. His entire site is helpful, and he's an excellent networker to find other law blogs.

George's Employment Blawg: George Lenard is an employment lawyer with Harris Dowell & Fisher, and he's been the defacto legal expert for the recruiting blog community.  His site regularly covers matters of employment, hr, compliance, and of course, blogging.  He also aggregates stories from around the legal blogosphere in helpful RSS feeds.  George has been featured in Time Magazine, Fast Company and several other publications.

Both are top notch lawyers with fine blogging credentials. 

College Student Uses Blog To Get Hired

From Secrets of the Job Hunt, we have the exciting story of Andrew Cafourek, a University of Missouri student who used a blog in California to land a job with a marketing firm in St Louis.

Andrew is a regular reader of Jeremiah Owyang, a Forrester analyst who covers social media marketing.  I've met Jeremiah, and follow his work closely, as he is one of the people at the forefront of my industry.

Andrew decided to leave  comment at this post, asking for help in his job search.  Lisa Young, an St Louis employee of Outrider (and blogger), saw Andrew's comment and reached out to him.  The result was an interview, a job offer, and an acceptance.   Andrew starts Monday.

This is not that surprising, as it's basically the principles of networking that recruiters use each day.  What's different is that blogs are considered trustworthy sources by candidates and recruiters alike.  Jeremiah's blog is a great place to find people interested in social media marketing.  It's a targeted community, one where you would expect to find social media employees.

And in this case, it just so happens that a California blog helped a Missouri college student land a job in St Louis.  What will your story be?

TechDirt Insight Commmunity Gold Level Expert

In social media news, I've been awarded the Gold Level Expert over at the Techdirt Insight Community, the highest level awarded for information provided to companies looking for advice on cutting-edge technologies.

My area of expertise is of course social media, but the Insight Community covers everything from mobile marketing to telecommunications to high-tech software and market information.  Check for yourself at InsightCommunity.com

My badge:

In addition, we've also rebranded Durbin Media. Franki decided she liked this cool, more modern look, so the next time you see me, ask for one of our cool business cards, and check out the new site at durbinmedia.com. If you're looking for a social media consultant in St Louis, or just want some blogging advice from an expert, contact us to set up a meeting. We specialize in online marketing, working with all companies interested in blogs, social networks, and social media. Check out the Brandstorming blog for advertising and marketing information.

Robert Scoble Erased From Facebook

Lots of people have problems with Facebook.  But now one of their biggest fans has realized that even being a big blogger doesn't protect you.

Robert Scoble was erased from Facebook.  His profile and data are gone, and while many people in the blogosphere are enjoying a moment of schadenfreude, the issue of having all of your data and contacts erased is a big problem. 

Still - my sympathy for Robert isn't very high, primarily because of his comment on Facebook Observer about Harry Joiner.  Harry is a recruiter who was banned from Facebook for uploading his GMail address book to the site.  He complained, but got nowhere.  Eventually, he was reinstated. 

Harry joined Facebook because Scoble said it was the wave of the future.  And Scoble replied on Facebook Observer with this comment.

#1 Robert Scoble on 08.03.07 at 2:58 pm

This is spam behavior. If they allow it for him they have to allow it for the spammers. I’m glad they don’t allow you to do this. I have 4,200 contacts: each added one at a time.

Scoble didn't know Harry personally, but his reaction was negative.  He called Harry a spammer, suggesting that he was better because he added his names one at a time.  So what was Scoble booted for?  He exported 5000 contacts from Facebook to Plaxo.  He says he was checking to see who was already in Plaxo, but by his own definition, he was a spammer.  There's not much difference between what Scoble did and what he accused Harry of doing.

Maybe it's for the best.  Facebook has some serious privacy issues, and while it's no fun for Scoble, it's a wake-up call to the rest of the industry.  You don't own your data online unless you host it yourself.  And these companies that want you to sign up for social networking, aren't all in it for the freedom.

RehabCare Blog Gets Well Deserved Attention

The Campus Relations department of Rehabcare got a nice little write-up today at ERE's Inside Recruiting.  Leslie Stevens interviewed Barbara Wallace on how they got started, what their metrics look like, and why they're using a blog to communicate with a pipeline of students who want to get hired as occupational, physical and speech therapists after graduation.

"Our goal is not merely to recruit students; we want to provide a complete employment resource which includes providing information about the profession and how to transition from being a student to being an employee," says Wallace. "The blog fits into our strategy, because it was one more tool that could use to offer information about the profession."

I'm the consultant mentioned, so maybe I'm biased, but what's nice about Barb's group is the blog fits their personality. In essence, her team is a college sourcing team.  Their job is to identify people very early in their college careers, to prep them and help them as they make career choices.  To do so, Rehabcare is turning to the next-generation of recruiting tools to help them connect with the much-ballyhooed Gen Y.

For most recruiters, a healthcare company based in the Midwest isn't on the radar for being on the cutting edge of recruiting, but Barb's team is implementing activities that the hippest Seattle firm would be proud of (and no, that's not to anyone in particular).  The blog is just the first step.  SMS campaigns are currently running, and while texting barely catching on in product marketing, Rehabcare in the next year will have a fully functional mobile marketing campaign tied into their campus visits, all while their competitors are still paying tens of thousands to job boards for stale candidates who get a dozen calls a day.

Originally, their project included a PPC campaign for tuition reimbursement.  Four months later, there's little need for that.

Search "Physical Therapy Tuition Reimbursement."  Do the same for Speech Therapy, Occupational Therapy, and a host of other keywords, including inputting the licensing and certification exams to become a therapist that could work at Rehabcare.  The Campus Relations blog of Rehabcare is on the first page in every category, and they are just getting started.  There aren't many occupational therapy blogs, but the ones that are there, know about Rehabcare.

The work isn't over, of course.  Barb and her team have to manage the programs, keep up the content, and ultimately translate their work into hires.  So far, I'd say they are off to a pretty good start.

Go check it out for yourself. The college blog of Rehabcare.   

Some Blogging Statistics

How many bloggers are there, and who are these people?  The BlogWorldExpo has compiled some of the statistics.

Important Blogging Statistics

• Over 12 million American adults currently maintain a blog.
• More than 147 million Americans use the Internet.
• Over 57 million Americns read blogs.
• 1.7 million American adults list making money as one of the reasons they blog.
• 89% of companies surveyed say they think blogs will be more important in the next five years.
• 9% of internet users say they have created blogs .
• 6% of the entire US adult population has created a blog .
• Technorati is currently tracking over 70 million blogs .
• over 120 thousand blogs are created every day .
• There are over 1.4 million new blog posts every day .
• 22 of the 100 most popular websites in the world are blogs .
• 120,000 new blogs are created every day .
• 37% of blog readers began reading blogs in 2005 or 2006 .
• 51% of blog readers shop online .
• Blog readers average 23 hours online each week .

Just a little bit of information, seeing as the liveblogging seems to be a bit disjointed.

Benefits Of Small Business Blogging: BlogWorldExpo with Scott Allen

Liveblogging from the BlogWorldExpo, in the session on small business blogging.  This has particular resonance for recruiters, as I regularly point out that third party recruiters can increase placement fees by at least $100,000 per year with a focused blog.

1) Industry Networking:  As I've proved on this blog, building out your online network with a blog is a great way to establish your expertise to your audience.  I'm a blog expert with a background in recruiting.  That gives me a unique perspective on the manner that is now broadcast to over 100,000 people each year.  That's a trust that could not have been generated on my own.

2) SEO Benefit.  I rank on the first page of Google for hundreds of search terms for recruiting, St Louis consulting, headhunters, specific technology interviews, and even random office pranks.

Update: 
Scott is covering the Do's and Don'ts.  He says delete your dead blog if you stop writing for good.

I'll be asking him questions about recruiting, because he was involved in the recruiting blogging early, if I recall correctly.

I'll tell you this - Scott gets it.  He says spend 50-60% of your time off blog, reading, commenting.  it's like he took our training (He didn't, he just gets it).

Time Invested:  Scott says 2-3 hours a week blogging, and 2-3 hours off blog.  Someone asked if that was a lot of time to spend as an entrepreneur.  He gave an example that showed an increase of 15% in business directly attributable to the blog.  I commented that you can make $60-100,000 as a recruiter using a blog.

I already have a website.  Should I add a blog?  He points out that two companies used LiveJournal and MySpace to make money.  I never thought about it that way.  You go to where your audience is.

Blogging Over At Job Matchbox

Rob Neel has me filling in for him over at Job Matchbox this week.  He's launching some interesting initiatives, so be sure to put him in your reader in the month of September.

Also - if you haven't already forwarded your stories to Paul DeBettignies for the Carnival - you're way late - grab a link of your best post and send it over to him - pronto.

He's a PR5 blog - that should at least get the SEO people on it.

And finally - got the green light on several good projects this week.  It seems that the desire to use blogs to make money is gaining steam in the recruiting community.   The goal here is always profit.

If you are using your blog to make money, from gathering candidates to finding clients - I want to hear about it.  My e-mail address is over there on the right.

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Find more on diversity in the workplace at DiversityJobs.com.

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I'm On The Recruiting Animal Show

I'll be on Animal's show this afternoon, arguing with him about non-competes, Watergate, and of course, Recruiting.com.

Wednesday, 12:00-1:00 EST.

Video Of The ERE Panel

Video of the ERE Expo is up.  We're the Ask The Blogger Panel, the third result.  Next time, I'm going to do a better job at introductions.

Mapping The Recruiting Community

One of the things I do for my interactive marketing business is community mapping.  The idea actually came from recruiting, as I always think of my community maps as sourcing websites as opposed to sourcing people.   A smart staffing company uses companies like Shally and Dave's JobMachine for their sourcing, and spends their time calling on those lists of leads.

My career has involved using lists of leads in every job - from sales calls to marketing calls to charity events to creating actual maps of business locations for my outside salespeople (any MapInfo users out there say woot!).  Funny enough - I've actually never mapped the recruiting blogosphere. Most of the information is there, as my RSS feeds and my personal reading has provided a lot of links, but as no one has paid to me create the maps for this community, I've never attempted a full one.

Call it the cobbler's kids syndrome - the only kids without shoes in town tend to have a cobbler as a father.

So what to do?  Well, I'm sure some of you out there are contemplating how to best market to the recruiting blogosphere (especially if you are new).  Yes, surfing the blogrolls for Recruiting.com, the Recruiting Fly, Sumser or the Recruiting Animal is a start - but there's more to it than simply having a list of url's.

What do you when you get them, and how do you communicate to bloggers?  That's what I left the staffing firm world to do.  So if you are looking to market to the emerging recruiting blogosphere (and beyond (to include HR, Interactive marketing, business, marketing, PR and your specific industry) you ought to think about giving me a call.  I do work on an exclusive basis, and information collected for one client is not sold to another.

Give me a call.  Prices below the fold.

DoAskDoTell: Employee Blogging Policies

Do you have a dress code policy at your place of employment?  Do you have an acceptable Internet Use Policy?  Do you have a corporate blogging policy?

That last statement probably brought you up short, because most IT departments and corporate lawyers treat blogs like a bad case of the shingles - do nothing and hope that if you do get the itchies, the pharmacist will have something to clear it up with minimal pain and scratching.

But it doesn't work that way.

DoAskDoTell has a great description of corporate blogging policies. 
Charlene Li of Forrester really helps drive this issue.
Yahoo and McDonald's do a good job, also.

If you are a company that has employees, then you should have a blogging policy.  It does not matter if you don't like blogs, or don't ever plan on using them.  What do you plan to do if some of your employees are writing about the company right now?  You could fire them (we call it getting 'dooced'), but there is the problem of firing someone for an offense that 1) could be protected under the law, and 2) isn't listed anywhere in your employee handbook as being wrong.

The first thing I ask any corporate prospect is whether or not they have a blog policy in place.  The 2nd thing I ask them is whether or not any current employees are blogging (and I never, never tell them the answer to the 2nd question).

If you're looking to learn more about corporate blogging, download my white paper on called Corporate Primer on Blogging from Durbin Media.

Best Of The Recruiting Blogs

Jim Stroud has leaped into the video arena with a series of recruiter-training videos.  I can't say enough about the creativity of Jim Stroud, and this is yet another sign of how he truly is on the cutting edge.

Speaking of the cutting edge, Recruiting Animal, aka the Canadian Headhunter, is learning to podcast the recruiting world's version of the McLaughlin Group.  I haven't had a chance to call in, but I'm sure to make it a priority soon.

You're So Vain...You Probably Think This Blog Is About You

The title for this post comes from my wife Franki, who heard me singing that awful song after we watched How To Lose A Guy In Ten Days while she had the flu.

It got me thinking about a piece of advice I give all business blogging clients.  Be careful what you write.

I'm sorry to disappoint those of you who were looking for a juicy story, but this is the advice column, and I never, never give veiled statements online.  The risk of talking about clients and having them read your blog is too great, and you can ruin your business if you get the reputation for yakking about your partners and clients.  Save that for your MySpace page (just kidding!).

But not writing about current clients is not enough.  You have to avoid writing about current clients, past clients, and even mythical clients when you blog.  Did I lose anyone?

Mythical clients, or future clients, are people too.  If you create a story out of thin air, or write a how-to that has never happened to you on your blog, you still run the risk of alienating a future client.  Lemme explain.  No, is too much.  Lemme Sum Up.

Video Resumes and a Blog, Blog, Blog, Blog World.

I had the chance to talk with a reporter  from Time two weeks ago about video resumes.  Browsing the comments over at Magic Pot of Jobs, I got in a tiff with Tiffany, and when the reporter called, Tiffany sent her my way.

After a good chat with Lisa Cullen, I passed her on to George Lenard, the Employment Blawg, who is now in Time Magazine (like he needs any more press - the man is a one-man PR machine).  Why did I think of George?  Because he wrote a blogpost about Hirevue (one of my clients), who also blog. 

The Time article written by Lisa.

The story George uses about orchestras, I've actually seen before, in the book, Freakonomics, and both of those authors blog.

Who else does the story mention?  Jobster, of course, who also blog.

Anyone else see a trend here?  Maybe while we're tracking ROI, we ought to be adding media mentions.  Too bad we can't put a value on a Lisa-to-Tiffany-to-Jim-to-George social network.

And the reporter, Lisa Cullen?  In addition to being a staff writer?  She blogs.

Storkcalling Break

I can't post today, because I'm mapping out the community for my new project - Storkcalling.com.

It's an automated birth announcement service for expectant parents, and I'm using blog marketing to drive online traffic.  The service allows you to record a greeting and broadcast it to fifty names on a contact list of friends and family.  This allows the father and mother to make one call and send out the baby stats without having to stand in the parking lot on the cell phone calling all the relatives.  If you have a nighttime delivery, you can set the broadcast time for the next morning, allowing you to get some sleep while keeping your promise to contact everyone. 

The site is Storkcalling.com - so if you're pregnant or looking for a baby shower gift, this is a great site to start.  The service takes credit cards, is secured by GeoTrust, and I'm in charge of customer service, so you know everything will go smoothly.    The blog is Storkcalling.typepad.com, although when we do the site redesign, everything will be at Storkcalling.com, and it will look a lot better.

Check it out - and if you know someone is expecting...

The Power of Small Business Blogging

John Jantsch asks about the viability of blogging if you are a salesperson.  Sure, small business marketing is proven to gain credibility and improve your media position and online profile, but what about the salesperson just trying to smile and dial?

That works too.  But first - the small business blog. 

As a small business owner, Franki and I have had over 8,000 unique visitors to our Brandstorming blog, which is 8,000 more "touches" since June 2006 than a business that has no blog.  That's significant, and has led to media appearances in the St Louis Post-Dispatch, the St Louis Business Journal, interviews with other reporters, and speaking appearances for me.  All told - our business blog is on track to bring Durbin Media over $100,000 in revenue since we first started it.

There's my proof on the ROI of blogging, but what about when I was a salesperson?

SIMSTL Speech on Corporate Blogging: Notes

I normally don't post the full text of my speeches on line, seeing as that information is usually intended for a specific audience, and my written account is more of a guidepost than the accurate text.  These were my set of notes for the SIMSTL speech I gave last Tuesday, and I thought they might be interesting for some of the audience, as was requested.  These are just notes, not a full article.  I've attached the Powerpoint, also.

Download SIMSTL.ppt

Text of Speech: How Blogs Can Make (Or Break) a Corporate Reputation

Social media is the relatively new phenomenon of many-to-many communication, versus the more traditional one-to-one or one-to many communication that has dominated the business world since the first introduction of newspapers. There are many forms of social media: Blogging was the first of these to gain phenomenon status, but in the last two years, social networking sites like MySpace, Online Video portals like YouTube, podcasting, vloggin, viral marketing, and consumer-created advertising have all hit the mainstream. The basic principle is simple – corporations used to craft a message and broadcast it to the general public. This was one way communication, where the message was tightly controlled. Social media is in part a wave of reaction to a glut of marketing messages, but also an expression of the very real need of human beings to share their thoughts, their experiences, and their accomplishments.

The Product Manager Employee Blog

My friend Jeff Lash e-mailed me a couple of weeks ago to let me know he had started a new blog on product management.  Jeff is a good organizer, a former Usability guru, and now works as a product manager for a well-known international firm.

His blog is goodproductmanager.com, and he's doing an excellent job of maintaining it.  That should come as no surprise, as Jeff has been blogging for a while on personal sites, as well as being one of the first people I knew who used internal blogs to communicate within a company.

Jeff answers several questions on what it takes to be a good product manager or a bad one, giving the no-so-secret thought processes behind those who make common mistakes and those who are successful.  It takes a second to get used to, until you realize he's being ironic, and giving the pat answers you hear from those who justify bad product management processes.  For example;

If you want to be a bad product manager, don’t give your sales staff a preview of product enhancements or new product launches. Their job is to sell the products that you produce, not to help create them — why would it matter what they think? Any time they spend talking with you is time that they’re not selling, and you don’t want to have a negative impact on their sales performance. Plus, if you did preview for them what you’re working on, they’d just go out and start selling that immediately, even though the work in progress may not be exactly what you’ll release. Since there’s potential to confuse or unintentionally mislead customers, it’s best not to show your sales staff anything until right before it’s ready for release.

The first time I read that, I was pretty shocked. If he really believed that, I might be forced to reevaluate my estimation of his talents. Of course, he was just setting the reader up, because he continues with his explanation of why a good product manager should involved the sales team.

I like it - it's a good format, and I look forward to seeing where this goes.  More important, this is an example of a thought leadership blog, one where an employee sticks their neck out and tells the world how they would run things if they were in charge. We need more of these, certainly in St Louis, but globally, too.  Jeff's blog isn't there to make money, or improve branding, or hire new people. It's there to make other product managers better at what they do and provide personal experience as a guide.

His company is lucky to have him.  He's writing the model employee blog, that even the most cautious lawyer would hesitate to shut down.  Keep it up Jeff, we'll be watching - and add me to the resource page, willya?

Announcing StlRecruiting.com to LinkedIn

I have a failry decent size LinkedIn network (much of it due to the efforts of Dave Mendoza), and I wanted to send out a note to people in my network about StlRecruiting.com being here for them to use as a resource.  I'll do the same for the other local recruiting blogs I write (Charlotte, Seattle, and KC), but I'm not sure how to go about it.

The job notification would be ideal, except I don't have a job posting, just an announcement.  Any of you LinkedIn experts have an idea?

Performancing Is Now Out

A Tech Crunch Story has is that PayPerPost.com (they get no link) has purchased Performancing Partners.

I was dabbling with the Performancing service, but any association with PayPerPost in my mind is not worth the hassle.

They have been dumped from my list and off the blog.  It's no big loss for them, as I just recently signed up and haven't made an effort to utilize them, but  I wonder how many people discount a blog or blogger based on their advertising choices?

Making money off a blog is fine - but far too many bloggers sell themselves out cheaply and with a negative result.

Blogger Problems

Is anyone who posts using the Blogger.com system having problems posting this week?  It won't publish our brandstorming posts.

Local Recruiting Blogs

If you are in the cities of Seattle, Kansas City, or Charlotte, be sure to check out the other local recruiting blogs I have started.

It's all about finding Kansas City Recruiters, Seattle Employers, and Charlotte Jobseekers (mix and match those terms if you will) and providing them a place to broadcast information about online employment.

Kansas City, MO and Kansas City, KS
Seattle, WA
Charlotte, NC

The blog posts are all original - this is not duplicated or syndicated content, but it is more targeted at the nuts and bolts of recruiting and local talent. Be sure to contact me if you live in one of these cities and have a blog.

-Jim

Duct Tape Marketing Blog

If you are a small business blogger, or just someone curious about how business blogging can improve your business (no matter what that business is), you should seriously consider checking out the Duct Tape Marketing Blog.

John Jantsch, of Duct Tape Marketing, has assembled a list of superstars who blog on his award-winning site.  Now he's taken that success and turned it into the Duct Tape Marketing book.

I'm looking forward to reading it - it's on my must-read list for 2007. 

Matt Martone: Job Search Marketing

It's always nice to see someone who gets it from big corporation. Matt Martone, who writes the fine blog, jobsearchmarketing, and happens to work at Yahoo HotJobs to pay the bills, sent me a quick note the other day to let me know he read and enjoyed a white paper I had written on starting a Corporate Recruiting Blog.

It's flattering to get that kind of attention, but more important, Matt is following the best practices for etiquette for bloggers.

Contact those you read and tell them you read them, leaving them your e-mail address and not asking for anything.

I counsel my clients to do this regularly.  Let bloggers know when they're doing a good job, and they will respond.  At least the good ones do.

Matt didn't ask for a link - but he's getting one - as well as my apologies, for not sending him a note for putting me in his blogroll some time ago.  See, I broke a best practice of blogging.

Send a thank you e-mail to anyone who links you.

There are plenty of ways to track incoming links, like technorati or yahoo (Matt provides the way to do this), as well as using "[link to]:  (site url)" on Google.  The point is that the blogosphere, and the benefits that flow from being part of it, run on good manners.

So thank you, Matt.  And let me know how I can help.

Blogs Can Make (Or Break) Your Reputation

You know how you ony have "one" chance to make a first impression?  Sometimes that One (or Bank One) Impression isn't exactly what you want downloaded 78,000 times and counting.

Yes, this is the infamous Bank of America video playing where corporate culture meets, meets something.  You have to give it to the guy - he certainly gave it all. 

And now bloggers all over America are posting the YouTube video for all to see.  It's a minor PR embarassment, but could it, or should it have been avoided?  Yes it's corny, but this happens all the time in corporate America. 

Confession:  I was in a company choir many years ago, and we sang a bad, bad version of YMCA with company lyrics.   I believe they went something like.

Hey, Man.

How bout that guy they called Mark.

I said, hey, man.  He gave Crown it's big start.

And I'm thinking, it was pretty darn smart,

or else..we'd..all..be..un-employed.

Chorus:

As for B of A, most companies lack a sense of humor and tend to punish the people who are made fun of).  I wonder if the VP of HR is sending out an e-mail to these guys right now.

Well it's... Too late Tonight To drag the past out into the light We're one, but we're not the same We get to make fun of each other, and you'll both take the blame. You're D (one).  You're D(one).

They should make a commercial out of it and poke fun at themselves.   

Dave Mendoza in the Recruiter's Lounge

Our pal Jim Stroud is the host of the Recruiter's Lounge, a podcast show where Jim interviews thought leaders, industry experts, and bloggers involved in online employment.

Dave has posted the recording of his podcast, and he describes his adventure in jumping into the recruiting blogosphere.  It's a great story, a good interview, and Dave does a good job shredding objections as to why you can't blog.

As an internal corporate recruiter, Dave is experiencing a lot of success in his blogging, both from a personal branding standpoint and from his increased knowledge of the tools out there.  This isn't bloggers talking to each other, it's major corporate players seeking fresh talent.

Listen here for cutting edge ways of using a blog as a corporate recruiter.

It's 17 minutes of excellence, brought to you by Jim Stroud.

Dave can be read at Six Degrees from Dave.

BlogSwap Post and Newsletter

My post on phone sourcing is up at Glenn Gutmacher's blog.

It's part of the Recruiting.com BlogSwap.  The newsletter I write is also coming out today, and the topic is the BlogSwap.  I took a wide range of posts and displayed them in the newsletter format to showcase some of the excellent writing that is going on.

Sign up for the This Week, the official Recruiting.com newsletter.  It's delivered in PDF form for easy printing, and this week's sponsor is ZoomInfo.

How To Use A Blog To Increase Staffing Sales

Welcome, Marketing Prof Readers (and thanks, Harry)

One often overlooked advantage of recruiting is the importance of the salesperson, often referred to as the account manager or account executive.

Account managers call on clients to generate job orders.  This was my role in each of the staffing firms I worked for.  I cold-called hiring managers to let me work on the their jobs.  If I could find the candidates for them, they hired the candidates on a permanent or contract basis.

Blogging can be beneficial for account managers because it showcases your knowledge of an industry.   Hiring managers want account managers with specific technical expertise of their needs.  The initial client visits with managers are intended to gather information to take back to your recruiters to help them filter and interview candidates.

If you're an independent recruiter performing both the sales and the recruiting functions, the following will help you also. 

How to use a Blog to Increase Staffing Sales.

1) Identify the topics your clients are interested in.  Focus on just a few, whether that be software development, Sarbannes-Oxley, Marketing, or a specific industry like packaging or transportation.
2) Build an RSS feed of newssites, blogs, and trade sites that provide you regular content.  If you're unsure what your clients read, look in their offices and in their lobbies.
3) Write intelligent posts about the industry.
4) Promote your blog in your e-mail signature and in your voice mails
5) Discuss things you read on your blog when you have client visits.
6) Ask for feedback, and put that feedback into other posts.
7) Ask your best clients to write short posts on topics they are experts in.
8) Ask your best contractors to write posts on topics they are interested in.

What you just read is a recipe for success in any sales endeavor.  The hardest part of cold-calling is differentiating yourself and proving that you are truly interested in the success of your hiring managers.  A blog based on your business provides a clear alternative to the cold-calling monsters you compete with.

Blogging is not just about what you write - it's about what you read.  Your expanded knowledge of the industry will improve your relationship with your clients by demonstrating that you are an interesting salesperson that seeks to improve themselves by learning.  The blog by itself will not generate you greater sales, but used in conjunction with the traditional sales metrics, it will improve your closing ratio for visits, job orders, and hires.

If you are a staffing firm looking to learn more, contact jdurbin@durbinmedia.com 

Updated: The Recruiting Blogosphere is Bigger Than We Think

I read John Sumser's column on blogs yesterday and was a bit surprised how much he missed about the potential of recruiting blogs. 

There's every reason to suspect that the Recruiting Blogosphere is a small Mutual Admiration Society with no visible means of support. If you ask the many (97.5%) recruiters who aren't reading, there's no question that blogs simply are not a part of getting things done. They are busy filling seats.

I have two major problems with this paragraph. 

1) if 97.5% of your audience isn't aware of you, that's a potential for growth.

2) Everybody's busy.  Claiming recruiters are too busy filling seats can be used to ignore training, upgrading your computer system, customer service, sourcing, paperwork,  background checks or any other activity other than calling people on the phone and submitting resumes. 

Now in all fairness, John is still taking the time to discuss blogs, so this paragraph doesn't sum up his entire opinion of blogging, but let's take a look at what he writes today.

Path one is the editor. One clear way of sifting wheat from chaff is to have a strong editorial hand at work...

Path two is the news-currency model.  Current blogrolls..give you a window on what's happening. We're obviously biased towards the editorial approach but, a newsflow makes it possible to catch the right stuff.

In discussing blogs, John makes the mistake of mistaking his profession for that of the blogosphere as a whole.  John aggregates and filters information into a series of daily columns, white papers, and reports.  He functions like a gatekeeper of information for online employment.  His view of the future of blogging seems to revolve around mini-newspapers competing with him.

Some recruiting bloggers do want to be like Interbiznet News.  Some of us want to aggregate information and filter it out to readers.  That's the best way to generate traffic, advertisers, and publicity.  It's even been a success for some of us, including Recruiting.com, Joel Cheesman, Steven Rothberg, and myself. 

Notice that with the exception of Anthony at Recruiting.com, none of the above examples are recruiters.  We're marketers of our products and services to the online employment world.  This is where the analysis of blogs as mini-newspapers completely falls apart.

There are tens of thousands of business blogs that are gaining traction online.  Insurance and Real Estate Agents, Coffee Shops, Jewelry makers, Authors, PR Agents, wholesalers, plumbing contractors, interior design firms and every other business idea under the sun are tapping into the value of blogs.  There are even some recruiters in that mix, using their blogs exclusively to source and prospect candidates.

Those people have been at work as a group for less than a year, and they are flying under the radar of business pundits who quite simply don't have the time to research what is coming.  They are not part of the Recruiting Blogosphere that can be tracked in any of our blogrolls, but they are having an impact locally within each of their recruiting departments.

Major staffing firms are also looking at ways to use blogs.  They are understandably nervous, but as they wait to jump in, independent recruiters are already using blogs to snatch up the best candidates.  By this time next year, 50% of the Fortune 500 will have employment blogs of some kind. I know this because 1) I sell to these people, and 2) I spend my days searching out those nooks and crannies that most people don't have time to find.  You'd be surprised at who already has a blog, but just hasn't announced it.

When I read John's analysis of the blogs, I could understand why he comes to certain conclusions, but he's limited in the same way that the major news networks are limited.  It is not possible to track the full extent of blogs and mini-websites online.  I don't know the full extent, and I'd be willing to bet I spend more time tracking recruiting blogs than anyone out there today.  John has other duties, and so he only has the time and capability of reading a small portion of the blogs - those that filter traffic to each other. 

I read Interbiznetnews daily.  It's a vital source of information.  In a world of ever-expanding information, it can no longer be definitive.

Blogs are not a fad.  They are an expression of a public who is tired of being fed information by gatekeepers and has decided they want to filter their own information.  Blogs are not a cause of that, but a symptom.  They are not limited by what we can read in our spare time and they won't be boxed in by those who need to monetize information.  They are as big as our imagination.

Update:  John has a third installment up discussing the different types of blogs:

Today's post finally gets to the heart of the matter, which is recognizing there are many types of blogs attempting to reach different objectives.  This is closer to the core of blogging, but I always wonder at the way in which John analyzes the blogosphere.

I've heard him say that blogs don't matter, but bloggers do.  That's a very insightful statement, as the best part about blogging is what you take in, not what you put out.   His post on blogs today helps define them in the recruiting world, but I don't know how much he is watching blogging in other communities. 

Still I wonder - John's language requires a very nuanced reading.

"There's every reason to suspect that the Recruiting Blogosphere is a small Mutual Admiration Society with no visible means of support."

It's eloquent, but leaves plenty of room to claim that what he meant was the uninformed person might see it as a Mutual Admiration Society.  Starting off his series on blogging this way should speak volumes, but with John, it's hard to tell. 
 

Client Case Study

Paul DeBettignies is one of the clients of Durbin Media Group.  His company, Nerd Search, is a third party search firm in Minneapolis, and recently we redid his blog to represent his entire corporate site.

The neat thing about Paul is he's an recruiter blogger that uses his blog to find candidates.  He isn't planning to, he doesn't have dreams to, he has successfully made placements from candidates he found through his blog.

Paul is also a microbusiness, so a blog makes more sense than a corporate website.  Less expensive, easier to update, better SEO, and of course, he's actually a blogger.

Check out his site, and send him a link if you're so inclined.

Features of his site:
1) All pages are controlled by one blogging account
2) Updating is done through Typepad ($15 a month)
3) Jobs Blog has individual page links and its own RSS feed
4) Volunteer Network has the individual page links and its own RSS feed
5) Recruiter Gigs has individual page links and its own RSS feed
6) Lots of Blog Optimization features too numerous to discuss
7) SEO Friendly Design

Durbin Media Group is our interactive marketing company.  StlRecruiting is my employment blog.

Text Messaging College Graduates

The Minnesota Headhunter hosts Steven Rothberg for this week's BlogSwap and covers the use of texting college students in recruiting.

I ran across this issue a couple of weeks back, going so far as to put it in the Recruiting.com  newsletter, and am delighted to see Steven's thoughts on the college crowd (texting maniacs).

Texting candidates may seem horribly obtrusive to us old fogies - but check out the numbers Steven provides.

Think that this is a fringe product? Think again. Of the 16 million college students in the country, nearly 80 percent send and receive text messages with the average being 115 messages per month. In addition, three million students have opted in to receive these commercial cell phone text messages and that number is growing rapidly every day. Another exciting aspect of sending ads to cell phones is that the response rate occurs very quickly, which greatly helps employers reduce the time to hire. Indeed, about 80 percent of the responses come in within the first hour and some campaigns see a response rate of 30 to 60 percent.

That's some astounding numbers.  I wonder if Steven Kelley of Message Buzz isn't like those guys who bought beeper stories in the 80's.

How to Talk about your Blog Traffic

I'm about to say something not very nice.  It's not intended to offend, but so many people make this mistake when talking about their blogs (or websites), that I have to correct it.

Here goes:

When discussing your traffic, if you tell me the number of page views or hits that you receive each month, then I know that you have no clue what you're talking about, and some smooth-talking hosting company has tricked you.

Page Views:
I'm tired of hearing page view numbers/month when I ask about traffic.  Just for the record, I automatically divide your number by 2.2 to get a more accurate number, and if you have sitemeter on your comments page and an active commenter community, I'll cut that number even further.

A page view is the number of pages opened on your blog.  It is a highly variable number, based on how you archive, how you use comment pages, and whether or not you have extended entries.  It's not a good measure to determine your blog traffic.

Hits:
I remember talking to a hosting service who bragged about 1,000,000 hits a month on their server.  When I asked if that included crawls, he cut the number in half, and even that was a wild exaggeration.  A hit is not a visitor.  The search engines have built spiders, crawlers, and bots that go out to the web and determine when content is updated.  What that means is that automated processes bring a lot of server traffic.  It is absolutely a worthless number in determining your web traffic.  It is an inflated number that is designed to impress people.  It means nothing.  Stop using it.

Uniques:
Okay, now we are getting somewhere.  Unique visitors are individual IP addresses that log on to your website.  The best counters track uniques and only count them once in a period of time (if someone obsessively clicks to your site, they are counted only once.  New pages opening are not counted (when the counter is set right), and you can discount your own clicks on your blog.

But here's the problem - all stat  counters are not equal.  There has been a lot of debate about the issue of accuracy, so the best thing to do is pick one counter, and track your progress over time.  Don't get too caught up in the numbers, but the general rise and fall is accurate.

RSS Feeds:
Do yourself a favor and use Feedburner to count your stats.  RSS feeds cut heavily into traffic, as they technically aren't coming to your page.  At the same time, RSS feed subscribers don't necessarily actually read your blog, so there's some off numbers there.  RSS readers also don't give you false positives when someone checks your site to see if you've updated.

Alexa:
Alexa doesn't track Firefox or Safari.  There has been a lot said about Alexa's accuracy in general, as they only measure people who use the Alexa Toolbar, a small and biased sample.  Alexa is very good for tracking general progress.  A move up the Alexa ranks is a good sign, but the numbers are if anything, undercounted.  And if you don't have several million impressions to work with, Alexa themselves warns you not to take them seriously.

Some other people weigh in.  Stats description.  Accuracy of Alexa

If you're a small blogger, and you check your stats obsessively b

Recruiting.com Purchased by Jobster

The news is out and Recruiting.com has officially been purchased by Jobster.

I started writing for Recruiting.com in May of last year.  I had just restarted stlrecruiting.com, rebranding it from Diogenes Corner, and a series of posts the 50 and Fired generation caught Jason's eye.  He invited me to become an author at Recruiting.com and I jumped at the chance.  After all, it was his domain name that led me to call mine StlRecruiting.

Over the course of the last year, I have worked with Jason, Anthony, Michael and others towards building an online employment community that helped promote new tools and new personalities.  I'm a big fan of blogs - I've been writing for over four years now and reading for over five.  That makes me a granddaddy blogger, but I have to say that watching Jason go about building a community helped me understand the business potential of blogging. 

Eventually, the lessons I learned at Recruiting.com helped me gain the courage to start my own company, Durbin Media Group.  Building the community over the last year has shown me what can be accomplished, and my trip to Toronto last winter ignited a spark of entrepreneurship that wasn't fulfilled in my role as an account manager for a large staffing firm.

So now Recruiting.com has been purchased, and Jason has allowed me to financially benefit from the transaction.  We had no formal agreement in place, but Jason decided that fairness was more important than legal niceties.  When I first started, I did not anticipate that I was doing anymore than joining a group blog.  I felt the publicity I received was more than enough compensation for what I was doing, and I anticipated that if we truly built a large community, any financial reward would come later. 

Recruiting.com, for me, has always been about promoting the larger e